as long as
it involved the denial to the Southern States of their State autonomy,
and became a success from the moment when it recognised to the full the
sacredness of State rights. This, or some statement like this,
represents the mode in which the annals of the Union must be read if
they are to be interpreted in favour of Home Rule. The reading is a
strained interpretation of events which are known to every one. The
North, once and for all, settled that the matters which lay at the
bottom of the Civil War should be settled in the manner which conform to
Northern notions of justice and of expediency. The abolition of slavery,
and the final disposal of the alleged right to Secession, gave to the
North, all the requisite securities against attacks on the unity of the
Republic. The Republicans, influenced in part by considerations of
party, but partly (it must in fairness be admitted) by the feeling that
it was a duty to secure for Negro citizens the full enjoyment of the
civil and political rights given them, under the constitutional
amendments supported for years the so-called Carpet Bag Governments,
that is to say, the rule of Northern adventurers who were kept in office
throughout the South by the Negro vote. The Federal Government, in
short, up to 1876 gave by its arms authority in the South to the
unscrupulosity of Northern scoundrelism supported by the votes of Negro
ignorance. Such a policy naturally produced bitter irritation among the
Southern Whites. Its reversal as naturally restored to the Whites at
once power and contentment. Whether this reversal was as satisfactory to
the Blacks is less clear. In any case it is hard to see how the
restoration of the Southern States to their natural place in the Union
tells in favour of giving Ireland a position quite inconsistent with the
existing constitution of the United Kingdom. The case stands thus:
Northern Republicans insisted that every State in the South should
submit to the supremacy of the United States on every point which
directly or indirectly concerned the national and political unity of the
American people. Having secured this submission the Republican party
restored to the Southern States the reality as well as the name of State
rights; and allowed the same and no more than the same independence to
South Carolina as is allowed to New York. No doubt something was
sacrificed; this "something" was a matter which did not greatly concern
the citizens of the Nor