“Armies composed of freemen conquer for themselves, not for their leaders.”  This is the happy phrase of Robertson, as he describes the reestablishment of society in Europe after the great Northern invasions, which gave new life to Roman effeminacy, and new strength to Roman corruption.  The phrase is perfectly true.  It is as true of the armies of freemen who have been called to the South now to keep the peace as it was of the armies of freemen who were called South then by the imbecility of Roman emperors or their mutual contentions.  The lumbermen from Maine and New Hampshire who have seen the virgin riches of the St. John’s, like the Massachusetts volunteers who have picked out their farms in the valley of the Shenandoah or established in prospect their forges on the falls of the Potomac, or like the Illinois regiments who have been introduced to the valleys of Tennessee or of Arkansas, will furnish men enough, well skilled in political systems, to start the new republics, in regions which have never known what a true republic was till now.

To carry out the President’s plan, and to give us once more working State governments in the States which have rebelled,—­to give them, indeed, the first true republican governments they have ever known,—­would require for Virginia about 12,000 voters.  They can be counted, we suppose, at this moment, in the counties under our military control.  Indeed, the loyal State government of Virginia is at this moment organized.  In North Carolina it would require 9,500 voters.  The loyal North Carolina regiments are an evidence that that number of home-grown men will readily appear.  In South Carolina, to give a generous estimate, we need 5,000 voters.  It is the only State which we never heard my man wish to emigrate to.  It is the hardest region, therefore, of any to redeem.  At the worst, till the 5,000 appear, the new Georgia will be glad to govern all the country south of the Santee, and the new North Carolina what is north thereof.  Georgia will need 10,000 loyal voters.  There are more than that number now encamped upon her soil, willing to stay there.  Of Florida we have spoken.  Alabama requires 9,000.  They have been hiding away from conscription; they have been fleeing into Kentucky and Ohio:  they will not be unwilling to reappear when the inevitable “first step” is taken.  For Mississippi we want 7,000.  Mr. Reverdy Johnson has told us where they are.  For Louisiana, one tenth is 5,000.  More than that number voted in the elections which returned the sitting members to Congress.  For Texas, the proportion is 6,200; for Arkansas, 5,400.  Those States are already giving account of themselves.  In Tennessee the fraction required is 14,500.  And as the people of Knoxville said, “They could do that in the mountains alone.”