{"id":"01KG8AK1DXZFEFS29QVVJCC2CF","cid":"bafkreib25as2lar55adkoimkrokv4btgnzs4rujgo43lxuklcpw6mgqjfq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2051,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:50.352Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","start_line":1994,"text":"SUPPLEMENT\r\n\r\n\r\nWere I fastidiously anxious for the symmetry of this book, it would\r\nclose with the notes. But the times are such that patriotism—not free\r\nfrom solicitude—urges a claim overriding all literary scruples.\r\n\r\nIt is more than a year since the memorable surrender, but events have\r\nnot yet rounded themselves into completion. Not justly can we complain\r\nof this. There has been an upheaval affecting the basis of things; to\r\naltered circumstances complicated adaptations are to be made; there are\r\ndifficulties great and novel. But is Reason still waiting for Passion\r\nto spend itself? We have sung of the soldiers and sailors, but who\r\nshall hymn the politicians?\r\n\r\nIn view of the infinite desirableness of Re-establishment, and\r\nconsidering that, so far as feeling is concerned, it depends not mainly\r\non the temper in which the South regards the North, but rather\r\nconversely; one who never was a blind adherent feels constrained to\r\nsubmit some thoughts, counting on the indulgence of his countrymen.\r\n\r\nAnd, first, it may be said that, if among the feelings and opinions\r\ngrowing immediately out of a great civil convulsion, there are any\r\nwhich time shall modify or do away, they are presumably those of a less\r\ntemperate and charitable cast.\r\n\r\nThere seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together,\r\nor why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political\r\ntrimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered because not\r\npartisan. Yet the work of Reconstruction, if admitted to be feasible at\r\nall, demands little but common sense and Christian charity. Little but\r\nthese? These are much.\r\n\r\nSome of us are concerned because as yet the South shows no penitence.\r\nBut what exactly do we mean by this? Since down to the close of the war\r\nshe never confessed any for braving it, the only penitence now left her\r\nis that which springs solely from the sense of discomfiture; and since\r\nthis evidently would be a contrition hypocritical, it would be unworthy\r\nin us to demand it. Certain it is that penitence, in the sense of\r\nvoluntary humiliation, will never be displayed. Nor does this afford\r\njust ground for unreserved condemnation. It is enough, for all\r\npractical purposes, if the South have been taught by the terrors of\r\ncivil war to feel that Secession, like Slavery, is against Destiny;\r\nthat both now lie buried in one grave; that her fate is linked with\r\nours; and that together we comprise the Nation.\r\n\r\nThe clouds of heroes who battled for the Union it is needless to\r\neulogize here. But how of the soldiers on the other side? And when of a\r\nfree community we name the soldiers, we thereby name the people. It was\r\nin subserviency to the slave-interest that Secession was plotted; but\r\nit was under the plea, plausibly urged, that certain inestimable rights\r\nguaranteed by the Constitution were directly menaced, that the people\r\nof the South were cajoled into revolution. Through the arts of the\r\nconspirators and the perversity of fortune, the most sensitive love of\r\nliberty was entrapped into the support of a war whose implied end was\r\nthe erecting in our advanced century of an Anglo-American empire based\r\nupon the systematic degradation of man.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJH7EV97HBYT86WXTTGVX","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK1DV88K3ZPB6AD2EF23X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:51.229Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:47:52.885Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}