Perkins made himself the poll holder at Hambright though he was a candidate for member of the Constitutional Convention, and the poll holders were allowed to keep the ballots in their possession for three days before forwarding to the General in command at Charleston, South Carolina. Scores of negroes, under the instructions of their leaders voted three times that day. Every negro boy fairly well grown was allowed to vote and no questions asked as to his age. Nelse approached the polls attempting to cast a vote against the Rev. Ezra Perkins the poll holder. A crowd of infuriated negroes surrounded him in a moment. “Kill ’im! Knock ’im in the head! De black debbil, votin’ agin his colour!” Nelse threw his big fists right and left and soon had an open space in the edge of which lay a half dozen negroes scrambling to get to their feet. The negroes formed a line in front of him and the foremost one said, “You try ter put dat vote in de box we bust yo head open!” Nelse knocked him down before he got the words well out of him mouth. “Honey, I’se er bad nigger!” he shouted with a grin as he stepped back and started to rush the line. Perkins ordered the guard to arrest him. As the guard carried Nelse away a crowd of angry negroes followed grinning and cursing. “We lay fur you yit, ole hoss!” was their parting word as he disappeared through the jail door. That night at the supper table in the hotel at Ham-bright an informal census of the voters was taken. There were present at the table a distinguished ex-judge, two lawyers, a General, two clergymen, a merchant, a farmer, and two mechanics. The only man of all allowed to vote that day was the negro who waited on the table. Thus began the era of a corrupt and degraded ballot in the South that was to bring forth sorrow for generations yet unborn. The intelligence, culture, wealth, social prestige, brains, conscience and the historic institutions of a great state had been thrust under the hoof of ignorance and vice. The votes were sent to the military commandant at Charleston and the results announced. The negroes had elected no representatives and the whites 10. It was gravely announced from Washington that a “republican form of government” had at last been established in North Carolina. CHAPTER XVI--LEGREE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE THE new government was now in full swing and a saturnalia began. Amos Hogg was Governor, Simon Legree Speaker of the House, and the Hon. Tim Shelby leader of the majority on the floor of the House. Raleigh, the quaint little City of Oaks, never saw such an assemblage of law-makers gather in the grey stone Capitol. Ezra Perkins, who was a member of the Senate, was frugal in his habits and found lodgings at an unpretentious boarding house near the Capitol square.