“Yes, at _last_” said Marmor, derisively, “_at the last great day_, while slave-owners had each a vote for three out of every five of his slaves without asking their assent. But our hot-headed course hastened emancipation about a hundred years; and now that it is over I’m glad of it, though it did cost an ocean of blood and treasure. Slavery cursed the whites as well as the blacks, and ought to. When I think of all I saw in that war—I got this difficulty in my feet there (moving them with a grimace), and of the horrible sufferings it brought on our people, and how those leading villains knew all the time that they were deceiving us, I can’t think what wouldn’t be too good for them! And when that war was over, and the No’th had us in her hand as helpless as a trapped mouse, she not only spared their lives, but gave everything back to them which they had forfeited; and now you hear them go on about the National Government and the northern people, especially any that come and settle among us and try to develop the resources of the State, in a way that is simply outrageous! You would think the South was the magnanimous _patron_ of the stiff-necked and rebellious No’th. I verily believe the South would have liked the No’th better if it had put its foot upon her after she fell. Conquer your rebellious child or yield to his dictation without demur. “There are some who know no such thing as equality. Somebody must be the ‘Boss’, in their practice.” “But republican principles would not allow the government to hold these States as provinces,” remarked lawyer Elly. “They should have been held as territories,” said Marmor, “consistently or not. My blood is German (my father emigrated from Germany to Charleston when a small boy), but it has got the South Car’lina heat in it. I’m for _efficiency_.” “Nineteen-twentieths of what they call carpet-baggers, and make folks believe are just adventurers, are northern men, capitalists generally, who in emigrating did not leave their manhood behind. It matters not how heavy taxes they may pay, nor how long they remain in the State; if they vote the Republican ticket and maintain the principles and practice of equal justice for all men in the State, they are ‘carpet-baggers;’ and if they vote Democratic, according to the will of the confederate whites, though they vote ‘early and often,’ and at points far removed from each other, they escape the opprobious epithet.” CHAPTER III. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH. “Plumes himself in Freedom’s pride Tyrant stern to all beside.” —BURNS. ON an insignificant little village built on a narrow flat beside the Savannah river, the sun had been pouring his red hot rays all day, with even greater intensity than was usual at that season of the year. The inhabitants, however, paid little heed to the extreme heat, and only when the sun sank to the western horizon did they leave their fields and workshops and wend their ways homewards.