18 



it may be said that we have been fighting to prove the value, 

 and to assert beyond all power of contradiction, the dignity 

 of honest toil. This, indeed, is a point on which ice never 

 had a doubt. But our brethren of the South took, unfortu- 

 nately, a very different view. While the task of convincing 

 and converting them has cost us much — and has cost them 

 infinitely more ; — it has cost neither side too much, if it were 

 thus only, — as we are compelled to believe, — that the great 

 lesson of industry and progress could be effectually taught. I 

 deem it perfectly safe to predict that the day is not far distant, 

 when the South, grown industrious and prosperous, shall look 

 back upon its past as on a hideous dream, and shall remem- 

 ber, with gratitude, even, that Ithuriel touch which broke the 

 fatal spell.* 



And what agency, less than the Highest, has contributed 

 to the early and triumphant conclusion of the tremendous 

 struggle, more evidently, or more directly, than the superior 

 industry and skill of the North ? In qualities purely mil- 

 itary, the warriors of the South showed, certainly, no in- 

 feriority. Had this been a conflict of arms only, — a trial 

 simply of strategy, of courage, and of endurance, — the war 

 might have been still raging, and the prospect of its termi- 

 nation distant as ever. Our great numerical advantage con- 



*As I commit this sheet to the press, I find the following remarkable 

 acknowledgment, quoted from a recent speech of Mr. James L. Orr, now 

 candidate for Governor of South Carolina. " I am tired of South Carolina 

 as she was. I court for her the material prosperity of New England. I 

 would have her acres teem with life, and vigor, and intelligence, as do those 

 of Massachusetts." 



And here is another and still later roice from the same quarter. On the 

 16th of this current October, a mass meeting of white mechanics and work- 

 ing men was held in Charleston, South Carolina. The following sentence is 

 taken from their published address : 



"The mighty revolution that has just pased over this whole Southern 

 country has prostrated and forever overthroAvn the whole system of labor ; 

 and although it has caused ruin and devastation through the land, « * * 

 it has accomplished one great good — it has elevated the working-man and 

 made labor respected." 



