The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1865-05-20
Reconstruction.

Now thatthe war is successfully closed and
the failure plank of lie Chicago platform is
proven to have been rotten, the papers which
supported that platform, are very earnest in their
illustrations of the difficulties attending @con-
struction of the Union The wish is evidently
father 10 the thought with them. Difficulties
there will doubtless be, requiring enlightened
craftsmanship for their perfect adjustment. But
neither present circumstances, nor the examples
of History go to show that these difficulties are
insurmountable, or in any way to be dreaded.
We are a homogeneous people. We have n
common language, common traditions, common
interests. Slavery the only serious point OF
.diaerencesis taken away. The war has opened
every portion of the South to the immigration of
Northern enterprise and Northern ideas. North
ern farmers, teachers, merchants, mechanics,
will flock to the South, and this transition and
intermixture Of population, will tend to remove
even those local distinctions which heretofore ex-
listed, and make us more than ever q single, uni
ted people. We are not imposing upon the
South new, foreign or tyrannons government.
We are simply restoring TO them the free and lib
eral government under which they have been
living, with such notifications as may be neces-
ry TO insure the future tranquility of the nation.
Commerce exerts great influence on such mat
ters The interests of trade require that we
should be united and harmonious people
The vessels that bear the products of one section
to the other, are so many messengers of peace
and good will.
All these things serve to impress the people OF
the South, with the idea that we must be one
people, and prepare their minds for the reception
of such regulations as the government shall see
fit to establish over them. History shows that
civil wars, however bitter and long continued,
have never produced any permanent evil effects.
There is in nature a certain healing power by
which the deepest wounds are soon restored and
the bitterest animosiies removed. Fields may
be torn with the ploughshare of war; streams
may be red with brothers blood; hearts may
rankle and boil with mutual hate and scorn.-
But such is the wise arrangement of Providence,
that the violent excitement of the passions IN
one direction is followed by reaction in the OPP
posite direction. fit were Soft anger pro-
duced abiding anger, if hatred could not be APP
peased, and nations went on continually laying
up for each other stores of revenge, then the
world would long ago have been turned into an
earthly hell, and peace would be forever unknown.
The Southern people are nowhere manifesting
that unyielding spirit which has been attributed
to them. Every where we hear of guerilas lay
ing down their arms and resumihg the quiet pur-
suits of peace The wise and generous policy OF
the government let them down gracefully from
their unenviable position. They accept their
fate with commendable philosophy. They know
that the nation is too magnanimous, in the hour
of its triumph, to deal unjustiy with them
The teachings of the last four years have not been
lost upon them. The dawn of a better day is
breaking on their vision. The patriotic feeling
of great and mighty nationality is once more
stirring in their bosoms. The cold Flag is
awakening forgotten memories, and breathing up
on them its glorious inspiration. They are ready
to accept the easy conditions Of Peace. Let the
government go forward in its indicated policy
and the apprehended difficulties of reconstruction
will disappear as the morning cloud before the
rising sum- .a.ft & 20.