Reconstruction sounds the key note of American politics to-day. It is as
true now as when Webster first said it, that 'the people of this
country, by a vast and countless majority, are attached to the Union.'
Reconstruction is the hope of the Union; and the hope of the Union is
the controlling energy of the war. Hence, naturally, the theories that
prevail in regard to reconstruction begin to define the political
parties of the immediate future. United on the war, which they hold to
be not simply inevitable, but also a war in the combined interests of
liberty and order, and, therefore, just, the people seem likely about to
be divided on questions suggested by the probably speedy termination of
the war. The Union one and indivisible is the fundamental maxim on which
all such questions must be based. So long as the name of Washington is
reverenced among them, the American people will accept no other basis of
settlement. The Union is to them the security and hope of all political
blessings--liberty, justice, political order--which blessings it
insures. Disunion is revolution, and puts them in peril. Therefore, no
theory of reconstruction is practicable which countenances disunion, or
in anywise assails the principle of the eternal oneness and
indivisibility of the Union.