Page:The parallel between the English and American civil wars.djvu/50

THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN purposely and at once by the ingenious statecraft of able legislators. Therefore the political education of the American people in 1865 was far in advance of that of the English people of 1651, and statesmen who sought to heal and reconcile could find in public opinion there a support which was lacking here.

These considerations help to explain how it was that the victorious North used its victory with such moderation. Unexampled the leniency of the American government certainly was. "Never before," declares an American historian, "on the signal failure of so great an attempt at revolution, had a complete victory been attended with no proscriptions, no confiscation of land, no putting of men to death ." It was contrasted with the conduct of the Russian government toward the Poles after the attempted revolution of 1830, or of the Austrians towards the Hungarians after that of 1848. It was contrasted with the conduct of the 42