What a spot for the son of Hiram Meeker to select, in which to receive his mother's visit!
What a place for the fastidious Arabella to enter!
THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.
PART TWO.
We come, in this paper, to the consideration of the possible results which this war might have, viewed from the beginning; of the several modes, in other words, in which it might terminate. The most distant extremes of possible eventuality were the entire conquest of the North by the South, and the entire conquest of the Southern rebellion by the North, so as to secure the continuance of the old Union upon the old basis; or with such modifications as the changed condition of things at the South might require. The supposition of the conquest of the Northern States by the Southern Vandals has been already glanced at and sufficiently considered for so remote and improbable a contingency. The counter supposition of the entire success of the United States Government in the reassertion of its own authority over the whole of its original domain, divided, at the commencement of the war, into two branches.
It was the general theory at the North, at that time, that the animus of rebellion was confined at the South to comparatively few minds, and that the war was to be a war, not against the South as a people, but against a tyrannical and usurping faction at the South, and for the defence of the people at large residing in that region. There was a modicum of truth in this theory, but events have shown, and any one who knew the South well might safely have predicted, that the whole people there would soon be subdued to the authority of those few. Such was the terror throughout the confederacy, and still is, where the facts have not been already changed by the war, at the mere imputation of sympathy with anti-slavery sentiment in any form, that a part, hardly one tenth even of the whole, in numerical strength, could successfully put the remaining nine tenths into Coventry, and bully them out of all expression of adverse opinion, by simply threatening to accuse them of abolition tendencies. No people on earth were ever so completely cowed by the nightmare of unpopular opinion as the people of the South. Hence whatever was violently advocated under pretence of excessive devotion to, or ultra championship of the cause of slavery, was sure in the end to succeed. By this process, the Union party at the South has been gradually overawed and diminished for years past, and finally driven, since the outbreak of the rebellion, into a complete surrender to, and a full coöperation with the rebel chiefs. Whatever may seem to be the reaction in behalf of Union sentiment, as the triumphant armies of the North march to the Gulf, it will be long before the real opinion of the masses will declare itself in full as it exists. The fear of the renewal of the old terrorism, so soon as our armies shall be withdrawn, will effectually prevent the free expression of the favorable sentiment which has heretofore existed, and still exists, as a substratum of Southern opinion in favor of the Union, unless the Northern conquest is made unquestionably final.
In the event that the theory just stated should have proved true, that, aided by the presence of Northern troops, there should have been a loyal sentiment sufficiently powerful and extended to reassert itself, in the extreme South, and that, consequently, all the Southern States should have been again represented in Congress at an early day, and should again have taken their places as equal partners under the Constitution of our common country, it seemed just possible that the results of the war should be confined, in their immediate action, to what may be called its educational effects upon the Southern mind and its economical bearings upon the wealth and industry of the nation.
As the other branch of the alternative, the South might have to be conquered by the force of our arms, and might remain unanimously, or in vast preponderance, disloyal and rebellious in spirit. In that event, it would be requisite, if those States were to be retained at all as part of the Union, that they should be reconsigned to the Territorial condition, or otherwise governed still by the central authority.
In the former of these two latter suppositions: that of the reëstablishment of the old status, it was foreseen by some, as not impossible, that the final result might prove disastrous to the freedom of the North. With the advent of peace, the suspicions of the Northern people with regard to the designs and real character of Southern men would have been allayed. A certain appeal would even have been made, by the suggestions of their own generosity, to the hearts of Northern men to lay aside all hostile and adverse action as against the South, and to welcome them with open arms to all the rights and privileges of the common country. Meantime, a horde of unscrupulous machinators would have been installed in the seats of power at Washington, and would have recommenced operations, in the consciousness of the new strength acquired in the field from which they had just retired, with all the chicanery and craft with which heretofore they had blinded the North and secretly controlled the destinies of our Government. Southern men and Southern women would again have been feasted and feted at Northern hotels and watering places, and again have given tone to Northern opinion, while new and especial reasons would have seemed to exist for opposing countervailing influences, as unnecessary agitation, and causes of the retention of acrimonious feeling between the two sections, which had now resolved to live in amity with each other. In a word, all the sources of corruption of Northern sentiment, emanating from the South, would have been renewed in their operation, with some circumstances added, tending to give to them greater potency than ever before.