Paragraphs like this served a special use. They illustrated the temper in which pardoned Rebels, who had sought the Attorney-General’s office[45] as their “last ditch,” resumed their duties as loyal citizens. “None so hard to please as a beggar.” These men abjured all their rights under the Constitution, and did their best to overthrow it. They were forced back. Yesterday they cringed for pardon at the feet of “the boorish and drunken tailor” they had denounced; to-day they are harder to satisfy than ninety and nine just men who have no need of repentance. An ex-colonel of a Virginia regiment was exceedingly anxious to argue his political principles. They were talking, he heard, about keeping the Southern members from participating in the organization of the House, just to enable the Radicals to get all the officers. But he didn’t believe they would dare to venture on so grossly tyrannical a course. If it was proposed to conciliate the South, they must no longer be subjected to such iniquitous oppression. The whole war had been of the same sort. The North had no business to begin its attack in the first place—no justification for it under the sun. The South was only defending itself from Northern violations of law. Didn’t Massachusetts, in her Legislature, threaten to secede in 1812?[46] And wasn’t there a clause in the Constitution about importing slaves down to 1808, which was put in for her benefit, and at her peremptory demand? “As for your niggers, you’ve got ’em on your hands. They won’t work, unless you force them to it, and they’ll steal rather than starve. You even talk about giving them suffrage! There are no words to express the infamy of such a proposition. This is a white man’s government, and must be kept so till the end of time. It’s true, there are a great many ignorant whites voting now; but so much the more need for stopping further addition to the ignorant vote.” There ought to be educational and property qualifications, he thought; but on no account would he permit negroes to avail themselves of these. Educated or ignorant, rich or poor, the niggers must be kept down. In Richmond, and, as it appeared, throughout the South, there was a general reliance upon the President to secure the immediate admission of their Senators and Representatives. Whether all believed or not, all at any rate claimed, that their Representatives had a perfect right to participate in the organization of the House. The President was to see to it that they were admitted to this right. None of these former sticklers for a strict construction of the Constitution, hesitated for a moment at the suggestion that the President was as powerless in the premises as themselves. “Hasn’t he the army?” they asked. In the better days such a question would have been denounced as treasonable. After their four years of arbitrary rule, it seemed to them the most natural thing in the world. * * * * *