who desire to keep alive old animosities for political purposes, or who think it politically profitable to do so, is daily growing less, and their influence on public opinion is decidedly declining. On the other hand, the wise and generous sentiment, that if we wish the South to be and remain loyal and patriotic, we must frankly and cordially recognize and encourage every evidence of loyalty and patriotism on its part, is every day becoming more emphatic and preponderant.
In fact, it is a great mistake on the part of our Southern brethren to believe that the people of the North are inclined to distrust them, and to deprive them of their share of political power, because they are Southern men; and that for this reason, and this reason alone, the majority of the Northern people discountenance a political organization in which the South has been striving to be a unit. I certainly do not speak as a partisan, when I say that it is no sectional feeling which induces most of us to criticise and oppose political practices and theories which, with equal determination, we would criticise and oppose among ourselves,—such as encroachments upon the rights of voters, a dangerous financial policy, and the like; things detrimental to the principles of republican government, and to interests common to the whole country,—South as well as North. In the same measure as Southern men show that they are willing to respect the rights of others as their own are respected; to treat living pub-
