I doubt
whether any party would venture upon it, even now."
"But are not its results too remote, Mr. Le Moyne, to make such a
measure of present interest in the cure of present evils?"
"Not at all," answered Hesden. "By such a measure you bring the
purest men of the South into close and intimate relations with
the Government. You cut off the sap which nourishes the yet living
root of the State Rights dogma. You bring every man to feel as you
feel, that there is something greater and grander than his State
and section. Besides that, you draw the poison from the sting which
rankles deeper than you think. The Southern white man feels, and
justly feels, that the burden of educating the colored man ought
not to be laid upon the South alone. He says truly, 'The Nation
fostered and encouraged slavery; it gave it greater protection and
threw greater safeguards around it than any other kind of property;
it encouraged my ancestors and myself to invest the proceeds of
generations of care and skill and growth in slaves. When the war
ended it not only at one stroke dissipated all these accumulations,
but it also gave to these men the ballot, and would now drive me,
for my own protection, to provide for their education. This is
unjust and oppressive. I will not do it, nor consent that it shall
be done by my people or by our section alone.' To such a man--and
there are many thousands of them--such a measure would come as an
act of justice.
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