those who served in the war. It is only
a suggestion. The State alone has the power to confer the ballot."

"But the truth is this little 'suggestion' of yours is only a bone thrown
to radical dogs to satisfy our howlings for the moment! In your soul of
souls you don't believe in the equality of man if the man under comparison
be a negro?"

"I believe that there is a physical difference between the white and black
races which will forever forbid their living together on terms of
political and social equality. If such be attempted, one must go to the
wall."

"Very well, pin the Southern white man to the wall. Our party and the
Nation will then be safe."

"That is to say, destroy African slavery and establish white slavery under
negro masters! That would be progress with a vengeance."

A grim smile twitched the old man's lips as he said:

"Yes, your prim conservative snobs and male waiting-maids in Congress went
into hysterics when I armed the negroes. Yet the heavens have not
fallen."

"True. Yet no more insane blunder could now be made than any further
attempt to use these negro troops. There can be no such thing as restoring
this Union to its basis of fraternal peace with armed negroes, wearing the
uniform of this Nation, tramping over the South, and rousing the basest
passions of the freedmen and their former masters. General Butler, their
old commander, is now making plans for their removal, at my request. He
expects to dig the Panama Canal with these black troops."

"Fine scheme that--on a par with your messages to Congress asking for the
colonization of the whole negro race!"

"It will come to that ultimately," said the President firmly. "The negro
has cost us $5,000,000,000, the desolation of ten great States, and rivers
of blood. We can well afford a few million dollars more to effect a
permanent settlement of the issue. This is the only policy on which Seward
and I have differed----"

"Then Seward was not an utterly hopeless fool. I'm glad to hear something
to his credit," growled the old Commoner.

"I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue until
it is accomplished. My emancipation proclamation was linked with this
plan. Thousands of them have lived in the North for a hundred years, yet
not one is the pastor of a white church, a judge, a governor, a mayor, or
a college president. There is no room for two distinct races of white men
in America, much less for two distinct rac