dem w’ite folks in dere is up ter?  Dere’s one thing sho’,—­dey’re gwine ter git after de niggers some way er ‘nuther, an’ w’en dey does, whar is Jerry gwine ter be?  Dat’s de mos’ impo’tantes’ question.  I’m gwine ter look at dat newspaper dey be’n talkin’ ‘bout, an’ ’less’n my min’ changes might’ly, I’m gwine ter keep my mouf shet an’ stan’ in wid de Angry-Saxon race,—­ez dey calls deyse’ves nowadays,—­an’ keep on de right side er my bread an’ meat.  Wat nigger ever give me twenty cents in all my bawn days?”

“By the way, major,” said the general, who lingered behind McBane as they were leaving, “is Miss Clara’s marriage definitely settled upon?”

“Well, general, not exactly; but it’s the understanding that they will marry when they are old enough.”

“I was merely thinking,” the general went on, “that if I were you I’d speak to Tom about cards and liquor.  He gives more time to both than a young man can afford.  I’m speaking in his interest and in Miss Clara’s,—­we of the old families ought to stand together.”

“Thank you, general, for the hint.  I’ll act upon it.”

This political conference was fruitful in results.  Acting upon the plans there laid out, McBane traveled extensively through the state, working up sentiment in favor of the new movement.  He possessed a certain forceful eloquence; and white supremacy was so obviously the divine intention that he had merely to affirm the doctrine in order to secure adherents.

General Belmont, whose business required him to spend much of the winter in Washington and New York, lost no opportunity to get the ear of lawmakers, editors, and other leaders of national opinion, and to impress upon them, with persuasive eloquence, the impossibility of maintaining existing conditions, and the tremendous blunder which had been made in conferring the franchise upon the emancipated race.

Carteret conducted the press campaign, and held out to the Republicans of the North the glittering hope that, with the elimination of the negro vote, and a proper deference to Southern feeling, a strong white Republican party might be built up in the New South.  How well the bait took is a matter of history,—­but the promised result is still in the future.  The disfranchisement of the negro has merely changed the form of the same old problem.  The negro had no vote before the rebellion, and few other rights, and yet the negro question was, for a century, the pivot of American politics.  It plunged the nation into a bloody war, and it will trouble the American government and the American conscience until a sustained attempt is made to settle it upon principles of justice and equity.

The personal ambitions entertained by the leaders of this movement are but slightly involved in this story.  McBane’s aims have been touched upon elsewhere.  The general would have accepted the nomination for governor of the state, with a vision of a senatorship in the future.  Carteret hoped to vindicate the supremacy of his race, and make the state fit for his son to live in, and, incidentally, he would not refuse any office, worthy of his dignity, which a grateful people might thrust upon him.