In my preface to "The Middle Period" I wrote that the re-establishmentof a real national brotherhood between the North and the South could beattained only on the basis of a sincere and genuine acknowledgment bythe South that secession was an error as well as a failure. I come nowto supplement this contention with the proposition that a correspondingacknowledgment on the part of the North in regard to Reconstructionbetween 1866 and 1876 is equally necessary.
In making this demand, I must not be understood as questioning in theslightest degree the sincerity of the North in the main purpose of theReconstruction policy of that period. On the other hand, I maintainthat that purpose was entirely praiseworthy. It was simply to securethe civil rights of the newly emancipated race, and to re-establishloyal Commonwealths in the South. But there is now little question thaterroneous means were chosen.
Two ways were open for the attainment of the end sought. One was thatwhich was followed, namely, placing the political power in the hands ofthe newly emancipated; and the other was the nationalization of civilliberty by placing it under the protection of the Constitution and thenational Judiciary, and holding the districts of the South underTerritorial civil government until the white race in those districtsshould have sufficiently recovered from its temporary disloyalty to theUnion to be intrusted again with the powers of Commonwealth local government.
There is no doubt in my own mind that the latter was the proper andcorrect course. And I have just as little doubt that it would have beenfound to be the truly practicable course. The people in the loyalCommonwealths were ready in 1866 to place civil liberty as a wholeunder national protection; and not half of the whites of the Southentertained, at that moment, disloyal purposes or feelings. Even thesolid Democratic South was yet to be made; and I doubt most seriouslyif it would ever have been made, except for the great mistakes of theRepublican party in its choice of means and measures in Reconstruction.
I will not, however, enter upon the argument in reference to thisquestion at this point. That belongs to the body of the book. I willonly add that, in my opinion, the North has already yielded assent tothis proposition, and has already ma