ggle for
supremacy between the North and South. The war sprang from the inherent
antipathy between two forms of political organization radically hostile
to each other. Is the war over, will it ever be over, if we allow the
incompatibility to remain, childishly satisfied with a mere change of
shape? This has been the grapple of two brothers that already struggled
with each other even in the womb. One of them has fallen under the
other; but let simple, good-natured Esau beware how he slacken his grip
till he has got back his inheritance, for Jacob is cunninger with the
tongue than he.

We have said that the war has given the North a higher conception of
its manhood and its duties, and of the vital force of ideas. But do we
find any parallel change in the South? We confess we look for it in
vain. There is the same arrogance, the same materialistic mode of
thought, which reckons the strength and value of a country by the
amount of its crops rather than by the depth of political principle
which inspires its people, the same boyish conceit on which even defeat
wastes its lesson. Here is a clear case for the interference of
authority. The people have done their part by settling the fact that we
have a government; and it is for the government now to do its duty
toward the people by seeing to it that their blood and treasure shall
not have been squandered in a meaningless conflict. We must not let
ourselves be misled by the terms North and South, as if those names
implied any essential diversity of interest, or the claim to any
separate share in the future destiny of the country. Let us concede
every right to the several States except that of mischief, and never
again be deceived by the fallacy that a moral wrong can be local in its
evil influence, or that a principle alien to the instincts of the
nation can be consistent either with its prosperity or its peace. We
must not be confused into a belief that it is with States that we are
dealing in this matter. The very problem is how to reconstitute safely
a certain territory or population as States. It is not we that take
anything from them. The war has left them nothing that they can fairly
call their own politically but helplessness and confusion. We propose
only to admit them for the first time into a real union with us, and to
give them an equal share in privileges, our belief in whose value we
have proved by our sacrifices in asserting them. There is always a time
for doing