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 cooeperation 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of the old terrorism, so soon as our armies shall be withdrawn, will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.
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