When You Ask Them What They Would Propose To
Do With 4,000,000 Of Enfranchised Slaves And With Their
Ruined
masters, how they would manage the affairs of those 12,000,000 of
people, all whose wealth and work
And very life have hitherto been
hinged and hung upon slavery, they again ask you whether slavery is
not in itself bad, and whether anything acknowledged to be bad
should be allowed to remain.
But the American Germans are in earnest, and I am strongly of
opinion that they will so far have their way, that the country which
for the future will be their country will exist without the taint of
slavery. In the Northern nationality, which will reform itself
after this war is over, there will, I think, be no slave State.
That final battle of abolition will have to be fought among a people
apart, and I must fear that while it lasts their national prosperity
will not be great.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ARMY OF THE NORTH.
I trust that it may not be thought that in this chapter I am going
to take upon myself the duties of a military critic. I am well
aware that I have no capacity for such a task, and that my opinion
on such matters would be worth nothing. But it is impossible to
write of the American States as they were when I visited them, and
to leave that subject of the American army untouched. It was all
but impossible to remain for some months in the Northern States
without visiting the army.
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