, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to
follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for
human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come.
Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and
character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation,
and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the
fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the
facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor,
it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the
general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and
our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and
dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our
population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded
continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of
this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have
followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their
results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented
in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant
traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has
possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe;
and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful,
has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom
in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the
same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the
creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our
mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical
results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts
made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual
basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain
the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been
seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent
security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the
necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.

When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton--a
staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the
physical well-being of the whole civilized