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,