alone, and the freedmen will take care of that and
of themselves too. We must say to the cotton lords, as Horne Tooke said
to Lord Somebody in England,--"If, as you claim, power should follow
property, then we will take from you the property, and the power shall
follow." And fortunately for us, the same logic of events points to the
political enfranchisement of the black loyalists, as the only way to
prevent Congress from being replenished with plotting and disloyal men.
Fair play to them is thus fair play to all of us; and, like Tony
Lumpkin, in Goldsmith's comedy, if we are indifferent as to
disappointing those who depend upon us, we may at least be trusted not
to disappoint ourselves.

The lingering caste-institutions in the Free States,--as the exclusive
street-cars of Philadelphia, the separate schools of New York, the
special gallery reserved for colored people in Boston theatres,--must
inevitably pass away with the institution which they merely reflect. The
perfect acquiescence with which abolition of these things is regarded,
so soon as it takes effect, shows how little they are really sustained
by public opinion. These are local matters, mere corollaries, and will
settle themselves. They are not upheld by any conviction, and scarcely
even by prejudice, but by an impression in each citizen's mind that
there is some other citizen who is not prepared for the change. When it
comes to the point, it is found that everybody is perfectly prepared,
and that the objections were merely traditional. Who has ever heard of
so much as a petition to restore any of the unjust distinctions which
have thus been successively outgrown?

But in our vast national dealings with the freedmen, we still drift from
experiment to experiment, and adopt no settled purpose. Did this proceed
from the difficulty of wise solution, in so vast a problem, one could
blame it the less. But thus far the greatest want has been, not of
wisdom, but of fidelity,--not of constructive statesmanship, but rather
of pains to discern and of honesty to observe the humbler path of daily
justice. When we consider that the order which laid the basis for the
whole colored army--the "Instructions" of the Secretary of War to
Brigadier-General Saxton, dated August 25, 1862--was so carelessly
regarded by the War Department that it was not even placed on file, but
a copy had to be supplied, the year following, by the officer to whom it
was issued, it is obvious in what