158 RECOURSE TO DESPOTIC EXPEDIENTS. agency of a disaffected people? A recourse to despotic expedients would, therefore, so far as we can judge, be forced upon the North. Now, it is evident that such a step involves considerations of the greatest gravity-considerations before which the citizens of the Union may well pause and ponder. If, indeed, the consequences of this policy could be certainly confined within the designed limits, there would, perhaps, be little need for hesitation. At the worst, it would be no more than the substitution of one form of arbitrary power for another-of a civilized for a barbarous despotism-and if the new government were only equal to its task of reconstructing Southern society, its advent would be wholly a blessing. But despotic principles once introduced into the system of the Federal government, is it conceivable that their influence would end in the attainment of the object for the accomplishment of which they were at the first invoked? Is it likely that the same men, who should be exercising arbitrary authority over the whole of the Southern States, would be content, in governing the Northern, to confine themselves within constitutional bounds? Would there not be the danger that habits acquired in ruling one division of the republic would affect modes of action in the other, and that, so soon as popular institutions became troublesome in the working, they would be superseded in favour of the more direct and obvious expedients of despotism? Besides it must be remembered that something more would be required to govern a disaffected South than a staff of officials. The bureaucracy would need to be supported by an army, and the army would of necessity be at the disposal of the central government. It would be easy, of course, to prescribe constitutional rules, to define with precision the limits of administrative authority; but when the temper of arbitrary sway had been formed, when the example of an arbitrary system was constantly present to the eye and familiar to the thoughts, when the means of giving effect to arbitrary tastes were at hand, it is difficult to believe that the barrier of forms and definitions would be long respected, and that sooner or later the attempt would not be made to give to the principles of arbitrary government a more extended application. The task of holding the South in subjection would thus, as it seems to me, inevitably imperil the cause of popular institutions in North America. Now, the loss of popular government would be a heavy price to pay for the subjugation of the South, even though that subjugation involved the overthrow of the Slave Power. It is satisfactory to find that there are politicians in America who are alive to the momentous interests which this aspect of REFORMING SOUTHERN SOCIETY. 159 the question involves. In a remarkable speech lately delivered in New York, the danger to which I have adverted was very fairly and with much courage exposed. The speaker, however, contended that, by boldly following out a policy of emancipation-by striking at the root of disaffection through its causethe danger in question might be evaded. The views expressed are so important, and, looking at the recent course of events, give so much promise of becoming fruitful, that I think it right to state them in the eloquent words of their author. "Is this government, in struggling against rebellion, in re-establishing its authority, reduced to a policy which would nearly obliterate the line separating democracy from absolutism? Is it really unable to stand this test of its character? For this is the true test of the experiment. If our democratic institutions pass this crisis unimpaired, they will be stronger than ever; if not, the decline will be rapid and irremediable. But can they pass it unimpaired? Yes. This republic has her destiny in her hands. She may transform her greatest danger and distress *into the greatest triumph of her principles. There would have been no rebellion, had there not been a despotic interest incompatible with the spirit of her democratic institutions; and she has the glorious and inestimable privilege of suppressing this rebellion, by enlarging liberty instead of restraining it, by granting rights instead of violating them. . How can you rely upon the Southern people unless they are sincerely loyal, and how can they be sincerely loyal as long as their circumstances are such as to make disloyalty the natural condition of their desires and aspirations? They cannot be faithful unless their desires and aspirations change. And how can you change them? By opening before them new prospects and a new future. Look at the other side of the picture. Imagine slavery were destroyed in consequence of this rebellion. Slavery, once destroyed, can never be restored. .. Southern society being, with all its habits and interests, no longer identified with slavery, that element of the population will rise to prominent influence which most easily identifies itself with free labour—I mean the non-slaveholding people of the South. They have been held in a sort of moral subjection by the great slave-lords. Not for themselves but for them they were disloyal. The destruction of slavery will wipe out the prestige of their former rulers; it will lift the yoke from their necks; they will soon think for themselves, and thinking freely they will not fail to understand their true interests. They will find in free labour society their natural element; and free labour society is naturally loyal to the Union. Let the old political leaders fret 160 THE CONDITION OF TIME IGNORED. This is what I mean by so make loyalty to the Union its This done, the necessity of a as they please, it is the free labour majority that will give to society its character and tone. reforming Southern society as to natural temper and disposition. military occupation, the rule of force, will cease; our political life will soon return to the beaten track of self-government, and the restored Union may safely trust itself to the good faith of a reformed people. The antagonistic element which continually struggled against the vital principles of our system of government once removed, we shall be a truly united people, with common principles, common interests, common hopes, and a common future."* Such is the spirit in which the question of reconstructing the Union is now approached by some of the leading minds of the North, and such are the views which are now rapidly gaining ground through the country. While, however, readily acknowledging the proof which these speculations afford at once of a full appreciation of the real difficulties to be encountered and of philosophic boldness in meeting them, I am unable to see that the remedy suggested would obviate the danger which, it is admitted, would exist. In the reasoning which I have quoted no account appears to be taken of the element of time, so allimportant to a realization of the results anticipated. The abolition of slavery, it is truly said, would strike directly at the authority of the slave-lords. The stigma at present affixed to industry being removed, the industrial classes would quickly rise in social importance, and a free labouring population would doubtless in the end predominate in the South. But these results could not be accomplished in a moment. A disloyal people would not be rendered loyal by a single stroke of the manumitter's wand rerum imperiis hominumque Tot tantisque minor, quem ter vindicta quaterque The habits of obedience are not easily broken through, traditional feelings are powerful, and the influence of the slave-lords would probably long outlive the institution from which it derives its strength. A considerable period would, therefore, of necessity, elapse before that pervading sentiment of loyalty could be established, under the guidance of which alone, as all admit, the rule of the Union could be safely entrusted to popular institutions. But there is another result which might follow from the con * Speech of the Hon. Carl Schurz, delivered in the Cooper Institute, New York, 6th March, 1862. TRUE POLICY FOR THE NORTH. 161 quest of the South and the overthrow of slavery, the probable effects of which on the settlement of Southern society it may be worth while for a moment to consider. Is it not probable that, in the case we now contemplate, there would be an extensive immigration into the Southern States of free settlers from the North? And what would be the effect of this new ingredient on the society of the South? I imagine it would in the main be a wholesome one. The new settlers would carry with them the ideas, the enterprise, the progressive spirit of free society, and would act as a leaven of loyalty on the disaffection of the South; but I think it is equally plain they would introduce into Southern society, at all events for some time, a new element of disturbance. They would appear there as intruders, as the missionaries of a new social and political faith-a faith hateful to the old dominion, as living monuments of the humiliation of the Southern people. Is it not inevitable that between them and the old aristocracy a bitter feud would spring up—a feud which would soon be exasperated by mutual injuries, and might not impossibly be transmitted, as a heritage of hatred, to future generations? Now such a condition of society would be little favourable to the sudden conversion of the South to sentiments of loyalty; and, pending this happy consummation, how is the South to be governed? We are thus forced back upon our original difficulty—the difficulty of governing a disaffected South, from which it seems to me the path of despotism offers the only escape. For these reasons, I cannot think that the North is well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union in its original proportions. At the same time I am far from thinking that the time for peace has yet arrived. What, it seems to me, the occasion demands, and what, I think, the moral feeling of Europe should support the North in striving for, is a degree of success which shall compel the South to accept terms of separation, such as the progress of civilization in America and the advancement of human interests throughout the world imperatively require. To determine the exact amount of concession on the part of the South which would satisfy these conditions is no part of my purpose. The attempt would be futile. It will suffice that I indicate as distinctly as I can that settlement of the controversy which would, in my judgment, adequately secure the ends proposed, and which on the whole is most to be desired. Any scheme for the readjustment of political society in North America ought, it seems to me, to embrace two leading objects: -1st, the greatest practical curtailment of the domain of the Slave Power; and 2nd, the reabsorption into the sphere of free 162 PECULIAR POSITION OF THE BORDER STATES. society of as much of the present population of the Slave States as can be reabsorbed without detriment to the interests of freedom. On the assumption which I have made of the ability of the Northern people to subdue the South, these two conditions resolve themselves into one. The only obstacle to a complete reconstruction of the Union lies, on this assumption, in the difficulty of combining in the same political system forms of society so different as those presented by the Northern and Southern States. We may then, for the purpose of our discussion, confine our attention to the latter of the two conditions which have been laid down. It will be remembered that, in considering, in a former chapter, the consequences of confining the Southern Confederacy within the area already settled under slavery, it was pointed out that slavery, thus restricted, would be at once arrested in its development, and that the check given to the system would be first felt in the older or breeding states. In these states the profits from slavery being derived chiefly from the sale, not from the employment, of slaves, so soon as the creation of new markets for the human stock was precluded, the reasons for maintaining the institution would cease. The slaveholders, obliged henceforward to look to the soil as the sole source of their profits, would be forced upon improved methods of cultivation; and before the necessity for improved methods slavery would perforce disappear. Now, this being the position of slavery in the breeding states, it is evident that, so soon as the progress of the Northern armies shall have made it clear that the Slave Power must fail in its original design-still more when the South is menaced with positive curtailment of its dominions-the slaveholders of these states will understand that, so far as their interests are concerned, the institution is doomed. But this conviction will be brought home to them by still more cogent reasons than those which reflection on their economic condition would furnish. The breeding states are also the border states, and they are therefore the states on which the evils of invasion must in the first instance fall. Already near the whole of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, is in possession of the Northern armies. Observe, then, the light in which in the present aspect of affairs, the question of secession must present itself to a border slaveholder. He sees that for him the extinction of slavery is rendered certain in an early future. His slaves are flying to the Federal armies. His country is suffering all the evils of invasion. The tie which bound him to the Slave Power is hopelessly severed. In this position of affairs is it not probable that, were the opportunity |