They felt themselves to have been in all things utterly innocent
and guileless. The luck of war had been terribly against them, they
considered, but the right remained with them. They were virtuous.
Their opponents had not only been the aggressors at the outset,
but had shown themselves little better than savages by the manner
in which they had conducted the war; and, to crown the infamy of
their character, had imposed upon "the South" at its close that
most nefarious of all detestable forms of oppressive degradation,
"the Bureau." Their orators grew magniloquent over its tyrannical
oppression; the Southern press overflowed with that marvellous
exuberance of diatribe of which they are the acknowledged masters--to
all of which the complaisant North gave a ready and subservient
concurrence, until the very name reeked in the public mind with
infamous associations and degrading ideas.
A few men tried to stem the torrent. Some who had been in its service
even dared to insist that they had not thereby rendered themselves
infamous and unworthy. The nation listened for a time with kindly
pity to their indignant protests, and then buried the troublesome
and persistent clamorers in the silence of calm but considerate
disbelief. They were quietly allowed to sink into the charitable
grave of unquestioning oblivion. It was not any personal attaint
which befouled their names and blasted their public prospects, but
simply the fact that they had obeyed the nation's behest and done
a work assigned to them by the country's rulers.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132