estructible, they seem to think that,
by the mere cessation of hostilities, they are to resume their places
as if nothing had happened, or rather as if this had been a mere
political contest which we had carried. But it is with the people of
the States, and not with any abstract sovereignty, that we have been at
war, and it is of them that we are to exact conditions, and not of some
convenient quasi-entity, which is not there when the battle is raging,
and is there when the terms of capitulation are to be settled. No, it
is slavery which made this war, and slavery which must pay the damages.
While we should not by any unseemly exultation remind the Southern
people that they have been conquered, we should also not be weak enough
to forget that we have won the right of the victor. And what is that
right, if it be not to exact indemnity for the past and security for
the future? And what more nobly and satisfactorily fulfils both those
conditions, than utterly to extinguish the cause of quarrel? What we
fear is the foolish and weak good-nature inherent in popular
government, but against which monarchies and aristocracies are insured
by self-interest, which the prospect of peace is sure to arouse, and
which may make our settlement a stage-reconciliation, where everybody
rushes into the arms of everybody else with a fervor which has nothing
to do with the living relations of the actors. We believe that the
public mind should be made up as to what are the essential conditions
of real and lasting peace, before it is subjected to the sentimental
delusions of the inevitable era of good feeling, in which the stronger
brother is so apt to play the part of Esau. If we are to try the
experiment of democracy fairly, it must be tried in its fullest extent,
and not half-way. The theory which grants political power to the
ignorant white foreigner need not be squeamish about granting it to the
ignorant black native, for the gist of the matter is in the dark mind,
and not the more or less dusky skin. Of course we shall be met by the
usual fallacy,--Would you confer equality on the blacks? But the answer
is a very simple one. Equality cannot be conferred on any man, be he
white or black. If he be capable of it, his title is from God, and not
from us. The opinion of the North is made up on the subject of
emancipation, and Mr. Lincoln has announced it as the one essential
preliminary to the readmission of the insurgent States. To our mind,
cit