11th March, 1863.
Not only has the reaction consumed itself, but it is of the
greatest significance that the result is not due to a victory, but is a purely
intellectual and moral recuperation. I have been very sure that, when the
Democratic party found that they could not operate on the base of peace, they
would hurry over to war, as McClellan from the Pamunkey to the James. But the
movement shows that the strongest and most sagacious men of the party are its
old Southern leaders. Jeff and his friends have known from the beginning that
it was a war of ideas, which had exhausted compromise and had to fight. The
Northern Democrats refuse to acknowledge the truth, but they are forced to act
upon it, which comes practically to the same thing.
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
164
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