It is a failure on the part of Congress, which ought to preside over Reconstruction and lend its helping hand, by securing Education and Equal Rights to begin at once, and by appointing the way and the season in which good citizens should proceed in creating the new governments.
Editor's note · Context
Sumner criticizes Congress for failing to assist in reconstruction by ensuring education and equal rights.
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They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
Above all, welcome to the united regenerated Democracy of the North, which spurns the mockery of a Republic, with professions of Freedom on the lips, while the chains of Slavery clank in the Capitol!
Without yielding to any of these extreme views with regard to the mischiefs or the benefits of party, all should agree that the only true and legitimate object of such an association is to uphold, advance, and develop certain principles…
As the Brotherhood of Man is practically recognized, it becomes impossible to restrict the feeling within any exclusive circle of country, and to set up an unchristian distinction of honor between civil war and international war.





