social
institutions of republican liberty. He does not ask, like a conqueror,
for the keys of a capital. He does not ask, like a Girondist, for the
vote of a majority. He knows, it is true, as all the world knows, that,
if the vote of all the men of the South could ever be obtained, the
majority would utterly overshadow the handful of gentry who have been
lording it over white trash and black slaves together. But the President
has no wish to prolong martial law to that indefinite future when this
handful of gentlemen shall let the majority of their own people
pronounce upon their claims to rule them. Waiving the requisitions of
the theorists, and at the same time relieving himself from the necessity
of employing military power a moment longer than is necessary, he
announces, in advance, what will be his policy in extending protection
to loyal governments formed in Rebel States. If there can be found in
any State enough righteous men willing to take the oath of allegiance
and to sustain the nation in its determination for emancipation,--if
there can be found only enough to be counted up as the tenth part of
those who voted in the election of 1860, though their State should have
sinned like Gomorrah, even though its name should be South Carolina,
they shall be permitted to reconstruct its government, and that
government shall be recognized by the government of the nation.

It is true that this gift is vastly more than any of the Rebel States
has any right to claim. When the King of Oude rebels against England, he
does not find, at the end of the war, that, because he is utterly
defeated, things are to go on upon their old agreeable footing.
Rebellion is not, in its nature, one of those pretty plays of little
children, which can stop when either party is tired, because he asks for
it to stop, so gently that both parties shall walk on hand in hand till
either has got breath enough to begin the game again. If the nation were
contending against real and permanent enemies, in reducing to order the
States of the Confederacy, or if the national feeling towards the people
of those States were the bitter feeling which their leaders profess
towards our people, the nation would, of course, offer no such easy
terms. The nation would say, "When you threw off the Constitution, you
did it for better for worse. It guarantied to you your State
governments. You spurned the guaranty. Let it be so. Let the guaranty be
withdrawn. You cannot s