al
for all Southern purposes. The system of Peonage and contracted
convict-labor, growing out of the codes of Black laws, were
all-sufficient to keep the bulk of the Negro race in practical subjection
and bondage. The solidifying of the South had already made the South
not only practically independent within the Union, but the overshadowing
power, potential enough to make, and unmake, the rulers and policies of
the Democratic Party, and of that Union.

This, indeed, was a grand outcome for the tireless efforts of the once
defeated Conspirators! And as to Oligarchal rule--the rule of the few
(and those the Southern chiefs) over the many,--was not that already
accomplished? For these old Rebel leaders and oligarchs who had secured
the supreme rule over the Solid South, had also, through their ability
to wield the power of that Solid South within the Union, actually
secured the power of practically governing the entire Union!

That Union, then, which we have been wont to look upon as the grandest,
noblest, freest, greatest Republic upon Earth,--is it really such, in
all respects, at the present? Does the Free Republic of the United
States exist, in fact, to-day?

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WHAT NEXT?

And what next? Aye, what next? Do the patriotic, innocent-minded
lovers of a Republican form of Government imagine, for an instant, that
all danger to its continued existence and well-being has ceased to
threaten?--that all the crises perilous to that beneficent popular
governmental form have vanished?--that the climacteric came, and went,
with the breaking out, and suppression, of the Rebellion?--and that
there is nothing alarming in the outlook? Quite likely. The public
mind has not yet been aroused to a sense of the actual revolution
against Republican form of government that has already taken place in
many of the Southern States, much less as to the likelihood of things to
come. The people of any one of the Western, or Northern States,--take
New York, for example,--feel prosperous and happy under the beneficent
workings of the Republican Protective-Tariff system. Business, of all
sorts, recovering from the numerous attacks made upon that prime bulwark
of our American industries, if only let alone, will fairly hum, and look
bright, so far as "the Almighty dollar" is concerned. They know they
have their primaries and conventions, in their wards and coun