? Is not Austria wise in
removing all ground of complaint against her on the part of Hungary? And
does not the Emperor of Russia act wisely, as well as generously, when
he not only breaks up the bondage of the serf, but extends him all the
advantages of Russian citizenship? Is the present movement in England in
favor of manhood suffrage--for the purpose of bringing four millions of
British subjects into full sympathy and co-operation with the British
government--a wise and humane movement, or otherwise? Is the existence
of a rebellious element in our borders--which New Orleans, Memphis, and
Texas show to be only disarmed, but at heart as malignant as ever, only
waiting for an opportunity to reassert itself with fire and sword--a
reason for leaving four millions of the nation's truest friends with
just cause of complaint against the Federal government? If the doctrine
that taxation should go hand in hand with representation can be appealed
to in behalf of recent traitors and rebels, may it not properly be
asserted in behalf of a people who have ever been loyal and faithful
to the government? The answers to these questions are too obvious to
require statement. Disguise it as we may, we are still a divided nation.
The Rebel States have still an anti-national policy. Massachusetts
and South Carolina may draw tears from the eyes of our tender-hearted
President by walking arm in arm into his Philadelphia Convention, but a
citizen of Massachusetts is still an alien in the Palmetto State. There
is that, all over the South, which frightens Yankee industry, capital,
and skill from its borders. We have crushed the Rebellion, but not its
hopes or its malign purposes. The South fought for perfect and permanent
control over the Southern laborer. It was a war of the rich against the
poor. They who waged it had no objection to the government, while they
could use it as a means of confirming their power over the laborer. They
fought the government, not because they hated the government as such,
but because they found it, as they thought, in the way between them and
their one grand purpose of rendering permanent and indestructible their
authority and power over the Southern laborer. Though the battle is
for the present lost, the hope of gaining this object still exists, and
pervades the whole South with a feverish excitement. We have thus
far only gained a Union without unity, marriage without love, victory
without peace. The hope of gaini