in their midst, for whom some of us now claim the suffrage.  Let us be Christians toward our fellow-whites, as well as philanthropists toward the blacks, our fellow-men.  In all things, and toward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by.  Nor should we forget that benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.  Something may well be left to the graduated care of future legislation, and to heaven.  In one point of view the co-existence of the two races in the South, whether the negro be bond or free, seems (even as it did to Abraham Lincoln) a grave evil.  Emancipation has ridded the country of the reproach, but not wholly of the calamity.  Especially in the present transition period for both races in the South, more or less of trouble may not unreasonably be anticipated; but let us not hereafter be too swift to charge the blame exclusively in any one quarter.  With certain evils men must be more or less patient.  Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.

But, so far as immediate measures looking toward permanent Re-establishment are concerned, no consideration should tempt us to pervert the national victory into oppression for the vanquished.  Should plausible promise of eventual good, or a deceptive or spurious sense of duty, lead us to essay this, count we must on serious consequences, not the least of which would be divisions among the Northern adherents of the Union.  Assuredly, if any honest Catos there be who thus far have gone with us, no longer will they do so, but oppose us, and as resolutely as hitherto they have supported.  But this path of thought leads toward those waters of bitterness from which one can only turn aside and be silent.

But supposing Re-establishment so far advanced that the Southern seats in Congress are occupied, and by men qualified in accordance with those cardinal principles of representative government which hitherto have prevailed in the land—­what then?  Why, the Congressmen elected by the people of the South will—­represent the people of the South.  This may seem a flat conclusion; but, in view of the last five years, may there not be latent significance in it?  What will be the temper of those Southern members? and, confronted by them, what will be the mood of our own representatives?  In private life true reconciliation seldom follows a violent quarrel; but, if subsequent intercourse be unavoidable, nice observances and mutual are indispensable to the prevention of a new rupture.  Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.  On the floor of Congress North and South are to come together after a passionate duel, in which the South, though proving her valor, has been made to bite the dust.  Upon differences in debate shall acrimonious recriminations