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.
Undoubtedly, immense advantages were to be contemplated in the
restoration of the United States to their primitive boundaries and
united power. But it was not without deep apprehension of moral taint
and ulterior evil consequences, that a wise patriot could look even then
to any attempt of the old matrimonial partners to dwell again in a
common household, upon the old terms, and with no real settlement of the
dispute between them.
The latter of these suppositions, the remanding of a hostile and
rebellious tier of States, who had long and proudly enjoyed the dignity
of State sovereignty, to a subordinate condition, had also its
proportion of difficulty and danger. To carry out a _programme_ of this
kind would demand a great increase of the army and navy, and would give
to the military spirit and power a preponderance in the councils of the
nation which has always been deemed dangerous to the liberties of the
country.
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