of the Negro than
were the poor whites; but, as misrule went on, all classes tended to
unite against the Negro in politics. They were tired of reconstruction,
new amendments, force bills, Federal troops--tired of being ruled as
conquered provinces by the incompetent and the dishonest. Every measure
aimed at the South seemed to them to mean that they were considered
incorrigible and unworthy of trust, and that they were being made to
suffer for the deeds of irresponsible whites. And, to make matters
worse, strong opposition to proscriptive measures was called fresh
rebellion. "When the Jacobins say and do low and bitter things, their
charge of want of loyalty in the South because our people grumble back
a little seems to me as unreasonable as the complaint of the little boy:
'Mamma, make Bob 'have hisself. He makes mouths at me every time I hit
him with my stick.'"*

* Usually ascribed to General D. H. Hill of North Carolina,
and quoted in "The Land We Love", vol. 1, p. 146.

Probably this burden fell heavier on the young men, who had life before
them and who were growing up with diminished opportunities. Sidney
Lanier, then an Alabama school teacher, wrote to Bayard Taylor: "Perhaps
you know that with us of the young generation in the South, since the
war, pretty much the whole of life has been merely not dying." Negro and
alien rule was a constant insult to the intelligence of the country. The
taxpayers were nonparticipants in the affairs of government. Some people
withdrew entirely from public life, went to their farms or plantations,
kept away from towns and from speechmaking, waiting for the end to come.
There were some who refused for several years to read the newspapers, so
unpleasant was the news. The good feeling produced by the magnanimity of
Grant at Appomattox was destroyed by the severity of his Southern policy
when he became President. There was no gratitude for any so-called
leniency of the North, no repentance for the war, no desire for
humiliation, for sackcloth and ashes, and no confession of wrong. The
insistence of the radicals upon obtaining a confession of depravity
only made things much worse. Scarcely a measure of Congress during
reconstruction was designed or received in a conciliatory spirit.

The new generation of whites was poor, bitter because of persecution,
ill-educated, overworked, without a bright future, and shadowed by the
race problem. Though their new political leaders w