第93章

In the States in which the humanitarian tendency is the strongest, the territorial democracy has its most effective organization.Prior to the outbreak of the rebellion the American people had asserted popular sovereignty, but had never rendered an account to themselves in what sense the people are or are not sovereign.They had never distinguished the three sorts of democracy from one another, asked themselves which of the three is the distinctively American democracy.For them, democracy was democracy, and those who saw dangers ahead sought to avoid them either by exaggerating one or the other of the two exclusive tendencies, or else by restraining democracy itself through restrictions on suffrage.The latter class began to distrust universal suffrage, to lose faith in the people, and to dream of modifying the American constitution so as to make it conform more nearly to the English model.The war has proved that the were wrong, for nothing is more certain than that the people have saved the national unity and integrity almost in spite of their government.The General government either was not disposed or was afraid to take a decided stand against secession, till forced to do it by the people themselves.No wise American can henceforth distrust American democracy.The people may be trusted.So much is settled.But as the two extremes were equally democratic, as the secessionists acted in the name of popular sovereignty, and as the humanitarians were not unwilling to allow separation, and would not and did not engage in the war against secession for the sake of the Union and the integrity of the national domain, the conviction becomes irresistible that it was not democracy in the sense of either of the extremes that made the war and came out of it victorious; and hence the real American democracy must differ from them both, and is neither a personal nor a humanitarian, but a territorial democracy.The true idea of American democracy thus comes out, for the first time, freed from the two extreme democracies which have been identified with it, and henceforth enters into the understandings as well as the hearts of the people.The war has enlightened patriotism, and what was sentiment or instinct becomes reason--a well-defined, and clearly understood constitutional conviction.

In the several States themselves there are many things to prevent the socialistic tendency from becoming exclusive.In the States that seceded socialism has never had a foothold, and will not gain it, for it is resisted by all the sentiments, convictions, and habits of the Southern people, and the Southern people will not be exterminated nor swamped by migrations either from the North or from Europe.They are and always will be an agricultural people, and an agricultural people are and always will be opposed to socialistic dreams, unless unwittingly held for a moment to favor it in pursuit of some special object in which they take a passionate interest.The worst of all policies is that of hanging, exiling, or disfranchising the wealthy landholders of the South, in order to bring up the poor and depressed whites, shadowed forth in the Executive proclamation of the th of May, .Of course that policy will not be carried out, and if the negroes are enfranchised, they will always vote with the wealthy landholding class, and aid them in resisting all socialistic tendencies.The humanitarians will fail for the want of a good social grievance against which they can declaim.

In the New England States the humanitarian tendency is strong as a speculation, but only in relation to objects at a distance.It is aided much by the congregational constitution of their religion; yet it is weak at home, and is resisted practically by the territorial division of power.New England means Massachusetts, and nowhere is the subdivision of the powers of government carried further, or the constitution of the territorial democracy more complete, than in that State.

Philanthropy sel-

dom works in private against private vices and evils: it is effective only against public grievances, and the farther they are from home and the less its right to interfere with them, the more in earnest and the more effective for evil does it become.Its nature is to mind every one's business but its own.But now that slavery is abolished, there is nowhere in the United States a social grievance of magnitude enough to enlist any considerable number of the people, even of Massachusetts, in a movement to redress it.Negro enfranchisement is a question of which the humanitarians can make something and they will make the most of it; but as it is a question that each State will soon settle for itself, it will not serve their purpose of prolonged agitation.They could not and never did carry away the nation, even on the question of slavery itself, and abolitionism had comparatively little direct influence in abolishing slavery; and the exclusion of negro suffrage can never be made to appear to the American people as any thing like so great a grievance as was slavery.