CHAPTER XXXII. TURNING BACK THE HANDS! And now, the War having ended in the defeat, conquest, and capture, of those who, inspired by the false teachings of Southern leaders, had arrayed themselves in arms beneath the standard of Rebellion, and fought for Sectional Independence against National Union, for Slavery against Freedom, and for Free Trade against a benignant Tariff protective alike to manufacturer, mechanic, and laborer, it might naturally be supposed that, with the collapse of this Rebellion, all the issues which made up "the Cause"--the "Lost Cause," as those leaders well termed it--would be lost with it, and disappear from political sight; that we would never again hear of a Section of the Nation, and last of all the Southern Section, organized, banded together, solidified in the line of its own Sectional ideas as against the National ideas prevailing elsewhere through the Union; that Free Trade, conscious of the ruin and desolation which it had often wrought, and of the awful sacrifices, in blood and treasure, that had been made in its behalf by the conquered South, would slink from sight and hide its famine-breeding front forever; and that Slavery, in all its various disguises, was banished, never more to obtrude its hateful form upon our Liberty-loving Land. That was indeed the supposition and belief which everywhere pervaded the Nation, when Rebellion was conquered by the legions of the Union--and which especially pervaded the South. Never were Rebels more thoroughly exhausted and sick of Rebellion and of everything that led to it, than these. As Badeau said, they made haste "to yield everything they had fought for," and "dreamed not of political power." They had been brought to their knees, suing for forgiveness, and thankful that their forfeit lives were spared. For awhile, with chastened spirit, the reconstructed South seemed to reconcile itself in good faith to the legitimate results of the War, and all went well. But Time and Peace soon obliterate the lessons and the memories of War. And it was not very long after the Rebellion had ceased, and the old issues upon which it was fought had disappeared from the arena of National politics, when its old leaders and their successors began slowly, carefully, and systematically, to relay the tumbled-down, ruined foundations and walls of the Lost Cause--a work in which, unfortunately, they were too well aided by the mistaken clemency and magnanimity of the Republican Party, in hastily removing the political disabilities of those leaders.