Here is matter for the consideration of
the American statesman. But as to the usurpations of the
Executive in these unsettled times, they will be only temporary,
and will cease when the States are all restored. They are
abuses, but only temporary abuses, and the Southern States, when
restored to the Union, will resume their rights in their own
sphere, as self-governing communities, and legalize or undo the
unwarrantable acts of the Federal Executive.
The socialistic and centralizing tendency in the bosom of the
individual States is the most dangerous, but it will not be able
to become predominant; for philanthropy, unlike charity, does not
begin at home, and is powerless unless it operates at a distance.
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.
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