e and in a more aggravated
form.

It may be well to look at the prospects before us, if a peace is
established on the basis of Southern independence, the only peace
possible, unless we choose to add ourselves to the four millions who
already call the Southern whites their masters. We know what the
prevailing--we do not mean universal--spirit and temper of those people
have been for generations, and what they are like to be after a long and
bitter warfare. We know what their tone is to the people of the North;
if we do not, De Bow and Governor Hammond are schoolmasters who will
teach us to our heart's content. We see how easily their social
organization adapts itself to a state of warfare. They breed a superior
order of men for leaders, an ignorant commonalty ready to follow them as
the vassals of feudal times followed their lords; and a race of bondsmen,
who, unless this war changes them from chattels to human beings, will
continue to add vastly to their military strength in raising their food,
in building their fortifications, in all the mechanical work of war, in
fact, except, it may be, the handling of weapons. The institution
proclaimed as the corner-stone of their government does violence not
merely to the precepts of religion, but to many of the best human
instincts, yet their fanaticism for it is as sincere as any tribe of the
desert ever manifested for the faith of the Prophet of Allah. They call
themselves by the same name as the Christians of the North, yet there is
as much difference between their Christianity and that of Wesley or of
Channing, as between creeds that in past times have vowed mutual
extermination. Still we must not call them barbarians because they
cherish an institution hostile to civilization. Their highest culture
stands out all the more brilliantly from the dark background of ignorance
against which it is seen; but it would be injustice to deny that they
have always shone in political science, or that their military capacity
makes them most formidable antagonists, and that, however inferior they
may be to their Northern fellow-countrymen in most branches of literature
and science, the social elegances and personal graces lend their outward
show to the best circles among their dominant class.

Whom have we then for our neighbors, in case of separation,--our
neighbors along a splintered line of fracture extending for thousands of
miles,--but the Saracens of the Nineteenth Century; a f