Resting upon this sure and substantial foundation, the
superstructure of beneficent local governments can be built up,
and not otherwise. In furtherance of such obedience to the letter
and the spirit of the Constitution, and in behalf of all that its
attainment implies, all so-called party interests lose their
apparent importance, and party lines may well be permitted to fade
into insignificance. The question we have to consider for the
immediate welfare of those States of the Union is the question of
government or no government; of social order and all the peaceful
industries and the happiness that belongs to it, or a return to
barbarism. It is a question in which every citizen of the nation
is deeply interested, and with respect to which we ought not to
be, in a partisan sense, either Republicans or Democrats, but
fellow-citizens and fellowmen, to whom the interests of a common
country and a common humanity are dear.
The sweeping revolution of the entire labor system of a large
portion of our country and the advance of 4,000,000 people from a
condition of servitude to that of citizenship, upon an equal
footing with their former masters, could not occur without
presenting problems of the gravest moment, to be dealt with by the
emancipated race, by their former masters, and by the General
Government, the author of the act of emancipation.
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