Immense changes are being rapidly effected in the public
sentiment and the prospective action of the reconquered portions of the
South; but such changes are not made in a day; and some retardation of
the national aspiration for a speedy termination of the war may prove
our providential security against evils which, our own precipitancy
might possibly otherwise incur. The retention of our present hold, the
gradual but slow progress to a complete final conquest, and the steady
assimilation of the reintegrated portions of the South with our Northern
and the truly American character and sentiment, would still, therefore,
deserve to be reckoned upon the side of seeming or obvious success.
But on the other hand, let us consider, for a moment, the other
alternative--that of apparent disaster, incurred from the war, not so
much in the light of overwhelming military defeats, which need hardly
now to be seriously apprehended, as from financial exhaustion and other
secondary causes introduced into the working of our national and social
life through the operation and influence of the war. Mr. Cobden,
undoubtedly a friend of our nation, and a shrewd observer of the world's
affairs on the basis of experience, or a knowledge of the past, warns us
to look forward to a period of almost utter prostration after the war
shall have terminated, and to a train of serious consequences from the
terrific strain put by it upon our energies and resources.
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