² "The Republican party in its work of imposing the sovereignty of the United States upon eight millions of Asiatics, has changed its views in regard to the political relation of races and has at last virtually accepted the ideas of the South upon that subject. The white men of the South need now have no further fear that the Republican party, or Republican administrations, will ever again give themselves over to the vain imagination of the political equality of man." —[Burgess—Reconstruction and the Constitution, page 298.] It is a mistake, therefore, to assume that there is active in the country a spirit of freedom strong enough to set us free; a power employed in doing justice, strong enough to do justice to us. The country is returning to the conditions existing before ’61, even passing these and returning to the conditions existing before 1776,—in politics, because it is doing the same in _morals_. Moral betterment requires that we put a deeper, broader and stronger foundation under the old foundation of our lives; and this can only be done by removing each day a bit of sand and filling in the space with stone. Days of tremendous business activity, or national triumph are not likely to be so spent. We _must_ not make the mistake of assuming that there is power in the nation to do us justice. "Not in a republic," some one may ask? No! Von Holst says: "That virtue is the specific vital principle of republics is a delusion. The historical course of development, natural circumstances, material interests and political and social customs are the elements by which, in all states without exception, the form of the state is in the first place conditioned." Not after the pledges of the Constitution, again it may be asked? No, the Constitution is an ideal, not a real body of law. Von Holst wrote: "Polk had once stated that the nature of American institutions offered the world ample security that the United States would never pursue a policy of aggressive conquest. Notwithstanding the commentary that he had himself given on this proposition, it contained a kernel of significant truth. The nature of their institutions forbade the United States to hold in violent subjection, under the iron hand of conquest, a realm of the extent of Mexico for any length of time. This would soon have become so perfectly clear to the people that they would either have driven the originator and guiding spirit of the war in shame and disgrace from his office and dignity, and have reduced all these conditions of peace to the utmost moderation, or they would have proceeded to a formal and complete incorporation of Mexico with the Union." And before 1900, as a result of the war with Spain, the impossible, the absolutely forbidden by the nature of their institutions had been accomplished. How obscure the vision of the historian! The Constitution is not written in the hearts