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