“Good people (in the South) rarely make much distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who looks like a criminal; between shooting him down in the street or burning him at the stake; between burning the guilty man or his innocent wife; between the quiet family inferno with only two or three hundred spectators and a first-class, advertised _auto-da-fé_ with special trains, and the children of the public schools in the foreground.” There you have it, in all its true amplitude and _animus_! “The _good people_” of the South do not strive, according to Dr. Hart, to draw the line of distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who simply _looks_ guilty. They establish no real distinction between the guilty man and his innocent wife. It makes no difference to these “good people” whether they have a quiet family inferno, with two or three hundred spectators, or the first-class, advertised burning, when special trains are run and the public-school teachers give the children a recess in order that they may attend the exhibition! If that is not mere partisanship, frothing at the mouth, what is it? It certainly cannot be seriously taken as a truthful summing up of a general situation. An irresponsible stump-speaker, in the reckless rush of a hot political campaign, would have better sense than to deal in hyperbole in that furious fashion. But when a man of Dr. Hart’s standing publishes stuff like this it does harm. It misleads the North and arouses passionate indignation in the South. When Dr. Hart does work of that wild sort he is no longer a historian; he is simply an incendiary. He is a child _playing with fire_. If I were to apply to the North the same measure which Professor Hart has applied to the South, could I not convict the “good people” of _his_ section, as he has convicted “the good people” of _mine_? Are “the good people” of the entire North to be held up as utterly lawless, making a jest of “_such peccadillos as murder_,” because of the late doings at Wilmington, Del., or at Springfield, O.? Has Indiana had no lynchings; has Colorado had no carnival of crime? James Tillman, of South Carolina, “shot down in the street” a mortal political foe who had, beyond all question, given him great provocation. I do not say that James Tillman was justified in his act—I merely say that he had provocation, great provocation. He was acquitted, _but he was not sent to Congress_. He left the court-room a broken, chastened man; and is now leading a life of sobriety, industry and rectitude. Not many years ago, _on a Sunday morning_, a saloon-keeper and his son, in the city of Boston, Mass., beat down a drunken man who had broken a window-pane of said saloon—_beat him down on the streets, and kicked him to death after he was down_. Apparently the man’s sole offense was that he had broken a pane of glass and refused to pay for it. The saloon was open in violation of law.