Year: 1874




In all ages it has been held that conqueror
may either crush or forgive the people whom
his sword has made subject to his will; but
all political wisdom and all experience de-
nounce the impolicy and the ruin of q middle
course. If punishment is to be inflicted
on the people of refractory States it must be
such as to cripple them for q generation and
SO render them unable to give effect to their
natural desire for revenge; but if they are to
be forgiven-if it is hoped to reconcile them
with the condition to which the hard fortune
of war has brought them and to make them
again sound, integral part Of common
nation-then the pardon for their revolt and
hostility must be so free, so full, so generous,
as to remove every source Of irritation and, if
possible, even the very memory of defeat.
How has our treatment of the conquered
South met these requirements Of political
science soundly based on the observation of
inevitable human impulses? Certainly, we
did not overwhelm the South with policy of
repression; but just as certainly We did not
treat it with that generous forbearance and
consideration which might have given us all
the good results Of our lenient policy. No
Northern Alva went down to depopulate South
ern cities; nor even Jeffries to spread
abroad the horrors of bloody assize. Our
people would not have patiently witnessed
such visitations, and the government which
would have had the bad inspiration, to attempt
such course would have lost the respect
and felt the resentment Of the Northern
people for, whatever may be the shortcomings
of the American people, it must be chronicled
to their eternal honor that the widest and
largest toleration of differences in political
views is combined with the most tenacious
adherence to distinct political principles
It was admitted by the Northern people that
the error in which the war arose was an error
into which people with sound head and sound
the error was sustained on bloody fields with
manly hardihood and glorious valor that
made us proud to feel such men were our
brothers, and glad to welcome them home
again under the old roof, crowned by the
grand old banner.


It was the impulse of the nation to forgive
the South, and it was not its intention to





had that effect. Although we did not let
loose ON Alva or Jeffries we did let loose
harpy who, for his peculiar capacity to stir up
evil, was equal to both together. Our specu-
lative fortune-hunting politician was the
plague with which we scourged the South.
He went down as the ally of those men in
Congress and in the North who saw in the
results of the war, not the triumph Of free
dom and popular government against slavery
and an oligarchy of landed proprietors, not
the preservation of the Union and the safety
of the nation, but the means Of perpetuating
the domination Of that political party in
whose councils they had high places and
which assured them plunder. In the deliber-
atoms Of these men ''the reconstruction of
the South" was term with very different
meaning from the one it bore with the peo-
pie. AS conceived by the popular mind re-
construction was simple process. It meant
the organization of the old States with the in
stitution of slavery blotted out, and with only
such changes in their laws as would be made
by the absolute obIiteration of every trace of
that evil Beyond the constitutional
surgery necessary to excise that source
of offence the nearer the States could
be kept to their identity with that
disease cut out the better. But the thought
of the politicians was, ''We must establish
dominion here" In that early restoration of
the States which the country ardently desired
they foresaw the appearance of majorities
hostile to their party and the consequent loss
of power so they wrought for the supremacy
Of their party with lofty indifference to the
welfare OF the country that only the true poll
tician ever feels. They resolved to so recon-
struct the South that hostile majorities should
not hurt them; to hold it down till sure of
the result, and to make it a waste place if the
desired end could not be reached in any other
way.


But their policy has finally turned against
them and threatens to insure the results it aimed
to prevent. Our national generosity has Sc
cared to the Southern people their lives and
lands and political rights, and the tactics with
which the dominant party has been permitted
to torture them has excited in their breasts
hostility to that party more intense than any
ever before seen in our political history and
the most obvious consequence is that the
political power of the South will be used to
give effect to its fury against its oppressors
If we contemplate this fact in connection with
the very extensive reaction against the repub-
lican party throughout the country we must
see, first, that the republican party must
surely fail to elect its next candidate for the
Presidency, and second, that for the irst time
in upwards of twenty years the people of the
North and South are in vital political sympathy
and acting together for common political
purpose. In the election of Franklin Pierce the
democrats carried every Southern State but
two and every Northern State but two, and