Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/73

Rh, in Mexico. It may have cause to rue, perhaps it already has cause to rue the hour.

To be just we must not forget to pay a tribute to the valour of the Southerners, sullied as it was at Fort Pillow, at Andersonville, and on other occasions, by the ferocity of barbarians. In some of them this valour was inspired by a love of independence and a sincere belief in State Rights which mingled with and partly redeemed the more criminal object for which they fought. It receives its reward, not only in the respect which proved valour ensures, but far more in liberation from the worst doom which can fall on man, that of being the active minister of evil. To oppress is worse than to be oppressed. If Slavery is degradation to the slave, it is far deeper degradation to the master; and emancipation is a far greater boon to the master than to the slave. To that cruel, corrupt, and barbarous society a hope of better things has come, though in the stern form of conquest. A sea of blood has been shed in this war, but on neither side has it been shed entirely in vain.

The curtain has fallen upon the great drama of war. It rises for a political drama equally great. The work of reconstruction presents problems which will tax to the utmost the practical sagacity of the American people; but in that sagacity I have almost unbounded faith. It is the quality not of isolated statesmen, with difficulty dragging the dull masses after them, but of a whole nation, capable of entering into political questions, and at once supporting and correcting the action of the government, which is in fact only the organ of the people. For ultimate reconciliation, when once the actual wound shall have been healed, and the blackened relics of the war shall have disappeared,