“In the stage between Augusta and Milledgeville I rode with two gentlemen of considerable local weight and prominence, who were both anti-secessionists in 1860-61. They talked of the approaching Convention, and of its probable action in redistricting the State for Representatives. ‘Well, Colonel,’ said the younger, himself a man of over forty years,--‘well, Colonel, what will be our proper course, when we are once more fully restored to the Union?’ The answer came, after a moment’s consideration: ‘_We must strike hands with the Democratic party of the North, and manage them as we always have._’ There was a pause while we rattled down the hill, and then the questioner responded: ‘That is just it; _they were ready enough to give us control, if we gave them the offices, and I reckon they have not changed very much yet_.’ There was then conversation on other matters; but half an hour later, after a mile or so of silence, the Colonel suddenly resumed: ‘Yes, Sir, our duty is plain; we shall be without weight, now that Slavery is gone, unless we do join hands with them. Andy Johnson will want a reëlection, and the united _Democratic party must take him up. It shall be a fair division: we want the power, and they want the spoils._’” The same writer, in another letter, shows how Rebels were honored in the Convention. “‘I’ll be d--d, if I vote for any man who did not go with the State,’ said one of the delegates, while the canvass for officers was going on; in accordance with which spirit the secretary is a gentleman who was a colonel in the Rebel army, and the doorkeeper a gentleman who lost an arm in the service.” Where such a spirit prevails, the freedmen fare badly. In Georgia they are treated cruelly. A traveller writes:-- “The hatred toward the negro as a freeman is intense among the low and brutal, who are the vast majority. Murders, shootings, whippings, robbing, and brutal treatment of every kind are daily inflicted upon them, and I am sorry to say in most cases they can get no redress. They don’t know where to complain or how to seek justice, after they have been abused and cheated. The habitual deference toward the white man makes them fearful of his anger and revenge.” An official of the Government, after traversing Mississippi and Alabama, writes from Georgia in a very recent letter:--