ready possessed: even this state of things, if
providentially enforced on us after our best exertions have been put
forth to succeed, may, again, unexpectedly prove to have concealed under
seeming failure a more fortunate termination of our herculean work.
Perhaps there is even yet not enough national virtue among us to leaven
the whole lump, and thus, by being delayed of our too greedy aspirations
for success, we may only the more surely succeed. A halt at this period
of the war was foreshadowed, it will be remembered by the reader, in the
earlier portion of this series of papers, written more than two years
ago. At any rate, if the remaining resistance of the rebel government
should prove more obstinate and prolonged than is now generally
anticipated, let there be no discouragement, and no serious
disappointment. Remember again, in that event, that our supreme triumphs
are moral and social, for which our military successes are merely a
basis; and that moral and social changes demand time to be consolidated
and secured. Immense changes are being rapidly effected in the public
sentiment and the prospective action of the reconquered portions of the
South; but such changes are not made in a day; and some retardation of
the national aspiration for a speedy termination of the war may prove
our providential security against evils which, our own precipitancy
might possibly otherwise incur. The retention of our present hold, the
gradual but slow progress to a complete final conquest, and the steady
assimilation of the reintegrated portions of the South with our Northern
and the truly American character and sentiment, would still, therefore,
deserve to be reckoned upon the side of seeming or obvious success.
But on the other hand, let us consider, for a moment, the other
alternative--that of apparent disaster, incurred from the war, not so
much in the light of overwhelming military defeats, which need hardly
now to be seriously apprehended, as from financial exhaustion and other
secondary causes introduced into the working of our national and social
life through the operation and influence of the war. Mr. Cobden,
undoubtedly a friend of our nation, and a shrewd observer of the world's
affairs on the basis of experience, or a knowledge of the past, warns us
to look forward to a period of almost utter prostration after the war
shall have terminated, and to a train of serious consequences from the
terrific strain put by it upon ou
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