e figure, an actor
must have a stage that places him in the full view of his audience, if
he would do his best work. Our nation is the stage upon which your sons
are to strive for immortality.

"To labor to the best advantage they must have the chance to be vested
with the authority of the nation, the power of the whole people. Given
that power, the scroll of immortality will at least be laid before them
that they may make effort to write their names thereon," said Ensal.

"Now, Mr. Maul," he continued, "the Negro population is so distributed
that it now holds the balance of power in the nation. We have it in our
power to keep the South out of its larger glory.

"However unpalatable it may be to a Southern white man, he must reckon
with the fact, that between himself and the coveted favor of the nation
stands the will of the Negro."

"That is very apparent," said young Maul.

"While we can hamper," resumed Ensal, "the white people of the South
nationally, they can trouble us considerably locally. Now, we are not
enemies of the South, and take no delight in the crippling of her
influence _per se_, and we would like to see this unarmed strife come to
a close. Nothing would give the Negroes greater joy than to see the
right kind of a white man from the South made President of the nation.

"And the right kind of men exist in the South! There were perhaps as
many white men from the South in the Union army as there were Negroes.

"Only one thing is now needed to gladden the hearts of the Negroes of
the United States and cause them to turn enthusiastically to the making
of the South the grandest section of the Union," said Ensal.

"What can that be, pray?" said young Maul.

"Mr. Maul, excuse me for not stating at once. Cast your eye back over
the history of our country and take note of the woes that have been
heaped upon the South and upon the nation by the radicals among you.

"There was a strong anti-war party in the South prior to the breaking
out of the civil war, but the radicals overwhelmed them and brought on
that disastrous conflict.

"Immediately after the war the radicals got control of some of your
state legislatures and began to pass laws that would have practically
re-enslaved the Negroes. The radical policy of the nation, as revealed
in reconstruction measures was the child of radicalism in the South, so
charge the burdens and woes of that period to your radicals.

"'Carpet-baggers' and 'scalawags' m