The like of Underwood's charge to the jury was never heard before in this land. It caused one long blush from Maine to Texas, Massachusetts to California; and resembled the Spanish War that came years after in that it gave Americans a common grievance. This poor, political bigot thought to please his Northern hearers by describing Richmond as "comely and spacious as a goodly apple on a gilded sepulchre where bloody treason flourished its whips of scorpions" and a "place where licentiousness has ruled until a majority of the births are illegitimate," and "the pulpit prostituted by full-fed gay Lotharios." But the thing is too loathsome to quote! Northern reporters said it was not a charge, took no cognisance of the matter before the Court, was a "vulgar, inflammatory stump speech." The "New York Herald" pronounced it "The strangest mixture of drivel and nonsense that ever disgraced a bench," and "without a parallel, with its foul-mouthed abuse of Richmond." "A disgrace to the American bench," declared the "New York World." "He has brought shame upon the entire bench of the country, for to the people of other countries he is a representative of American judges." There was no trial. Motion was made and granted for a continuance of the case to November, and bail given in bond for $100,000, which Horace Greeley signed first, the crowd cheering him as he went up to write his name, which was followed by signatures of other well-known men of both sections. "The Marshal will discharge the prisoner!" a noble sentence in the judge's mouth at last! Applause shakes the Court Room. Men surge forward; Mr. Davis is surrounded; his friends, his lawyers, his sureties, crowd about him; the North and the South are shaking hands; a love-feast is on. Human nature is at its best. The prisoner is free. When he appears on the portico the crowd grows wild with joy. Somebody wrote North that they heard the old "Rebel yell" once more, and that something or other unpleasant ought to be done to us because we would "holler" like that whenever we got excited. It looks as if his carriage will never get back to the Spotswood, people press about him so, laughing, crying, congratulating, cheering. Negroes climb upon the carriage steps, shaking his hand, kissing it, shouting: "God bless Mars Davis!" No man was ever more beloved by negroes he owned or knew. The South was unchained. The South was set free. No! That fall the first election at which negroes voted and whites--the majority disqualified by test-oath provision--did not vote, was held to send delegates to a convention presided over by John C. Underwood. This convention--the Black and Tan--made a new Constitution for the Old Dominion.