loved
South. They who inaugurated secession were no true friends to her."

"Sir!" cried Boyd, with angry excitement, "ours was as righteous a cause
as that of our Revolutionary fathers."

Mr. Dinsmore shook his head. "They fought against unbearable tyranny;
and that after having exhausted every other means of obtaining a redress
of their grievances; and we had suffered no oppression at the hands of
the general government."

"Hadn't we?" interrupted Foster fiercely. "Were the provisions of the
Fugitive Slave Law carried out by the North? didn't some of the Northern
States pass laws in direct opposition to it? and didn't Yankee
abolitionists come down here interfering with our institutions and
enticing our negroes to run away, or something worse?"

"Those were the acts of private individuals, and individual states,
entirely unsanctioned by the general government, which really had always
rather favored us than otherwise."

"But uncle," said Conly, "there would have been no secession but for the
election of Lincoln, an abolition candidate."

"And who elected him? who but the Democrats of the South? They made a
division in the Democratic party, purposely to enable the Republicans to
elect their man, that they might use his election as a pretext for
secession."

A long and hot discussion followed, each one present taking more or less
part in it. It was first the causes of the war, then the war itself;
after that the reconstruction policy of Congress, which was bitterly
denounced by Foster and Boyd.

"Never was a conquered people treated so shamefully!" cried the former,
"it is a thing hitherto unheard of in the history of the world, that
gentlemen should be put under the rule of their former slaves."

"Softly, softly, sir," said Leland, "surely you forget that the terms
proposed by the fourteenth amendment, substantially left the power of
the State governments in your hands, and enabled you to limit suffrage
and office to the white race. But you rejected it, and refused to take
part in the preliminary steps for reorganizing your State governments.
So the blacks acquired the right to vote and hold office: they were, as
a class, well meaning, but ignorant, and their old masters refusing to
accept office at their hands, or advise them in regard to their new
duties, they fell an easy prey to unscrupulous white men, whose only
care was to enrich themselves by robbing the already impoverished
states, through corrupt legi