But as to the moral value of these results, we must not indulge in any
delusions. There are two principal points to which I beg to call your
attention. In the first place, the rapid return to power and influence of
so many of those who but recently were engaged in a bitter war against the
Union, has had one effect which was certainly not originally contemplated
by the government. Treason does, under existing circumstances, not appear
odious in the south. The people are not impressed with any sense of its
criminality. And, secondly, there is, as yet, among the southern people an
_utter absence of national feeling_. I made it a business, while in the
south, to watch the symptoms of "returning loyalty" as they appeared not
only in private conversation, but in the public press and in the speeches
delivered and the resolutions passed at Union meetings. Hardly ever was
there an expression of hearty attachment to the great republic, or an
appeal to the impulses of patriotism; but whenever submission to the
national authority was declared and advocated, it was almost uniformly
placed upon two principal grounds: That, under present circumstances, the
southern people could "do no better;" and then that submission was the
only means by which they could rid themselves of the federal soldiers and
obtain once more control of their own affairs. Some of the speakers may
have been inspired by higher motives, but upon these two arguments they
had principally to rely whenever they wanted to make an impression upon
the popular mind. If any exception is to be made to this rule it is
Louisiana, in whose metropolis a different spirit was cultivated for some
time; but even there, the return in mass of those who followed the
fortunes of the confederate flag during the war does not appear to have a
favorable influence upon the growth of that sentiment. (See Gen. Canby's
letter, accompanying document No. 8.) While admitting that, at present, we
have perhaps no right to expect anything better than this
submission--loyalty which springs from necessity and calculation--I do not