"But the ceremony!" Miss Winfield wrote. "Nothing has so impressed me since the ball to Prince Arthur, nor has anything so amused me unless it be the pipe-stem pantaloons our gentlemen wear in imitation of His Royal Highness. Senator Wilson conducted Revels to the Speaker's desk with a fine air that said: 'Massachusetts has done it all!' Vice-President Colfax administered the oath with such unction as you never saw, then shook hands with great warmth with Revels--nobody ever before saw him greet a novitiate so cordially! But then, those others were only white men! With pomp and circumstance the sergeant-at-arms led the hero of the hour to his exalted position. 'Some day,' said my companion, 'history will record this as showing how far the race-madness of a people can go under political spurs.' Republican Senators fell over each other to shake Revels' hand and congratulate him. Poor Mississippi! And Revels is not even a native. General Ames, of Maine, is her other senator. Poor Mississippi!" A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY CHAPTER XXII A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY For clearness in what has gone before and what follows, I must write a little plain history. Many who ought to have known Mr. Lincoln's mind, among these General Sherman, with whom Mr. Lincoln had conversed freely, believed it his purpose to recognise existing State Governments in the South upon their compliance with certain conditions. These governments were given no option; governors calling legislatures for the purpose of expressing submission, were clapped into prison. Thus, these States were without civil State Governments, and under martial law. Some local governments and courts continued in operation subject to military power; military tribunals and Freedmen's Bureaus were established. Beginning May 29, 1865, with North Carolina, President Johnson reconstructed the South on the plan Mr. Lincoln had approved, appointing for each State a Provisional Governor empowered to call a convention to make a new State Constitution or remodel the old to meet new conditions. His policy was to appoint a citizen known for anti-Secession or Union sentiments, yet holding the faith and respect of his State, as Perry, of South Carolina; Sharkey, of Mississippi; Hamilton, of Texas. The conventions abolished slavery, annulled the secession ordinance, repudiated the Confederate debt, acknowledged the authority of the United States. An election was held for State officers and members of the legislature, voters qualifying as previous to 1861, and by taking the amnesty oath of May 29. Legislatures reënacted the convention's work of annulling secession, abolishing slavery, repudiating debt; and passed civil rights bills giving the negro status as a citizen, but without the franchise, though some leaders advised conferring it in a qualified form; they passed vagrancy laws which the North interpreted as an effort at reënslavement.