But behind the whites
themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another
bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression
after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will
find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who
that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword
which alone can deliver them?
Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us
and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all.
All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect,
plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent the new-made
graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and
ever for prey. What else _can_ they do? Even would the Secessionists
consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably
break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As
wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not
to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they
shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves.
And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might
meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding
over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a
moment of civil compositions with this system.
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