It Has Been So With Various
Nations, And With Many People Since History Was First Written.
But
when it has been so, the people thus punished have been idle and
bad.
They have not only done evil in their generation, but have
done more evil than good, and have contributed their power to the
injury rather than to the improvement of mankind. It may be that
this or that national fault may produce or seem to produce some
consequent calamity. But the balance of good or evil things which
fall to a people's share will indicate with certainty their average
conduct as a nation. The one will be the certain sequence of the
other. If it be that the Americans of the Northern States have done
well in their time, that they have assisted in the progress of the
world, and made things better for mankind rather than worse, then
they will come out of this trouble without eventual injury. That
which came in the guise of punishment for a special fault, will be a
part of the reward resulting from good conduct in the general. And
as to this matter of slavery, in which I think that they have
blundered both politically and morally, has it not been found
impossible hitherto for them to cleanse their hands of that taint?
But that which they could not do for themselves the course of events
is doing for them. If secession establish herself, though it be
only secession of the Gulf States, the people of the United States
will soon be free from slavery.
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