Page:The parallel between the English and American civil wars.djvu/56

THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN the emancipation of their negroes they lost the capital which made their estates productive. Further, during the period of negro misrule which followed the war, land was so overtaxed by the State governments that all through the South farms were sold in thousands for non-payment of taxes. It is said that about one-fifth of the area of Mississippi was in this way forfeited to the State. Financially the results of defeat were more ruinous to the land-owning class in the Southern States than they were to the corresponding class amongst the English royalists.

Politically the position of the ex-Confederate soldiers during the period of reconstruction was far more galling than that of English royalists during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In England all who had borne arms for the King were disfranchised and disabled from sitting in Parliament or holding municipal office. But the loss of political rights was not aggravated by subjection to the rule of an inferior race. In 48