l at that moment be easiest attained: they will make
concessions for it,--will give up the slaves; and the whole torment of
the past half-century will come back to be endured anew.

Neither do I doubt, if such a composition should take place, that the
Southerners will come back quietly and politely, leaving their haughty
dictation. It will be an era of good feelings. There will be a lull
after so loud a storm; and, no doubt, there will be discreet men from
that section who will earnestly strive to inaugurate more moderate and
fair administration of the Government, and the North will for a time
have its full share and more, in place and counsel. But this will not
last,--not for want of sincere good-will in sensible Southerners, but
because Slavery will again speak through them its harsh necessity. It
cannot live but by injustice, and it will be unjust and violent to the
end of the world.

The power of Emancipation is this, that it alters the atomic social
constitution of the Southern people. Now their interest is in keeping
out white labor; then, when they must pay wages, their interest will be
to let it in, to get the best labor, and, if they fear their blacks, to
invite Irish, German, and American laborers. Thus, whilst Slavery makes
and keeps disunion, Emancipation removes the whole objection to union.
Emancipation at one stroke elevates the poor white of the South, and
identifies his interest with that of the Northern laborer.

Now, in the name of all that is simple and generous, why should not
this great right be done? Why should not America be capable of a second
stroke for the well-being of the human race, as eighty or ninety years
ago she was for the first? an affirmative step in the interests of human
civility, urged on her, too, not by any romance of sentiment, but by
her own extreme perils? It is very certain that the statesman who shall
break through the cobwebs of doubt, fear, and petty cavil that lie
in the way, will be greeted by the unanimous thanks of mankind. Men
reconcile themselves very fast to a bold and good measure, when once it
is taken, though they condemned it in advance. A week before the two
captive commissioners were surrendered to England, every one thought it
could not be done: it would divide the North. It was done, and in two
days all agreed it was the right action. And this action which costs so
little (the parties injured by it being such a handful that they can
very easily be indemni