are not
sovereign. State rights remain; but sovereignty is a right higher
than all others; and that has been made into a common stock for the
benefit of all. All further agitation is ended. This element must
be cast out of political problems. Henceforth that poison will not
rankle in the blood. 2. Another thing has been learned: the rights
and duties of minorities. The people of the whole nation are of
more authority than the people of any section. These United States
are supreme over Northern, Western, and Southern States. It ought
not to have required the awful chastisement of this war to teach
that a minority must submit the control of the nation's government
to a majority. The army and navy have been good political
schoolmasters. The lesson is learned. Not for many generations
will it require further illustration. 3. No other lesson will be
more fruitful of peace than the dispersion of those conceits of
vanity, which, on either side, have clouded the recognition of the
manly courage of all Americans. If it be a sign of manhood to be
able to fight, then Americans are men. The North certainly is in no
doubt whatever of the soldierly qualities of Southern men. Southern
soldiers have learned that all latitudes breed courage on this
continent. Courage is a passport to respect. The people of all the
regions of this nation are likely hereafter to cherish a generous
admiration of each other's prowess. The war has bred respect, and
respect will breed affection, and affection peace and unity. 4. No
other event of the war can fill an intelligent Southern man, of
candid nature, with more surprise than the revelation of the
capacity, moral and military, of the black race. It is a revelation
indeed. No people were ever less understood by those most familiar
with them. They were said to be lazy, lying, impudent, and cowardly
wretches, driven by the whip alone to the tasks needful to their own
support and the functions of civilization. They were said to be
dangerous, bloodthirsty, liable to insurrection; but four years of
tumultuous distress and war have rolled across the area inhabited by
them, and I have yet to hear of one authentic instance of the
misconduct of a colored man. They have been patient and gentle and
docile, and full of faith and hope and piety; and, when summoned to
freedom, they have emerged with all the signs and tokens that
freedom will be to them what it was to us, the swaddling-band th