PUBLISHED MONTHLY, EXCEPT JULY AND AUGUST.

Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, Lincoln, Nebraska,

U. S. A.

AMERICAN HISTORY STUDIES.

THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION.

N the last two numbers an attempt was made to trace the development of the slavery question in American history. In this number the culmination is reached; the greatest of civil wars opens before us; and finally the Union appears, or shall we say reappears, reconstructed, with slavery as a reminiscence. However, it must not be thought that the problem is ended. The American people are too much inclined to accept first settlements as if they were finals. Citizenship was conferred on the negro when he was unprepared for it. He must now be fitted for his duties. Education in its broadest terms must be extended to him. The whole country is interested in, and affected by, the solution. The South has to bear the burden, in the main, as she had to bear that of slavery. In this connection, the most important question of the present and of the immediate future, at least, is that the North and the South do not become estranged over the solution of this question as they did in regard to the original cause. Its difficulties should be recognized by the North, and sympathy and aid, not criticism, should be given.

This number opens with the election of Lincoln, and the consequent secession of the Southern States. The winter of 1860-'61 was perhaps the most momentous and deeply interesting of any that has passed over the history of our country. There may have been other moments

of more outward excitement, but none, perhaps, of the same intensity. There was a general feeling as the months passed that the crisis had come. The North could hardly be brought to realize that the Southern States intended to act in accordance with their words; the Southern people were possessed with the idea that the North was purely materialistic and would not fight for an ideal. How little the people of the two sections really did or could understand each other the four years from 1861 to 1865 witness!

However, when the end came, and the greater resources,—but only the same, not greater courage and devotion-had given the victory to the free states, and in giving them their triumph had made all free states, the settlement of the terms of reconstruction, was scarcely less difficult and taxing than had been the details of the struggle itself.

During the year 1860-'61 almost the entire history of the United States may be studied by tracing backward to their beginnings the principles that were then in controversy. The nature of the Constitution: were the States sovereignties? Under this heading we might trace the development of the idea back through the Nullification struggle, the Hartford convention, the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions to the Convention of 1787, and then beyond to the forces that were foundational. The position of slavery under the Constitution: its entire history would be necessary to estimate at their true worth the various arguments that were advocated by the many groups into which the people were at the time divided. The powers of the executive: what were their limits in time of war? But it is impossible to attempt an enumeration of the interesting questions that are found in these years of American

history. Their settlement distinctly modified the world's history, and was of the greatest moment in determining the character and future of the United States.

Lincoln, in his great Cooper Institute speech of February 27, 1860, discussed the subject of slavery as he saw it from the standpoint of the South and of the North. In the concluding portion he said:

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with another.

Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. .. What will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not only let them alone, but we must somehow convince them that we do let them alone. What will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?-Works, I, pp. 611-12.

December 22, 1860, Lincoln wrote to A. H. Stephens in reply to a letter from Mr. Stephens in these words:

I fully appreciate the present peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on me. Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly or indirectly, interfere with the slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington. I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. -Ibid, p. 660.

On the way to Washington, in February, 1861, Lincoln made a series of speeches. A few extracts from these will give us an insight into Lincoln's views at the last moment before he assumed office.

At Indianapolis he said:

The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days. What, then, is "coercion"? What is "invasion"? Would the marching of an army into South Carolina without the consent of her people, and with hostile intent toward them, be "invasion"? I certainly think it would.

States should merely hold and and other property, etc.,

But if the United retake its own forts

would any or all of

these be "invasion" or "coercion"?-Ibid, p. 673.

In Cincinnati he repeated and reaffirmed the words he had used in a speech there the year before. In part he spoke, addressing the people of Kentucky, as follows:

We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way interfere with your institutions; to abide by all and every compromise of the Constitution. Ibid, p. 675.

At Columbus he used these words in concluding his address:

I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It is a good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out there is nothing that really hurts anybody. We entertain different views upon political questions, but nobody is suffering anything. This is a most consoling circumstance, and from it we may conclude that all we want is time, patience, and a reliance on that God who has never forsaken this people.-Works, I, p. 677.

At Pittsburgh, on the same idea, he said: Notwithstanding the troubles across the river [pointing south] there is no crisis but an artificial one. I repeat, then, there is no crisis excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any time by turbulent men

.