omething has been wrong, which makes them
readier to see and accept what is right. We do not mean to say that
there is any very large amount of even latent Unionism at the South,
but we believe there is plenty of material in solution there which
waits only to be precipitated into whatever form of crystal we desire.
We must not forget that the main elements of Southern regeneration are
to be sought in the South itself, and that such elements are abundant.
A people that has shown so much courage and constancy in a bad cause,
because they believed it a good one, is worth winning even by the
sacrifice of our natural feeling of resentment. If we forgive the negro
for his degradation and his ignorance, in consideration of the system
of which he has been the sacrifice, we ought also to make every
allowance for the evil influence of that system upon the poor whites.
It is the fatal necessity of all wrong to revenge itself upon those who
are guilty of it, or even accessory to it. The oppressor is dragged
down by the victim of his tyranny. The eternal justice makes the
balance even; and as the sufferer by unjust laws is lifted above his
physical abasement by spiritual compensations and that nearness to God
which only suffering is capable of, in like measure are the material
advantages of the wrong-doer counterpoised by a moral impoverishment.
Our duty is not to punish, but to repair; and the cure must work both
ways, emancipating the master from the slave, as well as the slave from
the master. Once rid of slavery, which was the real criminal, let us
have no more reproaches, justifiable only while the Southern sin made
us its forced accomplices; and while we bind up the wounds of our black
brother who had fallen among thieves that robbed him of his rights as a
man, let us not harden our hearts against our white brethren, from whom
interest and custom, those slyer knaves, whose fingers we have felt
about our own pockets, had stolen away their conscience and their sense
of human brotherhood.

The first question that arises in the mind of everybody in thinking of
reconstruction is, What is to be done about the negro? After the war is
over, there will be our Old Man of the Sea, as ready to ride us as
ever. If we only emancipate him, he will not let us go free. We must do
something more than merely this. While the suffering from them is still
sharp, we should fix it in our minds as a principle, that the evils
which have come upon us ar