have B.F.  Butler, Esq., argue in favor of the Dred Scott decision than to have General Butler enforcing the Fortress Monroe doctrine.  Better to look up to a whole galaxy of stars, and to live under a baker’s dozen of stripes, than to dwell in perpetual fear of choosing between the calaboose and the drill-room of the Louisiana Zouaves.  We have noticed that the sympathizers of the North are quoting the sentence from Mr. Lincoln’s inaugural to this effect,—­What is to be gained after fighting?  We have got to negotiate at last, be the war long or short.  This is a very potent argument, as Mr. Lincoln meant it.  To men who must sooner or later negotiate their way back into the Union, it is a very important consideration how much fighting and how much money they can afford before negotiating.  To us who cannot at any cost afford to stop until they are thus ready to negotiate, it is only comparatively a question.  He says to the South, as a lawyer sure of a judgment and confident of execution to be thereafter satisfied might say to his adversary’s client,—­“Don’t litigate longer than you can help, for you are only making costs which must come out of your own pocket.”  To his own client, he says,—­“They may delay, but they cannot hinder, our judgment.”

Meanwhile what shall we do with the root of bitterness, the real cause of antagonism?  That will do for itself.  We probably cannot do much to help or hinder now.  The negro and the white man will remain on the old ground, but new relations must be established between them.  What those shall be will depend on many yet undeveloped contingencies.  But—­when we reconstruct, it will be with a North stronger than ever before and a government too strong for rebellion ever to touch it again.  Under a free government of majorities, such as ours, rebellion is simply the resistance of a minority.  Secession has been acted out to the bitter end on a small scale ere now in this country.  Daniel Shays tried it in Massachusetts; Thomas Wilson Dorr tried it in Rhode Island.  When they had tried it sufficiently, they gave in.  We remember the Dorr War, and how bitterly the “Algerines,” as they were called, were reviled.  We doubt if a remnant of that hostility could be dug up anywhere between Beavertail Light and Woonsocket Falls.  We have no doubt that men who then were on the point of fighting with each other fought side by side under Sprague, and fought all the better for having once before faced the possibilities of real war.  When the minority are satisfied that they must give in, they do give in.

We do not purpose to debate now the question of the mode of reconstruction.  When the seceded States return, though they come back to the old Constitution, they will come under circumstances demanding new conditions.  The wisdom of legislation will be needed to establish as rapidly as possible pacification.  What the circumstances will be none can now say.  But we are better satisfied than ever of the impracticability