assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however
originally alien.

But, so far as immediate measures looking toward permanent Re-
establishment are concerned, no consideration should tempt us to
pervert the national victory into oppression for the vanquished. Should
plausible promise of eventual good, or a deceptive or spurious sense of
duty, lead us to essay this, count we must on serious consequences, not
the least of which would be divisions among the Northern adherents of
the Union. Assuredly, if any honest Catos there be who thus far have
gone with us, no longer will they do so, but oppose us, and as
resolutely as hitherto they have supported. But this path of thought
leads toward those waters of bitterness from which one can only turn
aside and be silent.

But supposing Re-establishment so far advanced that the Southern seats
in Congress are occupied, and by men qualified in accordance with those
cardinal principles of representative government which hitherto have
prevailed in the land--what then? Why, the Congressmen elected by the
people of the South will--represent the people of the South. This may
seem a flat conclusion; but, in view of the last five years, may there
not be latent significance in it? What will be the temper of those
Southern members? and, confronted by them, what will be the mood of our
own representatives? In private life true reconciliation seldom follows
a violent quarrel; but, if subsequent intercourse be unavoidable, nice
observances and mutual are indispensable to the prevention of a new
rupture. Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and
true friends are punctilious equals. On the floor of Congress North and
South are to come together after a passionate duel, in which the South,
though proving her valor, has been made to bite the dust. Upon
differences in debate shall acrimonious recriminations be exchanged?
Shall censorious superiority assumed by one section provoke defiant
self-assertion on the other? Shall Manassas and Chickamauga be retorted
for Chattanooga and Richmond? Under the supposition that the full
Congress will be composed of gentlemen, all this is impossible. Yet, if
otherwise, it needs no prophet of Israel to foretell the end. The
maintenance of Congressional decency in the future will rest mainly
with the North. Rightly will more forbearance be required from the
North than the South, for the North is victor.

But some there are who may deem the