If this war has demonstrated any thing, it has been, firstly, the fact that the South shall stay in the Union, and secondly, the folly of permitting the old Southern system to control us in politics, in social life, and in every thing. We have had enough of it. Manufactures, free labor, science, schools, the press, learning, new ideas, social reforms, the whole progress of the age, inspiring twenty millions, can no longer be cuffed and scouted in the Senate and snubbed in the salon or public meeting by the private interests of half a million of the most illiberal and ignorant conservatives in existence. Henceforth the North must rule. 'Must' is a hard nut, but Southern teeth must crack it, whether they will or no. We may shuffle and quibble, but to this it must come. Every day of the war renders it more certain. The farm must encroach on the plantation, the rural nobility give place to the higher nobility of intelligence; social culture based on mudsills must make way for the mudsills themselves—for lo! the sills which they buried are not dead timber, neither do they sleep or rot—they were fresh saplings, and with the reviving breath of spring and at the gleam of the sun of freedom, they will shoot up into brave, strong life.
Let them talk, dispute, hem and haw, that will—we can not set aside the great fact that in future our Government will be united in its policy, great in its strength, and no longer impeded by the selfish arrogance of a petty planterdom. Labor and capital are bursting their bonds—the Middle Class of North-America which Southerners and Englishmen equally revile, is becoming all-powerful and seeks to substitute business common-sense for the aristocratic policy which has hitherto guided us. It is no longer a question of radicalism, of poor against rich, of lazzaroni and royalists, but of a new element—that of labor and of intellect combined—the guiding-spirit of the North. And the question is, how to best aid this element in its progress?
The army of the United States at the present day contains within itself the best part of such free labor and intellect as is needed to reform the South. That dashing and daring energy which gladly enters on new fields, and loves bold enterprises, has streamed by scores of thousands from the farm and factory toward the camp and the battle-field. There it is doing brave service for God and for freedom. Every day sees martyrs for the holy cause drawn from the ranks of these good and noble volunteers. They die noble—ay, holy deaths, and as they die new aspirants for honor step forward to fill their places. When the war shall be over, it is to the army that we should look to revive the wasted South, to farm its exhausted plantations and employ its blacks. Is there no significance in the numerous anecdotes which reach us of Northern intellect already displaying itself in a thousand forms of restless activity? The newspaper before us states that General Shepley, in New-Orleans, has threatened that if the bakers of his conquered city do not supply bread more cheaply he will remodel their whole business and employ bakers from the army. 'Bakers from the army!' Ay, smiths, engineers, editors, and every thing else are there, amply capable of reörganizing the whole South—of tilling its fields to greater advantage, of developing its neglected resources, of making the old, desolate, lazy, dissolute Southland hum with enterprise. Let them do it.
We may as well do it betimes with a good grace, for it is very doubtful if those who venture to oppose the settlement of our soldiers in the South, will not stir up such a storm of trouble as this country never saw. An army of half a million after a year or two years of battle-life, will not calmly return to its wonted avocations, notwithstanding all that has been said to that effect. A warrant for Western lands, which will possibly bring a hundred dollars, will seem but a small matter to men who have seen unlimited paths to competence in the rich fields of the South. They will not comprehend why the enemy should be allowed to retain his possessions while they themselves have been thrown out of employment. There is to be some end to this protecting the rights and property of rebels. And it is very certain that a vast number of those who were non-combatants will perfectly agree with them.
It is pleasant to see the process of reconstruction going on so well in New-Orleans under the bayonets of our troops. But neither in New-Orleans nor elsewhere has it any vitality save under Northern direction, aided by Northern industry. The hatred of the South for the old Union is insane, terrible, and ineradicable. The real secessionists will never come back, they will never be conciliated. They will oppose Union, oppose free labor, hinder our every effort to benefit them, and be our deadly foes to the last. We might as well abandon now and forever any hope of reconstruction to be founded on reformed secessionists. A large party there is—and it will, if properly protected, become much larger—who will join the Union for the sake of preserving their property. But this party will not be increased a single man by our neglecting to punish those who have been active rebels, while on the other hand it will dwindle to nothing if left exposed to temptation and enmity. We must proceed with the utmost energy, and our only hope is in a complete reörganization of the South, by infusing into it Northern blood, life, ideas, education, and industry. And the only effective means of doing this will be to settle our army in the South. The task before us is a tremendous one, but so is the war, and we must not flinch from it.
We have come to an era of great ideas and great deeds, such as rarely overtake nations in history, and which when they do, either crush them to the dust or elevate them to the topmost pinnacle of glory. Petty expediency, timid measures, small politics, will no longer help this country. There is a great cause of evil in America—slavery—which is destined to disappear, and which will disappear whether we legislate for or against it. It is disappearing now under the influences of the war. Beyond it lies the equally great evil of Southern hatred, inertia, laziness, ignorance, and depravity. We must learn to live in the great ideas of making all this disappear before superior intelligence, industry, and humanity. The great principles of free labor, scientific reforms and culture, the enlargement of capital, the feeding and teaching the poor, should become as a deep-seated religion in our hearts, and we should live and labor to promote this great and holy faith which is in reality the practical side of Christianity—that great shield of the poor. To extend these doctrines over the whole continent is a noble mission, and one not to be balked or hindered by foolish scruples or weak pity for a pitiless foe.
He who can raise his mind to the contemplation of the government of North-America, ruling over a perfectly free continent, may see in the future such a picture of national greatness as the world never before realized. Every State attracting the eager labor of millions of emigrants—for there will be no cause in future for the foreigner to carefully shun the slave hive—the native American directing as ever the enterprises—one grand government spreading from ocean to ocean—the whole growing every year more and more united through the constant increase of industrial interests and mutual needs—this is indeed a future to look forward to. And it is no idle dream. It will be something to be an American when we count one hundred millions of united freemen.
The first step in this advance lies right before us. It will be in 'Northing' the South and in completely sweeping away, by means of free labor and free schools every trace of the foul old negro-owning arrogance. And to do this we must begin by finding or making a way to induce a large portion of the army to remain in the South and reform it. It is a grand scheme, but we live in the day of great deeds, and should not flinch from them.
It is, however, tolerably clear to him who looks to the future, that whether we boldly embrace this scheme or not, it will force itself upon us or else entail some great disaster. It is more to our interest to reward the army with Southern land-grants than it is even for theirs to accept them. The longer we bolster up in its possessions an insolent enemy, so much the longer shall we have to support an army and pay taxes. The sooner we weaken the enemy by introducing industrial rivals into his country, the better it will be for us.
If it be difficult to settle our army all over the South, let there be at least a vigorous beginning made in Texas, and other States. With Texas thoroughly colonized from the North and from Europe, sedition would be under constant check, and its boasted cotton supremacy completely held in by an unlimited rival supply of free-labor cotton. Every Southern port should be held and governed as New-Orleans is now being treated. In due time there would spring up a new generation of Southrons who would think of us as something else than cowardly, vulgar, stingy serfs, and learn that social merit is conferred not by being born on this or that piece of 'sacred' dirt, but by full development and exercise of the talents with which God has gifted us.