It has been very generally recognised in the South as in
the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through the
friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided. The
Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
but to further in every way the return of their communities to
prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
to be sadly distant.
On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss of
its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their great
captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
grateful.
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