when the war is over, should it end in the
reestablishment of the Union. Southern journalists say:
'If the North is successful in its mad scheme of conquest, we shall
look upon ourselves as a subjugated people, and there never can be
cordial union between the people of the two sections.'
Nonsense. With the coming of peace, there will also come a very
different spirit over the dream of the entire South. The great mass of
her people have been cruelly duped, and not less cruelly coerced; and
once the war is over, these people will become undeceived, and at once
relieved from the gyves of a remorseless conscription. There will be a
violent reaction in Southern sentiment, and a storm of indignation will
be hurled against the instigators of rebellion for all the torture and
agony and ruin they have brought to the millions of a once happy nation.
The war for the Union will yet find an altar in every Southern home; it
will become as truly appreciated there as here; the Southern people will
one day glory as greatly in its magnificent results. There will be no
longer a few thousand aristocrats, calling themselves 'the South,' and
teaching hatred to freedom and progress. This class will be shorn of
power and influence, as one of the consequences of the war; and being no
longer competent for good or mischief, they may, indeed, nurse their
gloom, and torture their lives to the bitter end with the wail, 'We are
a subjugated people.' But it will be the wail of selfishness for the
sceptre which has departed forever from their hands. There is nothing to
fear from these. Very soon after the Government shall have vindicated
its competence and extended its jurisdiction over the rebel States, will
the most influential and active of their people range themselves on the
side of the 'powers that be'--such is the charm of power, the magic of
interest, the welcome of peace. All the antagonism generated and
cherished by slavery will have totally disappeared; and the South will
soon be on the side of all freedom. There will be cordial cooeperation
under free labor and free trade, between her people and our people; and
though diversified as to occupations, habits, and tastes, they will
constitute essentially one great political brotherhood.
When slavery, the cause of the present unhappy strife, is extinguished,
our country has little to fear, except, perhaps, from the Rocky
Mountains, which interpose so formidable a barrier betwe
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