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- 5511
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:58.829Z
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- 5457
- text
- entire magnanimity. Benevolence and policy--Christianity and
Machiavelli--dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued.
Abstinence here is as obligatory as considerate care for our unfortunate
fellow-men late in bonds, and, if observed, would equally prove to be
wise forecast. The great qualities of the South, those attested in the
War, we can perilously alienate, or we may make them nationally
available at need.
The blacks, in their infant pupilage to freedom, appeal to the
sympathies of every humane mind. The paternal guardianship which for the
interval government exercises over them was prompted equally by duty and
benevolence. Yet such kindliness should not be allowed to exclude
kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature. For 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.
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