The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-02


now become the foremost of modern republics
OF all this century, what year mas been so
marvellous, soLcrowded with great events, so
prepnant with momeLtous possibilities as this
which has Eow endedl A year ago this day all
was gloom and uncertainty over our national
position. Reviewing the position OF things as
they then stood in the light ot subsequent
events, we can see, indeed, that the silver splen-
dor of April really lined the clouds of January;
that the power of the ConfedeTacy was really
reelmg to its fall at the very moment when the
defiant front of Lee and the ridiculous failures of
BOtler made the most sangulne fear lest the pa
tient and persistent Grant might have under
estimated the capacity OF the South for resist
ance BE- post fdct0 wisdom, like the 'Tepartees
OF the staircase, /" Is within most mems range OF
brain. But on the New Years Day OF 1866, such
a vague anxiety and doubt as to the future
weighed upon all minds as disposed the nation
to hail with hope of relief the news which soon
after came to us that the President of the United
States was about to discuss terms of accommo-
dation and of peace with the representatives of
the Rebellion.
But judicial blindness was come upon the
chief of the Confederacy. The conferences in
Hampton Roads ended by remitting the whole
question at issue between the loyal and the dis
loyal States once more to tie arbitrament of the
sword; and ere the spring had fairly burst upon
us in blossom and song, the long agony ended,
as suddenly almost as II had begun, in the
capltulations OF Lee and Johnston. Never
before in the worlds history did catastrophe
so complete, of drama so commanding break
upon mankind so unexpectedly and with such
startling effect. As the great American Rebel
lion had put the wisest to shame in its incep-
ton, so also did 1t make all political forecast
lngs and calculations absurd in its consumma-
ton. In considering the part which foreign
nations have played towards us in the course of
these last four years, 1t is simply Just that VIC
should remember this The civil war has really
revealed America 10 the Americans, and it Is
neither wise nor honest TO quarrel with other
people for knowing us no better than, as we now
have learned we knew ourselves
Ii were idle now to attempt any systematic
and comparative analysis of the thrilling twelve
month on which we turn our backs to-day 1t is
recorded of Daniel Webster that being asked by
an Eng hshmau, shortly after his first arrival in
London, what he thought of that colossal capi-
tai, he replied II do not think Oft at ALL sir, yet;
tor have not yet done wonderngw We are
still too near to the tremendous and electrical
story of 1865 to have done wondering over 1t.
Its echoes are still ringing through the heart
and the brain. That strife of giants in Virginia;
that swift and terrible stride OF Sherman from
Savannah TO str he hands with Grant in North
Carolina; that paralyzing in day, almost in an
hour, OF the red right arm of war throughout
whole continent; that pistol-shot in Washington
reverberatlng horror and wrath from the Allan
tic to the Pacific are not these with us still, like
the vivid Impressions of some dream more awful
and more real in its awe than aught of common,
waking life?
When we reflect upon all that has been crowd
ed into the span of this brief year now dead and
gone, II is possible almost TO pardon the passions
which still fume and blaze in the natures of
such men as the Summers and the Stevenses,
men whose capacity bas been overtaxed by the
suddennesS and magnitude OF the changes thus
brought upon the land. 1t is really no easy mat
ter to coln prehend this almost instantaneous
transition from chaos of civil war, of carnage
and despair, into an era OF peace and hope and
new national birth. That the IL illion of men,
whose weapons but year ago. were levelled in
deadly strife against each others hearts, should
now be rivals only in the regeneration OF COM
mon prosperity; that the institution of slavery,
by which sharp outline OF sectional diilere ace
has been defined across The heart OF the Repub-
lie ever since its foundation, should have
vanished like an exhalation forever-these are
facts so amazing that they well may dazzle all
but the clearest and the soundest eyes.
But facts they are; and out of the movement
and clamor and splendor OF the year that is
past, 1t becomes us to- day to discriminate and
Tx III our minds this dominant truth, that 1t has
remitted us to a national career entirely new
under conditions as absolutely different from
those which surrounded us during our dark four
years of civil conflict as were those in their turn
from the conditions OF our national lie before
the crash of 1861.
For all practical purposes of craftsmanship,
and for all that concerns the duty OF the citizen,
the Rebellion of 1861 lies buried in the grave OF
1865. Its heats, its passions its hatreds, have
no more place in the New Year upon which we
now enter than those of the revolution of I776,
or the war of 1872. The man who clings to them
still is dead as patriot, even though he still live
as parVsan. The party which still inScribes
them upon its banner belongs not to the Future,
but to the Past.
MAY we not, without being over fanciful, deem
ii to be something more and better, then, than
a chance by which this Old Year rounded to its
close upon the Christian Sabbath of peace and
OF rest? Let us take this at least as our symbol
of what is past and gone and, opening fresh
twelyemonth to-day with the busy and working
week, let us remember that the real, the perna.
nent value for us of all the deliyerances and the
triumphs OF 1865 depends upon the work we shall
do, and the temper IN which we shall do it, in
this New Year of 1866.
The History M Reconsideration