It does not require even that the complete reconquest of the South should be awaited in order that the question of the return of subdued States into the Union upon the old terms should be sprung upon the nation, and perhaps decided, by a precedent, before the attention of the country can be thoroughly directed to the momentous nature of the step proposed. The New York Herald has been hitherto a steady and consistent advocate of this policy, and a powerful agitator in its behalf. The following extract from its columns indicates the imminence of the issue, as well as the simple and seemingly reasonable political machinery by which the whole thing is to be effected:
'It appears from the correspondence to which we have referred that certain citizens of New Orleans, some of whose names are given elsewhere, have resolved to restore Louisiana to the Union, and that they intend to do this in the manner pointed out by Secretary Seward in his famous reply to the intervention despatch of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. That is to say, they intend to set the State Government in motion, elect members of the Legislature, and send loyal representatives to Congress. These gentlemen assert—and the Tribune does not deny—that Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates indorse this idea, and that Mr. Etheridge, as Clerk of the House of Representatives, has consented to receive the loyal members from Louisiana, upon their own credentials, until the House is organized. They also say—and the Tribune does not deny—that Mr. Etheridge has a perfect right to do this upon the precedent established by the Broad Seal controversy, some twenty years ago. Under these circumstances, the Union men propose to hold an election for five members of Congress—one from each district and one on the general ticket—and also for members of the State Senate and Assembly. 'They are anxious,' says the Tribune correspondent, 'that Louisiana shall take the lead in this matter, and there is no doubt but Mississippi and the other States will, in due time, follow.' So far, the patriotic reader will search in vain for any objection to a plan which promises so much good for the Union, and will be at a loss to know upon what grounds the Tribune can oppose it with any show of loyalty.'
It is no part of the object of this writing to discuss the legality or the constitutionality of any course of proceeding in the premises. What can be done and what cannot be done under the law, as it stands, is a question for lawyers and judges. How far, if at all, the exigency has annulled or modified the law; how far the axiom, inter arma silent leges ('in war the laws are silent'), shall be stretched to cover the case, is a question for statesmen and military commanders. The writer of these strictures speaks from none of those points of view, but as a social philosopher, viewing the drifts of inevitable consequence from one or the other grand policy in respect to the national destiny—irrespective of the minor measures by which it may be executed. A course utterly suicidal, viewed from this higher platform of observation, may proceed with the most unimpeachable subserviency to all the forms of the law; or, contrariwise, a policy replete with the highest prosperity and happiness of the coming ages, may chance to have its foundations laid in some startling deviation from all considerations of precedent and routine.
In other words, what can be done or cannot be done under the law, or without violence to the law, is not now the question under consideration. What must be done, whether under the law or above the law,[12] to secure certain great ends of human progression, and to avoid positions of utter disaster to the life of the American people of the future, is so.
Whether the theory of Mr. Sumner, that the revolted States are, by the operation of the revolt, or should be by the action of the Government, remanded to the territorial condition, holds good; whether the theory of Mr. Owen, that the machinery of the State Governments at the South remains unaffected by the insurrection, but that the inhabitants, being traitors, are incapable of administering it, until they are purged of their treason by the action of the United States Government, is held to be the better opinion; or, whether, in fine, the easy and simple theory of the Herald is the law of the subject—none of these points is the point of the present investigation. We seek to fix attention on the consequences of the act of an early readmission of the revolted States, and, what would be the same thing, of the old and governing set of slaveholding politicians, from those States, into the administration of our national affairs, no matter what should be the method of its accomplishment. In that event, the war will not be ended, but smothered merely, and left smouldering. It will burst out again, and all that has been done hitherto will have to be done over again, or fail to be accomplished, and the consequences of failure endured.
Let no ordinary and superficial method of reasoning obfuscate the public mind on this subject. It is becoming popular to say and to think that slavery at the South is already a dead or a dying institution, by the operation of the war. This opinion has in it, undoubtedly, the value of a prophecy, provided the war be continued to its legitimate termination; provided all the measures against slavery hitherto adopted are firmly maintained; provided the incipient anti-slavery sentiment now being developed in the South, be wisely fostered and protected by the strong arm long enough, or until new institutions and new methods of thinking and acting have time to consolidate. But, whoever supposes that slavery is as yet even essentially weakened, provided, for any reason, our forces and the influence of Northern sentiment were suddenly withdrawn from the South, and the ocean waves of the old despotism were for a moment even permitted to surge back over those portions of the territory which have been partially redeemed, has no adequate idea of the tremendous vitality of that institution.
A mistake on this subject, of the safe early return of the revolted States, will be one of those political blunders worse than a crime; and yet it is precisely this mistake which the American people are at this hour most likely to commit. A latent love of Southern institutions per se; the hope of personal political advantage, among politicians, by an alliance with Southern leaders, on the part of others who care nothing for the South as such; a lingering tenderness, a forgiving magnanimity and generosity, among the people at large, which would in this case be wholly misplaced; and finally an easy faith in the extent and irrevocable nature of the successes already accomplished—all concur to lead on to the commission of this error.
Talk as we will of the purposes of this war, the hand of destiny is upon us. We must accept the rôle of emancipators and champions of human freedom, or the only alternative will happen, the loss of our own liberties and the forfeiture of our national office as the leader of Progress combined with Order, on the planet. We have to deal with an implacable, a subtle, and a versatile enemy, wholly committed to the opposite cause; unscrupulous, inappreciative of magnanimity or concession of any kind; restrained by no considerations whatsoever short of the accomplishment of his absolute and tyrannical will. We have this enemy nearly prostrate under our feet, and we stand hesitating whether to avail ourselves of our advantage or to stultify ourselves at the tribunal of the world and of history, by allowing him to rise, to repossess himself of his arms, and to recommence the conflict upon terms of equal advantage.
A glance at the remaining alternative outcomings of the war must be reserved for another article.