Harpers+21

Harper's Weekly, June 24, 1865, page 386 (Editorial)
 * THE PRESENT PERIL **

It took seventy-five years to teach this country that fire will burn. Against the instincts of the human heart, against the dictates of common-sense, against reason and all experience we insisted upon yielding every thing to Slavery in a free Government, until Slavery took the Government by the throat, and only by the most prolonged and desperate struggle was thrown off. In like manner, against all reason and experience which assured us that sovereignty is one and cannot be divided, that a nation can be injured in no part without suffering every where, that the law of life in communities is like that in individuals, we allowed the mischievous Kentucky and Virginia resolutions to remain as a vague apology for treason, instead of seeing that where such resolutions could be adopted and defended there was the utmost necessity of a solemn national renunciation of them by a constitutional amendment forever settling the question. Sufferance made treason insolent; servility made it strong; until the authority of the State struck at the national supremacy, and only by blooding every hearthstone with blood, and loading our children with debt, was the national authority restored.

Have we yet learned that the spirit of Slavery, whether it actually buys and sells human beings like cattle, or despises and outrages them as pariahs, is the spirit of eternal war; and that the doctrine of State Sovereignty, whether it naughtily calls a king’s parent, or a civil engineer’s division of land, a nation, or asserts the reserved rights of States, means, substantially, treason? It would be ludicrous, if it were not too sad, to see those who are still stunned by the war doubting whether the men who excited and conducted it can possibly be capable of any naughty action. There are the horrible pens of Millen and Andersonville; the unimaginable suffering inflicted upon innocent men; there are the cold-blooded slaughters of Fort Pillow and Lawrence; the hangings and tortures of Union men in East Tennessee, in Texas, in all the South and Southwest; there are the plots to burn great cities, the firing of hotels and museums and theatres full of innocent women and children; there are the plans of infecting whole districts with fatal disease by the yellow-fever rags; there are the massacres of helpless negroes in the streets; there is the murder of the President in a theatre; the murderous attempt upon the Secretary of State lying ill in his bed—and some good soul asks, "Do you really think they would be guilty of murder? They may be politically mistaken, but do you seriously think they would do any thing unfair?"

Could we seriously think otherwise? How is it natural to suppose that those who breed children for sale, whose laws and social and industrial habits are designed to imbrute human beings, would wage war? Is it not by every foul and dishonorable means? Is it not by poison, by assassination, by massacre? Why should not savages be savage? Jefferson Davis was called "a high-toned Southern gentleman." Doubtless he was as much of a gentleman and as high-toned as any man bred in such a condition of things could be. But what his gentlemanhood and high tone were you discover when you read his speeches, in which Yankees are hyenas, and Grant and Sherman are spaniels to be whipped. There were lovely and accomplished women in the Slave States; but when they spoke of slavery their bald barbarity dehumanized them. The blood chilled in the heart to hear their flippant or fiery talk. They were like the smooth-skinned wives and daughters of ogres in fairy tales.

Is it unkind to recall these things? Is it a poor policy of conciliation to recur to the old offenses? Oh no; they are not old offenses. This was the spirit of that society, and it is its spirit still. Can we wisely forget it? Can we make it otherwise by pretending not to know it? Are George N. Sanders and Jacob Thompson and Beverly Tucker and Clement C. Clay any the less criminal foes of the Government of the United States, any less infidel to its fundamental doctrines, any less dangerous and dishonorable men, to be shunned in every way, and exposed to public obloquy and constant suspicion, because Horace Greeley calls them "distinguished Americans of the other party to our civil war?" Are Hunter, Campbell, and Stephens any less traitors because the same authority calls them "eminent Confederates?" Is the ostrich the model of a statesman? Are wolves mild and docile because you call them lambs?

The men who control Southern sentiment are baffled, they are not changed. They are beaten in the war—that is all. Are they less hostile? Do they confess that they had no right to make war? Do they believe that States are not sovereign? Do they acknowledge the equality of human rights? Do they hate Yankees any less because the Yankees have whipped them? The ladies of the rebel States, who are reduced from the luxury based upon the unpaid toil and untold wrongs of human beings to gain a livelihood by mechanical labor or to receive Government rations—are they less bitter and mad than before? The beggared men, who live on charity and sneer with irrepressible hate at the "Federal" Government—are they changed at heart? Mayor Mayo, of Richmond, whom Governor Pierpont reinstates—is he any safer citizen of the United States than when he was in active rebellion three months ago? The North Carolina planter whom General Patrick, the Provost-Marshal at Richmond, told that he must not whip his slaves at present, but that a good time was coming—is he a type of the "distinguished Americans of the other party to our civil war" who are to reorganize the late slave States? The Alabama delegation, the Mississippi Governor, Boyce from South Carolina, Brown from Georgia—are these the "eminent Confederates" with whom, shutting our eyes and minds, and pocketing common-sense, we are to fraternize in a restored Union? Let by-gones be by-gones, do you say? And what by-gone do they forget? What dangerous dogma, what treasonable intention do they give any proof that they have renounced? The rebels carry the State election in Virginia. Are they to send representatives to Congress? A palpable charlatan like George Sanders led Horace Greeley by the nose at Niagara. Are abler and wilier leaders than Sanders incapable of hoodwinking more sagacious men than Mr. Greeley?

This country needs as much watchful intelligence to save it now as it needed skillful military guidance to save it two years ago. The rebellion gives up the field, it does not yield the fight. The New York World asked two months ago, advising the rebels to submit, what can the President do, what terms can he make if you only throw down your arms and return to the Union? That was to say to the rebels, as plainly as words could express it, "Claim your rights as States, and we will back you." George Sanders makes the same appeal from Canada, foolishly speaking above his breath and out of time.

Have we learned that fire will burn? Do we yet understand that the chief duty of the loyal people of the United States is to suffer the late slave States to be reorganized only upon such terms as those people prescribe? Do we fully comprehend that the important point is not speedy reorganization, but sure reorganization? Do we see, as we should, that it is better Virginia should be governed as a territory for half a century rather than that she should be recognized as a State by the spirit of State Sovereignty and caste which produced the rebellion? Congress must decide the Question. Let Congress, then, distinctly understand public opinion. Let every body speak out. We are in no danger of treating any body too severely. This country was never yet too severe upon any citizens but those who warned it of the danger of intrusting a free government to the hands of those who had no faith in its principles. We are not in danger of a blood-thirsty policy but of our old obsequious pusillanimity, and a sentimental sophistication in which the true character and relation of men and things at this juncture will be forgotten and the country plunged into new perils. Wise men will insist at every hazard that the lessons of experience shall be heeded, and that the peace and welfare of the country shall be secured by placing the political power of the reorganized States in the hands of those only, and all of those, who utterly repudiate State Sovereignty, and all civil distinction based upon color; for such, and such only, are truly trust-worthy citizens of the United States.


 * 1. Why does this author think that the North should not just forget the past and get on with life after the Civil War? **
 * 2. Who was George Sanders before and after the war? **
 * 3. Why is the author in favor of a slow reconstruction? **