through the very trials we
are enduring, probably on a more extended scale 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