The American Republic [109]
mad attempts to recover their lost nationality; the severity of Austria, under Haynau, toward the defeated Magyars. The liberal press kept up for years, especially in England and the United States, a perpetual howl against the Papal and Neapolitan governments for arresting and imprisoning men who conspired to overthrow them. Louis Kossuth was no less a traitor than Jefferson Davis, and yet the United States solicited his release from a Turkish prison, and sent a national ship to bring him hither as the nation's guest. The people of the United States have held from the first "the right of insurrection," and have given their moral support to every insurrection in the Old or New World they discovered, and for them 334 to treat with severity any portion of the Southern secessionists, who, at the very worst, only acted on the principles the nation had uniformly avowed and pronounced sacred, would be regarded, and justly, by the civilized world as little less than infamous.
Not only the fair fame, but the interest of the Union forbids any severity toward the people lately in arms against the government. The interest of the nation demands not the death or the expulsion of the secessionists, and, least of all, of those classes proscribed by the President's proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865, nor even their disfranchisement, perpetual or temporary; but their restoration to citizenship, and their loyal co-operation with all true-hearted Americans, in hearing the wounds inflicted on the whole country by the civil war. There need be no fear to trust them. Their cause is lost; they may or may not regret it, but lost it is, and lost forever. They appealed to the ballot-box, and were defeated; they appealed from the ballot-box to arms, to war, and have been again defeated, terribly defeated. They know it and feel it. There is no further appeal for them; the judgment of the court of last resort has been rendered, and rendered against them. The cause is finished, the controversy closed, 335 never to be re-opened. Henceforth the Union is invincible, and it is worse than idle to attempt to renew the war against it. Henceforth their lot is bound up with that of the nation, and all their hopes and interests, for themselves and their children, and their children's children, depend on their being permitted to demean themselves henceforth as peaceable and loyal American citizens. They must seek their freedom, greatness, and glory in the freedom, greatness, and glory of the American republic, in which, after all, they can be far freer, greater, more glorious than in a separate and independent confederacy. All the arguments and considerations urged by Union men against their secession, come back to them now with redoubled force to keep them henceforth loyal to the Union.
They cannot afford to lose the nation, and the nation cannot afford to lose them. To hang or exile them, and depopulate and suffer to run to waste the lands they had cultivated, were sad thrift, sadder than that of deporting four millions of negroes and colored men. To exchange only those excepted from amnesty and pardon by President Johnson, embracing some two millions or more, the very pars sanior of the Southern population, for what would re- 336 main or flock in to supply their place, would be only the exchange of Glaucus and Diomed, gold for brass; to disfranchise them, confiscate their estates, and place them under the political control of the freedmen, lately their slaves, and the ignorant and miserable "white trash," would be simply to render rebellion chronic, and to convert seven millions of Americans, willing and anxious to be free, loyal American citizens, eternal enemies. They have yielded to superior numbers and resources; beaten, but not disgraced, for they have, even in rebellion, proved themselves what they are--real Americans. They are the product of the American soil, the free growth of the American
Not only the fair fame, but the interest of the Union forbids any severity toward the people lately in arms against the government. The interest of the nation demands not the death or the expulsion of the secessionists, and, least of all, of those classes proscribed by the President's proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865, nor even their disfranchisement, perpetual or temporary; but their restoration to citizenship, and their loyal co-operation with all true-hearted Americans, in hearing the wounds inflicted on the whole country by the civil war. There need be no fear to trust them. Their cause is lost; they may or may not regret it, but lost it is, and lost forever. They appealed to the ballot-box, and were defeated; they appealed from the ballot-box to arms, to war, and have been again defeated, terribly defeated. They know it and feel it. There is no further appeal for them; the judgment of the court of last resort has been rendered, and rendered against them. The cause is finished, the controversy closed, 335 never to be re-opened. Henceforth the Union is invincible, and it is worse than idle to attempt to renew the war against it. Henceforth their lot is bound up with that of the nation, and all their hopes and interests, for themselves and their children, and their children's children, depend on their being permitted to demean themselves henceforth as peaceable and loyal American citizens. They must seek their freedom, greatness, and glory in the freedom, greatness, and glory of the American republic, in which, after all, they can be far freer, greater, more glorious than in a separate and independent confederacy. All the arguments and considerations urged by Union men against their secession, come back to them now with redoubled force to keep them henceforth loyal to the Union.
They cannot afford to lose the nation, and the nation cannot afford to lose them. To hang or exile them, and depopulate and suffer to run to waste the lands they had cultivated, were sad thrift, sadder than that of deporting four millions of negroes and colored men. To exchange only those excepted from amnesty and pardon by President Johnson, embracing some two millions or more, the very pars sanior of the Southern population, for what would re- 336 main or flock in to supply their place, would be only the exchange of Glaucus and Diomed, gold for brass; to disfranchise them, confiscate their estates, and place them under the political control of the freedmen, lately their slaves, and the ignorant and miserable "white trash," would be simply to render rebellion chronic, and to convert seven millions of Americans, willing and anxious to be free, loyal American citizens, eternal enemies. They have yielded to superior numbers and resources; beaten, but not disgraced, for they have, even in rebellion, proved themselves what they are--real Americans. They are the product of the American soil, the free growth of the American