“As I said,” sez Cousin John Richard, “thousands of the more intelligent ones who have property of their own would go at their own expense for the sake of founding free, peaceful homes, where their children could have the advantages of independence, freed from the baleful effects of class antagonism and race prejudices. “Many of the old and feeble ones, and those who were prosperous and well off, would not go at all. And of those who remained, if the Government should transport them and support them there for a year it would not cost a twentieth part so much as to carry on a civil war. “And I tell you war will come, Josiah Allen, if something is not done to avert the storm.” And agin John Richard’s eyes took on that fur-off look, as if he wuz lookin’ at things dretful some distance off. “Amongst the lower classes you can hear muttered curses and half-veiled threats, and you feel their passion and their burning hatred towards the race that gave them the Indian gift of freedom—gave it, and then snatched it out of their hands, and instead of liberty gave them injustice and worse oppression. “And the storm is coming up. Evil spirits are in the atmosphere. Over the better feelings of the white race, dominating them, are the black shapes of contempt and repulsion towards the race once their servants, made their equals by a wordy fiction of their enemies, but still under their feet. “And in their haughty breasts, as of old, only stronger, is the determination to have their own way, to rule this ‘ignorant rabble,’ to circumvent the cowardly will of their Northern foe, who had brought this thing to pass, to still rule them in one way if not in another—rule or ruin. “And the storm is coming up the heavens. The lightning is being stored, and the tempest of hail, the burning lightning, and deafening thunder peals are awaiting this day of wrath when the storm shall burst. “And you sit on in your ease and will not believe it.” His eyes wuz bent on my pardner’s form, who wuz leanin’ back in a almost luxurious attitude in his soft copper-plate-covered rockin’ chair, but I see he didn’t mean him in particeler; no, his eyes had in ’em a wide, deep look that took in the hull country, North and South, and he went on in almost eloquent axents: “The Northern soldier who twenty-five years ago hung up his old rifle and powder-horn with a sigh of content that the war against oppression and slavery had been won still sits under them in content and self-admiration of his prowess, and heeds not at all the signs in the heavens. “And the wise men in the National Capital sit peacefully in their high places and read over complacently the words they wrote down a quarter of a century ago: “‘All slaves are free.’ “And the bandage that Justice wears, having slipped too far down over their wise eyes, they have not seen the handcuffs and chains that have weighed down the still enslaved. “And they read these words: “‘We proclaim peace in all your borders.’