Handbook of Home Rule | Page 8

in men's hearts except
as the result of benefits so palpable that common people, as well as
political philosophers, can see them and count them.
Many of the opponents of Home Rule, too, point to the vigour with
which the United States Government put down the attempt made by the
South to break up the Union as an example of the American love of
"imperial unity," and of the spirit in which England should now meet
the Irish demands for local autonomy. This again is rather surprising,
because you will find no one in America who will maintain for one
moment that troops could have been raised in 1860 to undertake the
conquest of the South for the purpose of setting up a centralized
administration, or, in other words, for the purpose of wiping out State
lines, or diminishing State authority. No man or party proposed
anything of this kind at the outbreak of the war, or would have dared to
propose it. The object for which the North rose in arms, and which
Lincoln had in view when he called for troops, was the restoration of
the Union just as it was when South Carolina seceded, barring the
extension of slavery into the territories. During the first year of the war,
certainly, the revolted States might at any time have had peace on the
status quo basis, that is, without the smallest diminution of their rights
and immunities under the Constitution. It was only when it became
evident that the war would have to be fought out to a finish, as the
pugilists say--that is, that it would have to end in a complete conquest
of the Southern territory--that the question, what would become of the
States as a political organization after the struggle was over, began to
be debated at all. What did become of them? How did Americans deal
with Home Rule, after it had been used to set on foot against the central
authority what the newspapers used to delight in calling "the greatest
rebellion the world ever saw"? The answer to these questions is, it
seems to me, a contribution of some value to the discussion of the Irish
problem in its present stage, if American precedents can throw any
light whatever on it.

There was a Joint Committee of both Houses of Congress appointed in
1866 to consider the condition of the South with reference to the safety
or expediency of admitting the States lately in rebellion to their old
relations to the Union, including representation in Congress. It
contained, besides such fanatical enemies of the South as Thaddeus
Stevens, such very conservative men as Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Grimes,
Mr. Morrill, and Mr. Conkling. Here is the account they gave of the
condition of Southern feeling one year after Lee's surrender:--
"Examining the evidence taken by your committee still further, in
connection with facts too notorious to be disputed, it appears that the
Southern press, with few exceptions, and those mostly of newspapers
recently established by Northern men, abounds with weekly and daily
abuse of the institutions and people of the loyal States; defends the men
who led, and the principles which incited, the rebellion; denounces and
reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives constantly
and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire
of hate and discord between the sections; calling upon the President to
violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by force of arms,
and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress.
The national banner is openly insulted, and the national airs scoffed at,
not only by an ignorant populace, but at public meetings, and once,
among other notable instances, at a dinner given in honour of a
notorious rebel who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The
same individual is elected to an important office in the leading city of
his State, although an unpardoned rebel, and so offensive that the
President refuses to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In
another State the leading general of the rebel armies is openly
nominated for Governor by the Speaker of the House of Delegates, and
the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction, and
openly endorsed by the press....
"The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an
equally intense love of the late Confederacy, nurtured by the war is
decisive. While it appears that nearly all are willing to submit, at least
for the time being, to the Federal authority, it is equally clear that the
ruling motive is a desire to obtain the advantages which will be derived

from a representation in Congress. Officers of the Union army on duty,
and Northern men who go south to engage in