Shady Hill, 9 March, 1863.
. . . The Democrats seem to me to have come to a
consciousness of their danger. They are now setting themselves right and
securing power in the future. If we can fairly kill slavery during the next two
years, make it really and truly powerless as a political institution, then I
have no objection to the Democrats coming back to their old and familiar places
of power. The Republican party has not proved itself able in administration; it
is better on the whole for the progress of the country and for the improvement
of public opinion that the party founded on the essential principles of right
and justice should be in the opposition. Moreover there are questions to be
settled after the war is over which can be better settled by the unprincipled
party in power, than by one bound by its timidities, and unaccustomed to impose
restraints. We shall probably require some “conservatism” at the close of the
war, and the Democratic party in power is likely to be conservative in some
matters on which the Republicans would be weak and divided. I do not think that
there is much chance of the formation of a real Union party. The Democrats will
keep their organization, will exclude their too open peace members, and will
reject all union with the honest men of our side. The odium of the war, of
taxes, of disregard of personal liberty, of a violated constitution will be
thrown on the Republicans, or the Unionists if that be their name, and the
glory of securing victory and peace, and of reestablishing the Union, will be
claimed by the Democrats. With which I shall not grumble. The Millennium is not
at hand, but there is a good time coming, — and the country, with a
thousand evils remaining, will be the better for the war, and Democrats like
you and me may rejoice at the triumph of popular government and the essential
soundness of the people.
Is this inveterate optimism? Are we at the beginning, on the
contrary, of the epoch of the Lower Republic? . . .
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 261-3
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