Surely we ought to take it to heart that that kind of pacification, based upon principles operating equally all over the land, which lovers of their country yearn for, and which our arms, though signally triumphant, did not bring about, and which law-making, however anxious, or energetic, or repressive, never by itself can achieve, may yet be largely aided by generosity of sentiment public and private.  Some revisionary legislation and adaptive is indispensable; but with this should harmoniously work another kind of prudence not unallied with entire magnanimity.  Benevolence and policy—­Christianity and Machiavelli—­dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued.  Abstinence here is as obligatory as considerate care for our unfortunate fellow-men late in bonds, and, if observed, would equally prove to be wise forecast.  The great qualities of the South, those attested in the War, we can perilously alienate, or we may make them nationally available at need.

The blacks, in their infant pupilage to freedom, appeal to the sympathies of every humane mind.  The paternal guardianship which for the interval government exercises over them was prompted equally by duty and benevolence.  Yet such kindliness should not be allowed to exclude kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature.  For the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety.  Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad.  To be sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the situation.  And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, nor theorists, nor cynics, there are some doubts not readily to be solved.  And there are fears.  Why is not the cessation of war now at length attended with the settled calm of peace?  Wherefore in a clear sky do we still turn our eyes toward the South, as the Neapolitan, months after the eruption, turns his toward Vesuvius?  Do we dread lest the repose may be deceptive?  In the recent convulsion has the crater but shifted?  Let us revere that sacred uncertainty which forever impends over men and nations.  Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.  But we should remember that emancipation was accomplished not by deliberate legislation; only through agonized violence could so mighty a result be effected.  In our natural solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks, let us forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness toward our white countrymen —­measures of a nature to provoke, among other of the last evils, exterminating hatred of race toward race.  In imagination let us place ourselves in the unprecedented position of the Southerners—­their position as regards the millions of ignorant manumitted slaves in their