Harpers+13

Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1865, page 482 (Editorial)
 * A PLAIN DANGER **

Apparently we are in some danger of not learning from experience. The spirit of infidelity of popular institutions and of hostility to the Union and Government having proved its character and purpose by a war continued with unparalleled ferocity until it failed from sheer exhaustion, it is now gravely proposed that we shall act as if that spirit were no longer dangerous, simply because, for the present, it is exhausted.

There could be no more fatal mistake. Civil war is neither a cure nor a palliative of the spirit from which it springs. The traditions and education of "the South" are what they always were. The dominant class of that section is not less dominant because it is defeated. Its authority is now consecrated in the popular mind of its region by suffering and misfortune. Its haughtiness is supreme. Its hate is unconquerable. It soothes its pride by the conviction that it was only overcome by numbers, and disdainfully awaits the day when it can again try its fortune in the field, or, should that be hopeless, when its sullen passivity of resistance shall paralyze all efforts of the Government at reorganization.

Is there any sense in pretending that this is not so? Can there be any folly more signal than that of regarding the feeling of a section as merely the spleen of a few disappointed leaders? Have we not always said, and said truly, that the masses of the South were swayed by a dominant class? Do we think they have ceased to be so swayed? Even the Governors provisionally appointed by the United States still speak of "our cause," "our armies," and "the South." Even a paper noted for its "Unionism" must be suppressed for the unconcealed rage and hostility of its tone. We have yet to see in the columns of a single journal, or to hear in the speech of a single orator in the rebel States, the faintest indication of the least fidelity either to the spirit or to the form of the Government of the United States. Governors and generals and editors and orators advise submission to superior force. "We can not help ourselves," is the burden of their strain.

Has any man who has read history or studied human nature any doubt of the inexpressible hatred to this Government which smolders in the hearts of those whose lips nimbly repeat an oath of allegiance? Let any one who doubts talk with any late rebel, or read the public correspondence from the region lately in rebellion, or the private letters of those who were and are of the dominant class, or let him take the testimony of any of our authorities in the South, or compare the editorials written there—let him reflect that not one solitary, spontaneous movement of any truly popular or representative body has been made for reorganization through sincere sympathy with the Government, and he will find some reason to believe that we do not misrepresent the actual condition of affairs. And if by any chance some one, man or woman, of that dominant class, standing amidst the total wreck of fortune, in the midst of universal bereavement—homeless and hopeless—should read these words, he would cry, "Yes! Thank God, you are right! We hate you and your Government with an undying hatred! We believe your crimes to be colossal, and you guilt not to be described!"

Shall we be told that these are but a discontented few? But if they are a few, where and who are the many? Ten years ago every man who knew any thing in this country of the public situation was perfectly aware of the absolute disunion of opinion and sympathy, and political and social faith, between the free and slave States. The haughty society that came to the Northern watering-places in the summer, and to the New York hotels in the autumn, mingled chiefly—with notable exceptions—with those who were as obsequious to them as their own slaves. The great body of representative American society held aloof. This Southern class reviled the American principle, and fiercely protested its devotion to "the South." It is sickening to remember that swagger after this bloody lapse of four years.

But this class was numerous; it was not small. It represented the wealth, the intelligence, the traditional leadership of its section; and what governs any ignorant multitude but intelligence, wealth, and tradition, unless the power of all these forces be paralyzed by the consciousness of a class or a race that such forces have been steadily used to wrong them? The Southern slave-masters have always controlled the ignorant class of their own color in whose name, as a superior race, they enslaved the colored class. But they could not control human nature. They could not outwit the heart, nor bribe the love of liberty. When the crisis came the master-class carried the overwhelming majority of their own color with them; but their utmost power failed to seduce their slaves. The men who, we are told, have not sense enough to vote with us, had yet sense enough to be true to us against all persuasion of treason. A late letter in the Herald, from Alabama, says that the rebels in that State confess the free labor of blacks to have been a success wherever it was directed by Yankees. "They say if a Southern man takes up a newspaper and reads any thing to a negro, he will not believe a single word of it; but let a Yankee pretend to read, and make up the most improbable lie imaginable, and he will take it for gospel truth." Will any body be kind enough to prove why, if the slaves would not fight with their masters, the freedmen will vote with them?

The degree of faith in State Sovereignty and adhesion to Slavery may have varied, but the white population of the rebel States was practically a unit during the war. Who will deny that it is practically a unit now. No glozing or gilding will hide the fact. No sentimental drivel about "brethren" will help us organize the results of the war any more than it prevented the war. Men whose chief point of honor is contempt of the principle of our common Government are not our political brethren. Men and women who have gloried in the torture of our soldiers for defending that Government are not our social brethren. Their fathers were brethren of our fathers, and their children may be of our children. But the generation that hates us and despises our faith and our hope—however free from vindictive feeling our own hearts may be, and it is a fact that they are absolutely so—can no more be considered "brethren" in a practical sense than any other enemies.

Any steps at reorganization which disregard these plain facts will be utterly futile. The prime necessity of our policy is a comprehension of the truth, not a statement of the theory. The possibility that this spirit of hostility may regain control of the Government must be inflexibly prevented at whatever cost. If there really be no such possibility so much the better. But that must not be assumed. The presumption is entirely the other way. While there is yet a doubt, the force of the United States should be fully maintained every where. Let freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, and absolute personal freedom be established and defended in the rebel States. Let the whole body of the adult male population be registered and suffered to vote, if you will. Le the forms of a truly free republican Government be secured, but do not commit the fatal fault of intrusting them, without supervision, to those who hate freedom and the republic. Let the people of the United States retain absolute hold of the whole rebel region until they are satisfied that its citizens will co-operate in good faith with the rest of the country. We believe that the principles of the American system are fully adequate to the perfect pacification of the country. But we are quite as firmly persuaded that the loyal white people of the late rebel States are not strong enough, nor united enough, to secure the observance of those principles, and that this can be done only by the power of the whole people.


 * 1. For this author, what has changed in the South and what has remained the same? **
 * 2. Why does this author think the Whites of the North and South are not brethren for this generation? **
 * 3. Why doesn’t the author trust even the loyal White population in the South? **