And no one can suppose that the South would
have consented, or in their present temper ever will consent, to an
accommodation on any other terms. It will require a succession of
humiliation to bring them to that. The necessity of reconciling
themselves to the confinement of slavery within its existing
boundaries, with the natural consequence, immediate mitigation of
slavery, and ultimate emancipation, is a lesson which they are in no
mood to learn from anything but disaster. Two or three defeats in the
field, breaking their military strength, though not followed by an
invasion of their territory, may possibly teach it to them. If so,
there is no breach of charity in hoping that this severe schooling may
promptly come. When men set themselves up, in defiance of the rest of
the world, to do the devil's work, no good can come of them until the
world has made them feel that this work cannot be suffered to be done
any longer. If this knowledge does not come to them for several years,
the abolition question will by that time have settled itself.
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