The Broken Sword

Seymour. This congress of Southern leaders of the old school, after the interchange of the usual courtesies, resolved themselves into "A

here were few men more richly endowed; his intellect was of the highest order-clear, rapid and comprehensive-combined with an extraordinary facility of expressing and illustrating his ideas, both in conversation and debate. He possessed a rich imagination, a rare and delicate taste, a gentle and sportive wit, and an uninterrupted flow of humor, that made him the delight of every circle. Nor were his moral qualities less deserving of respect and admiration. He was generous, brave, patriotic and independent. He was the slave of no ambitious or selfish policy; the hunter of no factitious

. "But what avail," said he as he leaned heavily upon his staff, "are arguments and protests? Can we charm the serpent into harmlessness by the feeble chirping

and have seen the upheaving of the billows, which rose, and raged and tossed as foam from their bosoms, the wild spirits that gendered the tempest. I envy not the triumph of those who have troubled the waters; who have laid waste the South, who have beggared her proud people. I had rather stand with my countrymen powerless, but brave and unyielding, than to wield the thunderbolts of Jove, if I must employ their power and resource in wrong and oppression. When the last spark of Roman liberty was extinguished; when no voice but tha

at Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean empire, was adorned by the spoils of all Asia; the Assyrian was plundered by the Persian, the Persian by the Macedonian, and it at last devoured by the Roman power. The wolf which nursed its founder, gave a hunger for prey insatiable to the whole world. There was not a temple nor a shrine between the Euphrates a

his wisdom has adjusted human wants to their power of production. Like the bread from heaven the dews of every night produce the crops, and the labors of every day gather the harvest. What, but an almost boundless power of consumption and repr

uth believed that the theory of the government derived its chiefest captivation from its regard to the equal rights of all its citizens and from its pledge to maintain and preserve those rights.

its active and diffused state, to give effect to th

an man's law. Man's feeble statutes cannot annul the immutable ordinances

reign commonwealths, and become the judges of the rights and property of a race who had ruled the d

utional age shall have passed away, he sees the exodus or extirpation of this disturbing element in the social and political condi

ximation to this era of ruin-of social degradation-was when the slaves in Rome were enfranchised by order of the emperor, and conditions there were totally dissimilar. Whilst they enjoyed certain rights and prerogatives of manumission, they were still held to duties of obedience and gratitude. Whatever were the fruits of their toil and industry, their patrons shared or inherited the third part, or even the whole of their acquisitions. In the declin

n the white men of the South shall come to see how things are, and to realize the downward tendency, physical, intellectual manhood will make a throe to regain the height it has lost, and if it fails, a storm will arise from the elements they are compound

ole superstructure, and thereby reinforced the country with so much labor and skill; furnished so much mutual employment for that skill and labor, aided as they were by so many instrumentalities of toil and agents of production. What a country it was-supplied by this system from the labor of our own hands and workshops, with all the machinery, fruits of the earth, and all the needful fabrics of human skill. This great system comprehended every class and eve

elligence of the white race, ennobled by centuries of meritorious service, had ruled; to a government by a black race that less than five generations before had been hunted like wild beasts in the jungles of the dark continent; who were handcuffed and decoyed into slave ships, and who had been slaves until the proclamation of President Lincoln emancipated them in the territory protected by the U. S. Army. The transition was to a condition of things in which white men to the number of three hundred thousand were disfranchise

rendered into the hands of the carpet-baggers all power. The judiciary, the last refuge of the unfortunate and oppressed is stricken down and stripped of both ermine and respectability. The ballot box-the sanctuary of freedom-the ballot box-the only secure refuge of liberty-the ballot box, the armory where freedom's weapons are wont to terrify tyrants, is

offices, increasing the salaries of incompetent and truculent officials, multiplying the cost and expenditures of government, and correspondingly increasing the burdens of taxation. Then came martial law, militia campaigns, loyal leagues, murders, arsons, burglaries, rapes, and a reign of terror and intimidation to mak

being. He is the foremost agent of providence in keeping up the natural distinction of race and position. His creed is that men are not to be antagonists, but friends. Differ they must in usages and institutions, in habits and pursuits; but in his opinion they differ, not that they may be separated, but for a truer sympathy and a compacter union. Mountains and seas insulate, language and religion differentiate men, but the law in its economical administration corrects these things into the elements of a genuine brotherhood. The fortunes of the world, so f

nservative temper in resisting fanaticism, vice, corruption and fraud has shown itself a watchful guardian of the momentous trusts confided to its keeping. The honest, learned judge has pledged himself for the faith of contracts and treaties; he has jealously guarded the institutions of the country and bravely upheld them as the embodiment of our doctrines and our hopes. The traditions, laws and customs of the country

s utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended constitutions and the laws and by the genera

der foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen

n, "our meeting here to-day will be without its inf

e president with full power to enter into any treaty or compact for the maintenance of peace and orde