Such are some of the modes to be rejected. And now, in the second place, consider the ways in which guaranties may be obtained.
1. Time is necessary. There must be no precipitation. Time is the gentlest, but most powerful revolutionist. Time is the surest reformer. Time is peacemaker. Time is necessary to growth, and it is an element of change. For thirty years and more this wickedness was maturing. Who can say that the same time will not be needed to mature the conditions of permanent peace? Who can say that a generation must not elapse before these Rebel communities have been so far changed as to become safe associates in a common government? Plainly, this cannot be wrought at once. Wellington exclaimed at Waterloo, “Would that night or Blücher were come!” Time alone was substitute for a powerful ally. It was more through time than battle that La Vendée was changed to loyalty. Time, therefore, we must have. Through time all other guaranties may be obtained; but time itself is a guaranty.
2. Meanwhile follow Congress in the present exclusion of Rebels from political power. They must not be voted for, and they must not vote. On this principle I take my stand. Let them buy and sell; let them till the ground; and may they be industrious and successful. These things they may do; but they must not be admitted at once into the copartnership of our Government. As well might the respectable banker reïnstate his son at once in the firm he has betrayed, and invest him again with all the powers of a partner. The father received his son with parental affection, and forgave him; but he did not invite the criminal to resume his former desk in Wall Street. And yet the son, who had robbed and forged on an unprecedented scale, is as worthy of trust in the old banking-house as one of our Rebels in the government of the country. A long probation will be needed before either can be admitted to former fellowship. The state of outlawry is the present condition of each, and this condition must not be hastily relaxed.
Congress has already set the example by excluding from “any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States,” and also by excluding, as attorney or counsellor, from any court of the United States, every person who has voluntarily given “aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement” to the Rebellion, or who has “sought or accepted any office whatever” under it, or who has yielded to it any “voluntary support.” By this and the supplementary Act,[244] all Rebels are debarred from holding office under the United States, or from practising in the courts of the United States. This exclusion, thus sanctioned by Congress, must be the pole-star of our national policy. If Rebels cannot be officers under our Government, they ought not to be voters. They should be politically disfranchised, purely and simply as a measure of necessary precaution, and in order to prepare the way for those guaranties which we seek. “Vipers cannot use their venom in the cold.” These are words of political wisdom, as of scientific truth; and a great Italian writer did not hesitate to inculcate from them the same lesson that I do now.
3. Surely, recent Rebels, who led in secession, and held office under the Rebellion, are poor professors to rally these communities to the support of the national freedman and the national creditor, and generally to the establishment of the guaranties essential to safety. Reason and experience warn us to postpone trust in such persons. Overcome in battle, they wrap themselves in a mantle of loyalty, tied by an oath, as
“they who, to be sure of Paradise,
Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.”
But character is not changed in a day; and that “Southern heart,” which was “fired” against the Union, still preserves its vindictive violence. Even if for a moment controlled, who can tell how long it will continue in this mood? There is an ancient well-known fable, where a cat was transformed into a beautiful woman; but, on the night of her marriage, hearing the sound of a mouse, she sprang from bed with all her original feline nature. And so a Rebel, transformed by political necromancy into a loyalist, will suddenly start in full cry to run down a national freedman or national creditor. So strong is nature. Horace tells us, “Drive it out with a pitchfork, and it will return.” Therefore do I insist, put not political trust in the man who has been engaged in warring upon his country. I ask not his punishment. I would not be harsh. There is nothing humane that I would reject. Nothing in hate. Nothing in vengeance. Nothing in passion. I am for gentleness. I am for a velvet glove; but for a while I wish the hand of iron. I confess that I have little sympathy with those hypocrites of magnanimity whose appeal for the Rebel master is only a barbarous indifference towards the slave; and yet they cannot more than I desire the day of reconciliation. To this end I am with them, so far as is consistent with safety; but I cannot see my country sacrificed to a false idea. Pardon, if you will. Nobody shall outdo me in clemency. But do not trust the Rebel politically. The words of Shakespeare are not too strong to picture the danger of such attempt:—
“Thou may’st hold a serpent by the tongue,