The danger now is that the Union victory will, at home and
abroad, be interpreted as a victory won in the interest of social
or humanitarian democracy. It was because they regarded the war
waged on the side of the Union as waged in the interest of this
terrible democracy, that our bishops and clergy sympathized so
little with the Government in prosecuting it; not, as some
imagined, because they were disloyal, hostile to American or
territorial democracy, or not heartily in favor of freedom for
all men, whatever their race or complexion. They had no wish to
see slavery prolonged, the evils of which they, better than any
other class of men, knew, and more deeply deplored; none would
have regretted more than they to have seen the Union broken up;
but they held the socialistic or humanitarian democracy
represented by Northern abolitionists as hostile alike to the
Church and to civilization. For the same reason that they were
backward or reserved in their sympathy, all the humanitarian
sects at home and abroad were forward and even ostentatious in
theirs. The Catholics feared the war might result in encouraging
La Republiques democratique et sociale; the humanitarian sects
trusted that it would. If the victory of the Union should turn
out to be a victory for the humanitarian democracy, the civilized
world will have no reason to applaud it.
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