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- the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future
of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a
paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile,
is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be
sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the
difficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans,
nor enthusiasts, nor theorists, nor cynics, there are some doubts not
readily to be solved. And there are fears. Why is not the cessation of
war now at length attended with the settled calm of peace? Wherefore in
a clear sky do we still turn our eyes toward the South as the
Neapolitan, months after the eruption, turns his toward Vesuvius? Do we
dread lest the repose may be deceptive? In the recent convulsion has
the crater but shifted Let us revere that sacred uncertainty which
forever impends over men and nations. Those of us who always abhorred
slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting
chorus of humanity over its downfall. But we should remember that
emancipation was accomplished not by deliberate legislation; only
through agonized violence could so mighty a result be effected. In our
natural solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks, let
us forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness toward
our white countrymen—measures of a nature to provoke, among other of
the last evils, exterminating hatred of race toward race. In
imagination let us place ourselves in the unprecedented position of the
Southerners—their position as regards the millions of ignorant
manumitted slaves in their midst, for whom some of us now claim the
suffrage. Let us be Christians toward our fellow-whites, as well as
philanthropists toward the blacks, our fellow-men. In all things, and
toward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by. Nor should we
forget that benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not
undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils
beyond those sought to be remedied. Something may well be left to the
graduated care of future legislation, and to heaven. In one point of
view the co-existence of the two races in the South, whether the negro
be bond or free, seems (even as it did to Abraham Lincoln) a grave
evil. Emancipation has ridded the country of the reproach, but not
wholly of the calamity. Especially in the present transition period for
both races in the South, more or less of trouble may not unreasonably
be anticipated; but let us not hereafter be too swift to charge the
blame exclusively in any one quarter. With certain evils men must be
more or less patient. Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may
in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however
originally alien.
But, so far as immediate measures looking toward permanent Re-
establishment are concerned, no consideration should tempt us to
pervert the national victory into oppression for the vanquished. Should
plausible promise of eventual good, or a deceptive or spurious sense of
duty, lead us to essay this, count we must on serious consequences, not
the least of which would be divisions among the Northern adherents of
the Union. Assuredly, if any honest Catos there be who thus far have
gone with us, no longer will they do so, but oppose us, and as
resolutely as hitherto they have supported. But this path of thought
leads toward those waters of bitterness from which one can only turn
aside and be silent.
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