“Oh! no, Colonel,” he cried, breaking down completely, “I beg of you do not leave us.  You are our chief, if not sole dependence.  You are our Moses.  If you leave us, hundreds of others in our immediate neighborhood will be sure to follow your lead.  We will thus be left without solid and substantial friends.  I admit that with you party affiliation is optional.  With me it is not.  You can be either a Republican or a Democrat, and be honored and supported by the party to which you may belong.  With me it is different.  I must remain a Republican whether I want to or not.  While it is impossible for me to be a Democrat it is not impossible for you to be a Republican.  We need you.  We need your prestige, your power, your influence, and your name.  I pray you, therefore, not to leave us; for if you and those who will follow your lead leave us now we will be made to feel that we are without a country, without a home, without friends, and without a hope for the future.  Oh, no, Colonel, I beg of you, I plead with you, don’t go!  Stay with us; lead and guide us, as you have so faithfully done during the last few years!”

Henry’s remarks made a deep and profound impression upon Colonel Lusk.  He informed Henry that no step he could take was more painful to him than this.  He assured Henry that this act on his part was from necessity and not from choice.

“The statement you have made, Henry, that party affiliations with me is optional,” he answered, “is presumed to be true; but, in point of fact, it is not.  No white man can live in the South in the future and act with any other than the Democratic party unless he is willing and prepared to live a life of social isolation and remain in political oblivion.  While I am somewhat advanced in years, I am not so old as to be devoid of political ambition.  Besides I have two grown sons.  There is, no doubt, a bright, brilliant and successful future before them if they are Democrats; otherwise, not.  If I remain in the Republican party,—­which can hereafter exist at the South only in name,—­I will thereby retard, if not mar and possibly destroy, their future prospects.  Then, you must remember that a man’s first duty is to his family.  My daughters are the pride of my home.  I cannot afford to have them suffer the humiliating consequences of the social ostracism to which they may be subjected if I remain in the Republican party.

“The die is cast.  I must yield to the inevitable and surrender my convictions upon the altar of my family’s good,—­the outgrowth of circumstances and conditions which I am powerless to prevent and cannot control.  Henceforth I must act with the Democratic party or make myself a martyr; and I do not feel that there is enough at stake to justify me in making such a fearful sacrifice as that.  It is, therefore, with deep sorrow and sincere regret, Henry, that I am constrained to leave you politically, but I find that I am confronted with a condition, not