"Triumphant now, you will receive our enemies with open arms?" the
Senator sneered.
"Enemies? There are no such things. The Southern States have never
really been out of the Union. Their Acts of Secession were null and
void. They know now that the issue is forever settled. The restored
Union will be a real one. The Southern people at heart are law-abiding.
It was their reverence for the letter of the old law which led them to
ignore progress and claim the right to secede under the Constitution.
They will be true to Lee's pledge of surrender. I'm going to trust them
as my brethren. Let us fold up our banners now and smelt the guns--Love
rules--let her mightier purpose run!"
So big and generous, so broad and statesmanlike was his spirit that in
this hour of victory his personality became in a day the soul of the New
Republic. The South had already unconsciously grown to respect the man
who had loved yet fought her for what he believed to be her highest
good.
He was entering now a new phase of power. His influence over the people
was supreme. No man or set of men in Congress, or outside of it, could
defeat his policies. Even through the years of stunning defeats and
measureless despair his enemies had never successfully opposed a measure
on which he had set his heart.
His first great work accomplished in destroying slavery and restoring
the Union, there remained but two tasks on which his soul was set--to
heal the bitterness of the war and remove the negro race from physical
contact with the white.
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