In the last preceding chapter it was stated that the reason for the sanguinary revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of the Republican state government in the State of Mississippi in 1875, would be given in a subsequent chapter. What was true of Mississippi at that time was largely true of the other Reconstructed States where similar results subsequently followed. When the War of the Rebellion came to an end it was believed by some, and apprehended by others, that serious and radical changes in the previous order of things would necessarily follow. But when what was known as the Johnson Plan of Reconstruction was disclosed it was soon made plain that if that plan should be accepted by the country no material change would follow, for the reason, chiefly, that the abolition of slavery would have been abolition only in name. While physical slavery would have been abolished, yet a sort of feudal or peonage system would have been established in its place, the effect of which would have been practically the same as the system which had been abolished. The former slaves would have been held in a state of servitude through the medium of labor-contracts which they would have been obliged to sign,--or to have signed for them,--from which they, and their children, and, perhaps, their children's children could never have been released. This would have left the old order of things practically unchanged. The large landowners would still be the masters of the situation, the power being still possessed by them to perpetuate their own potential influence and to maintain their own political supremacy. But it was the rejection of the Johnson Plan of Reconstruction that upset these plans and destroyed these calculations. The Johnson plan was not only rejected, but what was known as the Congressional Plan of Reconstruction,--by which suffrage was conferred upon the colored men in all the States that were to be reconstructed,--was accepted by the people of the North as the permanent policy of the government, and was thus made the basis of Reconstruction and readmission of those States into the Union. Of course this meant a change in the established order of things that was both serious and radical. It meant the destruction of the power and influence of the Southern aristocracy. It meant not only the physical emancipation of the blacks but the political emancipation of the poor whites, as well. It meant the destruction in a large measure of the social, political, and industrial distinctions that had been maintained among the whites under the old order of things. But was this to be the settled policy of the government? Was it a fact that the incorporation of the blacks into the body politic of the country was to be the settled policy of the government; or was it an experiment,--a temporary expedient?