whether the negroes themselves should not have some opportunity of becoming familiar with their new rights and duties, before the best results can be expected from their exercise of the highest privilege of citizenship; whether any healthy political organization can be formed, until the labor problem has been practically solved, and its difficulties adjusted; whether, during the period of adjustment, the protective interference of the general government is not imperatively demanded, and whether, in any event, the immediate restoration of rebel states to political power would not be most dangerous to the nation. A term of probation will work no injustice to the whites. To the blacks, there are incalculable advantages in delay. And, in view of the fearful peril of immediate reconstruction upon white basis, even those who are not yet prepared for the enfranchisement of the blacks cannot escape the duty of securing for them the protection of the government, until the whites of the South manifest a decided change of temper. To those of either opinion, the immediate duty is the same. Recognition, permanent establishment, and representation in Congress, must be refused for the present to all the revolted states. Provisional government or military control must be maintained, until there is sufficient evidence, both in the form of their laws and in the temper of the people, that the rebel communities can be safely restored to their political powers as members of the Union.

Should resolute adherence to this single just principle cause the rejection of every rebel state, as at present organized, it will prevent all necessity of formal action upon other tests upon which loyal men might differ. It will thus throw open the whole question as to the best mode of governing the rebel communities during the transition period, and the precautions to be taken and the basis to be adopted for their permanent organization. Congress will then consider how to protect the truly loyal whites of those communities, and to secure for them in the management of affairs an influence of which, at present, they seem to have little. It will also have in mind the protection of the national credit, remembering that the public faith is pledged to those who have given of their sub

stance to secure our victory. It is idle to say that no party will ever try to repudiate the national debt. So men said that no party would ever seek to destroy the Union. Join to the Northern Democracy the eleven states seeking restoration as now controlled, and repudiation, or division of the national and rebel war debts among the states, would almost surely follow. Nor is there any other matter of more lasting importance than provision for popular education at the South. Well filled. school houses are a better pledge of loyalty than well manned forts. New England men, armed with muskets, have made the Southern people submissive; to make them loyal, prosperous, and fit to share in the glories of the future Union, send New England women armed with spelling-books. No truly Republican form of government can succeed in states where the education of the people is forbidden by law or practice.

For each and all of these difficulties there is one ultimate remedy. To secure liberal provision for the education of the laboring class, give to the laboring class the ballot. To secure to the laborer sure protection in his rights of person and property-a protection more complete and permanent than any constitutional provision can give-put into his hands the ballot. To guard the national credit, arm with the ballot that class of whose freedom the national debt is the price. To crush forever the dominance of an aristocracy of purse or skin, make citizens of those who have been slaves. To build up loyal states at the South, trust not the absolute control to whites, known to be hostile in feeling, who still cherish theories which make oaths of allegiance a farce; trust rather the blacks, who are loyal, as the whites are disloyal, in obedience to prejudices and passions more potent than any logic or edu cation. To reward fidelity, to punish treason, to save the nation, or to protect the rights of the blacks; the solution is ever the same. And then impartial suffrage is right. No man can make it anything but an outrage to deny civil privileges on the ground of color. No man can pretend that it is truly republican for a minority to control a majority, or truly safe to put loyal men at the mercy of rebels.

To these and other reasons, there is but one answer: Con

of

necticut, a New England state, has refused! There are some arguments so utterly illogical that no man can answer them, and this is one. Why, of six New England states, the example of one should be called conclusive, and the example of five worthless, or why another state cannot be expected to attempt a just thing until all the New England states have done it, or why any state should be governed by the example any other state in such a question, it would puzzle any man to tell. If Connecticut has outraged good sense and common justice, does that make it necessary for the whole country to do likewise? If Connecticut has forgotten which century it is, can no other state remember? The argument becomes yet more absurd, when we reflect that Connecticut has not rebelled, and is not under the absolute control of the National Government because of her rebellion, nor has she voted to disfranchise an actual majority of her loyal citizens. She has not lost her rights of self-government under the Constitution. The votes of her negroes are not necessary to make her tolerably loyal. But South Carolina has a minority of disloyal whites, and a majority of loyal blacks; her whites have cast to the winds their franchises and powers under the Constitution, and it is just, truly republican, and eminently prudent, to call to the aid of the nation the majority hitherto disfranchised. The example of Connecticut has nothing to do with the obligation of the Government to secure protection to the loyal men, black or white, at the South; it has nothing to do with the urgent necessity which compels the nation to protect itself, at once against a war of races, and against the restoration of states under rebel influence. The nation has in its guardianship four millions of freedmen at the South. At the same time it has its own safety and honor to protect. It can elevate the freedmen to the dignity of true citizenship, and they will then protect themselves and the national interests. Or it can leave them to the degrading and oppressive policy of those who would have kept them slaves, and who still mean to keep them serfs or peons, and the result will be perpetual danger of black insurrections and of white rebellions. The example of Connecticut has nothing to do with that alternative.

The cynic who doubted whether man was a reasoning being, had much to justify him. Precisely because the action of Connecticut has in reason nothing to do with the true policy to be pursued at the South, it will be all the more potent in fact. Prejudices outweigh syllogisms. And a base and clearly unreasonable prejudice is as contagious as the small-pox. There are, very likely, one hundred thousand voters, in this enlightened Republic, who were favorably inclined in September to the enfranchisement of loyal blacks at the South, and who, on this tenth day of October, having heard that Connecticut preferred "a white man's government," think that sorry phrase the epitome of all social and political science. In plain terms, the vote in Connecticut has both stimulated and developed a degree of prejudice which it should be the effort of all truly loyal men to enlighten and remove. Meanwhile, it is fortunate that the immediate restoration of rebel communities need not depend upon the suffrage question, upon which public opinion is yet but half formed. It will be found that those communities grant no adequate or permanent protection to loyal men of the South, in their rights of person and property. That alone will be just ground for deferring the restoration of political powers. It will be found that the laws of those states make no such provision for the education of the people as is essential to a republican form of government. It will be found that the true union men have been pushed into the background, and that the control has fallen into hands red with loyal blood. Not even the election of men personally unexceptionable as representatives will lead Congress to overlook those vital points. Acting upon such considerations as these, there can be no doubt that Congress will be sustained by the people. The sober second thought will not justify the clamor for hasty settlement of such momentous issues as are now involved. Sturdy and long-lived plants do not shoot up in a night. Eleven states, with ten millions of people! It is not work that should be hurried. Postponement does no harm. It gives time for education of the people of the South; time for the full establishment of free labor; time for the immigration of loyal men from the North; time for Northern

capital, enterprise, and intellect to grasp the direction of affairs, and to shape both industrial and political activity in harmony with the new era; time for the negro to learn something of the duties and responsibilities of freedom; time for the exacerbated passions that strife and suffering have engendered to become tempered by reflection and interest. It gives time for the assured adoption of the amendment abolishing slavery, and for the passage and ratification of a constitutional amendment proportioning representation to the number of qualified electors. It gives time for the people of the North to study the problem before them, to winnow away the chaff of prejudice and ignorance, and bring out the conscience, the reason, and the practical sense. Time is wanted! Here it is not delay that is dangerous. And before another session of Congress, we may hope to see reorganization at the South upon a safer, a wiser, and a juster basis.

It thrills one to think what a glorious nation care and patience will now give us. Riding by night in a railroad train, we think little of the thousand dangers, little, perhaps, of the happy home beyond. Go out to the front of the engine, and realize how the long train, full freighted with precious lives and hopes, thunders on into the darkness; how destruction lurks in the decaying tie, the loosened rock, the over-hanging tree! Then there comes, fresh and clear, the vision of the bright fireside, the waiting wife and child, and it makes the nerves quiver to think how little a thing would take one forever from the joys of that welcome, and send desolation and mourning, instead of gladness, to that household. So, as we study the future of our country, it makes one tremble with excitement to think of all the glories and blessings that await wise statesmanship. A land richer and more prosperous than poet or prophet have ever imagined, knit together in every part by harmony of interests and homogeneity of institutions, and developed in all its wonderful resources by hopeful labor, active thought, and enterprising capital; a land where just laws make peace perpetual and rights secure, where poor and rich are alike protected, and neither justice nor hope is denied to any man because of race or color; a land where every village