Page:The Clansman (1905).djvu/359

 "Nor with black barbarians, father. It is a question of who possesses the right of life and death over the citizen, the organised virtue of the community, or its organised crime. You have mistaken for death the patience of a generous people. We call ourselves the champions of liberty. Yet for less than they have suffered, kings have lost their heads and empires perished before the wrath of freemen."

"My boy, this is not a question for argument between us," said the father with stern emphasis. "This conspiracy of terror and assassination threatens to shatter my work to atoms. The election on which turns the destiny of Congress, and the success or failure of my life, is but a few weeks away. Unless this foul conspiracy is crushed, I am ruined, and the Nation falls again beneath the heel of a slaveholders' oligarchy."

"Your nightmare of a slaveholders' oligarchy does not disturb me."

"At least you will have the decency to break your affair with Margaret Cameron pending the issue of my struggle of life and death with her father and brother?"

"Never."

"Then I will do it for you."

"I warn you, sir," Phil cried, with anger, "that if it comes to an issue of race against race, I am a white man. The ghastly tragedy of the condition of society here is something for which the people of the South are no longer responsible"

"I'll take the responsibility!" growled the old cynic.