whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will.  While there remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local affairs,—­an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the country than perhaps any one other political idea,—­no general assertion of human rights can be of any practical value.  To change the character of the government at this point is neither possible nor desirable.  All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States.  They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own conservation.  It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance.  And to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law.  Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road.  This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could.  The true way and the easiest way is to make our government entirely consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise,—­a right and power which will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for his protection.

One of the invaluable compensations of the late Rebellion is the highly instructive disclosure it made of the true source of danger to republican government.  Whatever may be tolerated in monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe that tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens equal rights and equal means to maintain them.  What was theory before the war has been made fact by the war.

There is cause to be thankful even for rebellion.  It is an impressive teacher, though a stern and terrible one.  In both characters it has come to us, and it was perhaps needed in both.  It is an instructor never a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means of progress and enlightenment have failed.  Whether the oppressed and despairing bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings for manhood, or the tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative, and strikes the blow for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression, the result is the same,—­society is instructed, or may be.