For the first time in the history of mankind, the corrupt and
unprincipled agents of undefined power became the servants, friends,
protectors, agents, and promoters of the poor and weak and the
oppressors of the rich, the strong, the learned, and the astute.
It may be said that this view cannot be true; that thousands
of men selected from the officers of our citizen-soldiery by the
unanswerable certificate of disabling wounds and the added prestige
of their commander's recommendation, a class of men in physical,
intellectual and moral power and attainments far superior to the
average of the American people--it may be said that such could not
have become all at once infamously bad; and, if they did suffer such
transformation, would have oppressed the blacks at the instigation
of the whites, who were willing and able to pay well for such
subversion of authority, and not the reverse. This would seem to
be true, but we are not now dealing with speculations, but with
facts! We know that they did become such a pest because at the South
they were likened to the plagues of Egypt, and the North reiterated
and affirmed this cry and condoled with the victims of the oppression
with much show of penitence, and an unappeasable wrath toward the
instruments of the iniquity. Thus the voice of the people--that
voice which is but another form of the voice of God--proclaimed
these facts to the world, so that they must thenceforth be held
indisputable and true beyond the utmost temerity of scepticism.
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