ave-question: and it seems very possible that after a few years we may
see most of the laborers, both in the Southern States and in England,
actively addicted to the political support of that section of their
countrymen who to the last had resisted their emancipation.

But if there be those in this country who think that American democracy
means public levity and intemperance, or a lack of skill and sagacity in
politics, or the absence of self-command and self-denial, let them bear
in mind a few of the most salient and recent facts of history which may
profitably be recommended to their reflections. We emancipated a million
of negroes by peaceful legislation; America liberated four or five
millions by a bloody civil war: yet the industry and exports of the
Southern States are maintained, while those of our negro colonies have
dwindled; the South enjoys all its franchises, but we have, _proh
pudor!_ found no better method of providing for peace and order in
Jamaica, the chief of our islands, than by the hard and vulgar, even
where needful, expedient of abolishing entirely its representative
institutions.

The Civil War compelled the States, both North and South, to train and
embody a million and a half of men, and to present to view the greatest,
instead of the smallest, armed forces in the world. Here there was
supposed to arise a double danger. First, that on a sudden cessation of
the war, military life and habits could not be shaken off, and, having
become rudely and widely predominant, would bias the country toward an
aggressive policy, or, still worse, would find vent in predatory or
revolutionary operations. Secondly, that a military caste would grow up
with its habits of exclusiveness and command, and would influence the
tone of politics in a direction adverse to republican freedom. But both
apprehensions proved to be wholly imaginary. The innumerable soldiery
was at once dissolved. Cincinnatus, no longer an unique example, became
the commonplace of every day, the type and mould of a nation. The whole
enormous mass quietly resumed the habits of social life. The generals of
yesterday were the editors, the secretaries, and the solicitors of
to-day. The just jealousy of the State gave life to the now forgotten
maxim of Judge Blackstone, who denounced as perilous the erection of a
separate profession of arms in a free country. The standing army,
expanded by the heat of civil contest to gigantic dimensions, settled
do