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 The Green Bag

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But no, alas! our lines are cast

In most unhappy places. You get the cash and we the lash, Yet think not we are jealous. Just bring your pleasant case to us, You'll find us mighty zealous.

Reconstruction in the South The Self-Reconstruction of Maryland, 1864 1867. By William Stan Myers. Ph.D.. Princeton University. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, series 27, nos. i-2. Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore. Pp. 131. (50 cts.,

Pawn) History of Reconstruction in Louisiana (through 1868). By Prof. John Rose Ficklen of Tulane Uni versity, author of Constitutional History of Louisi ana. Johns Hopkins University Studies in His torical and Political Science, series 28. no. 1. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Pp. ix, 231+ index 3. ($1.50 cloth. 31 paper.) Legislative and Judicial History of the Fifteenth Amendment. By John Mabry Mathews, Fellow in Political Science. Being series xxvii, nos. 6-7, of University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Pp. x, 116. ($1.) The Basis of Ascendancy: A Discussion of Cer tain Principles of Public Property Involved in the Development of the Southern States. By Edgar Gardner Murphy. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. Pp. xxiv, 248. ($1.50 net.)

5 THE Civil War gradually ceases to occupy a prominent place in

the experiences and memories of the American people, it subjects itself more and more to that critical examination which strives only for an impartial esti mate of underlying motives. The ques tion of the negro, for whose emancipa tion the conflict was really undertaken

in spite of the various surface contro versies, becomes less of a burning issue. The problem what to do with the negro, now that he has been given his freedom,

so recklessly undertaken by the con querors as soon as their victory was obtained, has met with failure, and the

blunders of the reconstruction policy are oftener admitted than denied. The negro question continues serious, but is fortunately one which can now be

studied with greater impartiality and debated with less acrimony than not a

great many years ago. Abraham Lincoln was more moderate than his party, but it is not recorded

that he opposed the radicalism which molded federal policy during the few

years following the War.

Even a Lin

coln, had his life not been terminated

at a crucial moment, could hardly have hoped to withstand that radicalism with any hope of success.

As

Professor

Ficklen says, “Is it likely. . . that he could have prevented the Southern states at the close of the war from exasperating the feelings of the Republi can [would not the word “Radical” be

more accurate herei’l majority in Con gress by unwise vagrant laws, and by premature attempts to restore ‘rebels’ to a participation in state and federal legislation? Or could he have persuaded this Congress to relinquish its deter mination to deny the suffrage to the

becomes less of a sectional problem.

‘rebel’ for his punishment and to grant

The project of negro enfranchisement,

it to the freedman for his protection and