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that unlimited suffrage is a great conservative power; that it is in the interest of intelligence and order. Political responsibility is the best educator. Give a man the ballot, and at once it becomes the interest of every other man that he should be fit to use it. The mere appeal to him by rival partisans compels him to think and judge in some measure for himself. He finds his voice is worth something; and he begins to ponder on which side it shall be cast. Besides, it is a defence against mob violence; for what a mass of men can secure at the polls, being a majority, why should they fight for in the streets? or, being a minority, they are at least warned in advance of the uselessness of fighting. All these arguments, it is claimed, apply to the lowest, the poorest, the most ignorant, with quite as much force as to the more educated classes. And, with a generous boldness, it is urged, that the really conservative, safe, and right way will be, to invite absolutely every grown man, not debarred by crime, to share the full privilege of citizenship, — at least, to give his voice to the ratifying and sanction of the organic law.

We do not dispute, that this frank and bold theory of the radical democracy may yet prove the only practicable solu tion to the question in debate. Sometimes a daring that seems even desperate has a fascination that wins its way where prudence fails, and proves, after all, a better prudence. But it is impossible for any one who has ever thought of political power, not merely as a right but as a trust, not to be staggered and confounded at the thing here proposed. There is no need of drawing distinctions of color in this matter among the lower populations of the South. Surely, no more hopeless subjects of such political experimenting could be found anywhere, than the "sand-hillers," the "clay-eaters," the "snuffdippers," and those, by whatever other cant and degrading terms they may be known, who make the lowest tier of the poor whites in the planting States. It is enough, on the other hand, to cite the testimony of those who have associated much with the emancipated blacks during the last year or two, and have found in Charleston or in Savannah the first

specimens of them capable of comprehending the most elementary political idea; or of those who have studied deeply the natural history of races, and who tell us of the belt of absolute pagan barbarism that spreads back from the gulf shore along the hot lowlands dense with tropic life. With the real facts before us, we shall perhaps find a summary judgment less easy than we had thought. Meanwhile, those are doing most to relieve the difficulty, who are actually doing their part, whether by instruction, charity, or business enterprise, to secure for the scarce-emancipated blacks those conditions of intelligence and virtue and independence which must, after all, be at the bottom of any political privilege worth having.

The "New-York Times" points out, as characteristic of the Southern loyalists, an equal hostility to those who brought on the rebellion, and to the political equality of the blacks.* As the President has just declared to the South - Carolina delegation, he "intends to exert the power and influence of the Government to place in power the popular heart of this nation." He "does not want the late slaveholders to control the negro vote against white men. Let each State judge of the depository of its own political power."

There is one very practical consideration bearing on this

* As the most authentic expression of Southern loyal feeling on this subject, we copy the following sentences, addressed to the negro population, from the recent proclamation of Governor Holden to the people of North Carolina :

:

"Providence has willed that the very means adopted to render your servitude perpetual should be his instruments for releasing you from bondage. It now remains for you, aided as you will be by the superior intelligence of the white race, and cheered by the sympathies of all good people, to decide whether the freedom thus suddenly bestowed upon you will be a blessing to you or a source of injury. Your race has been depressed by your condition of slavery, and by the legislation of your former masters, for two hundred years. It is not to be expected, that you can comprehend and appreciate, as they should be comprehended and appreciated by a self-governing people, the wise provisions and limitations of constitutions and laws; or that you can have that knowledge of public affairs which is necessary to qualify you to discharge all the duties of the citizen. No people has ever yet bounded at once into the full enjoyment of the right of self-government. But you are free, in common with all our people; and you have the same right, regulated by law, that others have to enter upon the pursuit of prosperity and happiness."

matter. The emancipation of four million slaves, by removing the three-fifths' restriction, adds to the Southern States a representative population equal to that of all Massachusetts and New Hampshire, - an addition, say, of thirteen to their delegation in the Lower House at Washington, or of ten from the States below the southern boundary of Virginia. And, if these States choose to assert their loyalty on the terms now offered, it is not easy to see what is to prevent their appearing in full force in next winter's Congress. Already it is stated, that the legislature of Virginia is controlled by men who were in open rebellion within two months. And, unless the most intelligent observers have been deceived, the temper of the controlling class in those States is any thing but loyal. Of course they will be eager to regain the privilege of politi cal power, heretofore so dearly prized and so unscrupulously used. And what new sectional policy may they possibly devise to be carried out by party coalitions, as in the former years? Will it be the restoring of slavery, perhaps under some new guise of labor-contracts and protection? Will it be the expulsion or systematic depression of the freedmen by some new "black code"? Will it be to repudiate the public debt, a debt of honor to us, but of shame to them, and a standing monument of defeat? These are among the questions which the time brings ominously near. If it were only the practice of self-government at home, few, we apprehend, would insist on perpetual disfranchisement as the penalty of treason. But reconstruction means not only privilege and right, it means also power. The interests and the honor of the nation are just as much at stake now as they have been at any time during the last four years; and they are to be defended now against just as unscrupulous and vindictive enemies. The nation has in its hands at this moment a power which it may have parted with for ever, within six months. hence, unless its statesmanship is as bold and wary as its generalship has been. If an immediate settlement must be had at any rate, universal suffrage and equal citizenship are conditions on which it is the nation's right to insist, in that "republican form of government" which it is the nation's

duty to "guarantee to every State" restored. In the closing words of Mr. Dana's magnificent speech at Faneuil Hall, "Let the States make their own Constitutions; but the Constitutions must be satisfactory to the Republic; and, by a power which, I think, is beyond question, the Republic holds them in the grasp of war, until they have made such constitutions."

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As to civil immunities and rights, without doubt they will be restored as fast as the machinery to secure them can be put in play. The proclamation of amnesty (May 29) recites a formidable list of exceptions, reserving the penalties for treason to no less than fourteen distinct classes of persons, who must enter special applications for pardon. But this list includes the military crimes of desertion, and violation of the soldier's oath. It includes the violation of public honor and faith, in the betrayal of official trust. It also includes those crimes which are against every code, - such as murder and pillage, which have made so large and terrible a feature in the recent war. And it implies a settled purpose to destroy utterly that political oligarchy, or landed aristocracy, whose property-interests have been identified with the rebellion, by excepting the holders of estates of more than twenty thousand dollars. As to the technical offence of treason, where it can possibly be construed into mere fidelity to a false and dangerous theory of State rights, we all know that it will be dealt with in the extreme of lenity. A "proscription" such as some affect to dread, no one seriously either fears or hopes. The one fit and inevitable punishment of treason in a republic is the blasting of its ambition and the failure of its schemes; as that of rebellion and civil war is the utter desolation and penury they have brought. But there are crimes great and terrible, which stand out in a sort of lurid relief on the dark background of war,- bright with excessive dark; and it is by their complicity with these that the guilt of men will be judged, and their sentences pronounced. The brutal persecution of loyalists in Northern Georgia and Eastern Tennessee; the massacres of Forts Pillow and Wagner, and the sack of Lawrence; the plots, so nearly successful, to burn

VOL. LXXIX. — 5TH S. VOL. XVII. NO. I.

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the great cities of the North, and to poison them with yellow fever; the contemplated, and all but effected, horrors of the north-western conspiracy; the deliberate and intentional starving of prisoners of war, to a number which has been stated as high as sixty-four thousand, as the readiest means to deplete the northern armies; and, finally, the assassination of the President by one last, despairing blow of malice and revenge, these added together make an accumulation of atrocity ample to employ all the severities of our courts. The new reign of peace will be inaugurated by no political executions. But these are crimes against humanity itself, not specifically against the State. As the responsible author and voucher of them, not as chief of a political conspiracy or head of a rival confederation, the public conscience has settled to the deliberate conviction, that the life of Jefferson Davis is a just and necessary forfeit to the law. And to his wretched accomplices, no more mercy can or need be shown, than to criminals of that grade anywhere. The most distinctly treasonable act of all contending in arms against the nation's life, aggravated by previous desertion and betrayal of her service, - has already been practically pardoned by the grant of military parole; and no one, surely, expects to see any Confederate officer, as such, put on trial for his life. Disfranchisement or exile may be insisted on, in particular cases; but it will be purely on considerations of public safety, not in the hope of adding any thing to the ignominy and the warning there must always be in a baffled conspiracy against the liberties of the State.

We have dwelt, perhaps overmuch, on the antagonisms which are the inevitable heritage of war, and the sharp embarrassment of peace. But we should do wrong not to acknowledge that large faith in liberty and human right, which is at the heart of our existence as a nation; the overthrow of many a barrier which has held the sections in ignorant hostility hitherto; the striking tokens of what the most careless can scarce fail to recognize as a special Providence in the critical moments of our struggle, auguring great hope in the future of our Republic. That faith, with the

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