Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/498

 492 Southern Historical Society Papers.

hate, for meanness of oppression, for cool, prolonged relish of tor- ture, and for insatiate extravagance of plunder, are without parallel in precedent, civilized or heathen !

It must be admitted that our enemies were wisely wicked. They well knew it would never do to admit Southern intellect into the National Councils until their work was fully completed and had been made part of the fundamental law. Even when reconstruction had reached the point that the doors of Congress must be opened, they were only allowed to be opened to such as were participants in, and products of, the infamy. The caressing fathers took only to their arms the dirty children their vengeance had begotten. In 1872, alarmed by what seemed to be a returning sense of justice at the North, aided by most remarkable concessions for peace and deliver- ance at the South, Congress removed the illegal disabilities imposed upon most of our leaders, though upon many even yet these dis abilities remain. In the meantime most of our greatest men — who were most familiar with the facts of the past, so essential to our vin- dication — had passed away, or were rapidly passing away. A very few of these were released from these bonds upon the use of their intellects. But most manifestly a better opportunity had returned at last to the Southern people, and it was expected by our enemies and the world that this opportunity would be improved, and our very ablest men everywhere chosen to Congress. And now comes the most curious chapter in our history. It will puzzle the future histo rian. Not a single man who was in full sympathy and accord with the Confederate administration, and who was intimate in the coun- cils, and, daily as it progressed, familiar with the policy of that administration, has been called by our own people to a single prominent position, State or National ! While many who gave aid and encouagement to the enemy, by disaffecting our people to that administration during the war of coercion, and refused to give coun- sel, or counseled consent during the baser war of reconstruction, have received high marks of confidence from our enemies, and high positions of honor from our people ! Crowds of intellectual imbe- ciles, like flocks of noisy blackbirds in harvest time, rush forward to secure, by personal scramble and trade, those positions of heaviest trust and res]>onsibility, and thus murder all hope of having any vin- dication of our (Jead, or justice for our living in the Councils of the Nation.

When such a State as Virginia, in such a crisis as this, for such a place as the Senate, repudiates such a statesman as Hunter — familiar