le we search in vain for a trace
of proof that there is the slightest hope of reconciliation, we are
still entreated to restore every thing in _statu quo ante bellum_, and
bear all the results of the war ourselves, as if forsooth we had been
after all in the wrong. And so the Vallandighams and Davises declare
that we were. 'Abolitionism caused it all,' they say, 'nothing but
Abolition.'

Meanwhile, the question urges itself on us every day with more pressing
power, how we are really to settle the whole difficulty? We see but one
course--the 'Northing' of the South. We are content to waive for the
present all theory or project of confiscation, save so far as promoting
the settlement of those soldiers and emigrants who may wish to settle in
the South is concerned. _This_ question demands consideration, and must
have it. Whether the lands to be appropriated for this purpose come
from rebel estates which have ministered to the war, or whether they are
to be taken from State property, they must be had; for the settlement of
the South and the proper rewarding of the army are matters of paramount
importance. The South can no longer exist in its present social
condition. People who believe, to use the language of their most
respectable journal, the Richmond _Whig_, that:

'Yankees are the most contemptible and detestable of God's
creation; vile wretches, whose daily sustenance consists in the
refuse of all other people; for they eat nothing that any body else
will buy;... who have long very properly looked upon themselves as
our social inferiors, as our serfs:'

People, we say, who believe this of us, must be taught to think
differently and truthfully. If they lived in China, it would be
otherwise; but linked to us as they are, we can no longer tolerate such
outrageous superciliousness as they manifest. Those among them who will
learn, may be taught; those who will not, must be supplanted by people
who are not too proud to work, who do not 'abominate the system of free
schools, because the schools are free,'[B] and revile free labor,
because it consists of 'greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, and
small-fisted farmers.' The task is great; but it must be accomplished.
The war is drawing to an end; but a greater and nobler task lies before
the soldiers and the free men of America--the extending of
_civilization_ into the South. Let us lift our minds above the narrow
limits of 'party,' and realize the m