eater and more imposing in proportion to the difficulties and dangers
met and overcome--there will be mingled the better sentiments of love
and veneration for a Government which re-establishes order, secures
protection to all civil rights, and restores, unimpaired, the liberties
which have been disregarded for a time, in order that they might be
permanently saved. To the people of the United States, the Union will be
what it never was before, and what it never could have been without the
sad experience it is undergoing now. Not that any change of form need be
effected, or any violence done to the principles on which our system is
founded. The change will be solely in the spirit in which our
institutions will be administered, arising from the altered sentiments
and feelings of the whole people. They will see their Government in a
new light--a light thrown on it by the grand events of the rebellion,
revealing capabilities and powers not hitherto known to exist, and
exhibiting it as the sole refuge in times of commotion and danger,
standing unmoved amidst the storm, impregnable to all its violence. In
the public recognition, by universal acquiescence, it will be considered
stronger than before; and this transformation will be as much a change
in the minds of the people as in the character and functions of the
Government itself.

There is, however, no good reason why the central power should acquire
inordinate strength, and absorb any part of the legitimate functions of
the local governments. A more liberal interpretation of the Constitution
will somewhat extend the federal powers, and there will necessarily be
greater intensity in the exercise of acknowledged authority;
nevertheless, consolidation need not be the subject of serious
apprehension. At the beginning of the war, when the Union was sorely
beset with the most imminent dangers, the executive power was extended
far beyond its ordinary limits; and perhaps this excess of action has
been in some cases too long continued, and has been made to embrace
objects not legitimately within the emergency which originally justified
the departure. But even under present circumstances, there can be no
just cause for alarm. There can be no real danger, until the people
shall have become either overawed and silenced by terror, or careless
and indifferent to the encroachments on liberty. Such is evidently very
far from being the case now. The recent elections have shown how
entirely