To these evidences of kindly interest on the part of the Northern
people, and the influence of, and confidence implied in the immediate
presence of feminine representatives of the best and most peaceable
element of the North, certainly not less is due than to the natural
timidity of the race, or their great faith in ultimate Divine
deliverance, which needed intelligent direction.
Evidently the most difficult lesson, and yet that most needed by all
the former inhabitants of the southern states is _reverence for, trust
in, and submission to law_. The old habit of irresponsible authority,
of domination instead of true democracy—the idea that the sovereign
citizen may be superior to the law enacted by the popular will, is hard
to eradicate.
Like the writhing beheaded serpent, which responds with slow-dying
malice to the glow of the sun that does not make night because its
green eyes are sightless, beheaded slaveocratic feudalism blindly
ejects its spite at inevitable oncoming civilization.
Through the philanthropic movements which have been indicated, an
entirely new ingredient was injected among the heterogeneous elements
of southern society which were seeking a new basis, and a few
northern soldiers, enamored of the delicious climate and naturally
productive soil to which war and conquest had introduced them, and
from which slavery had formerly excluded them, brought their families
from Northern homes, or married daughters of this sunny land, and
became permanent residents. Then followed capitalists, allured by the
numerous apparently good investments the almost universal bankruptcy
afforded.
With these came money, and such industry, enterprise, skill and public
spirit as was before unknown in that slavery-cursed land; and the
pecuniary results of which the Southerner can only account for by
supposed political corruption or downright stealing from the public
funds—the most familiar means.
Still the formerly favored class, true to its arrogance, and not
ignored by those accustomed to worship at its shrine, ranks the
possessor of one of its patronymics, especially if garnished by
military title won or sustained in confederate service, among the most
enviable of men; for “The Lost Cause” is as dear to South Carolinians
as ever—an ideal worshiped all the more devoutly because of its
unreality, and with demonstration necessarily somewhat restrained.
CHAPTER X.
THE ATTACK.
“Shepherd—Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
Clo.—Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights; the
men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the
gentleman; he’s at it now.
Shep.—I Would I had been by to have helped the old man!
Clo.—I would you had been by the ship’s side, to have helped her;
there your charity would have lacked footing.
* * * * *
Shep.—This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so; up with it, keep
it close; home, home, the next way. * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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