e positive
action of the body to which it belongs. A strong minority, so
disciplined that it cannot be divided, will, in the hands of
competent leaders, annoy, distract, and often defeat, the majority
of a parliamentary body. Much more can one absolute half of a
legislative assembly, compactly united, succeed in dividing and
controlling the other half, which has no class interest to consolidate
it, and no tyrannical public opinion behind it, decreeing political
death to any member who doubts or halts in his devotion to one
supreme idea.

THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE SOUTH.

With one-half of the Senate under the control of the slave-holding
States, and with the Constitution declaring that no amendment to
it should ever destroy the equality of the States in the Senate,
the Southern leaders occupied a commanding position. Those leaders
constituted a remarkable body of men. Having before them the
example of Jefferson, of Madison, and of George Mason in Virginia,
of Nathaniel Macon in North Carolina, and of the Pinckneys and
Rutledges in South Carolina, they gave deep study to the science
of government. They were admirably trained as debaters, and they
became highly skilled in the management of parliamentary bodies.
As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of
Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at
Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at
Mr. Jefferson's peculiar but admirable institution in Virginia.
Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading
and reflection. They took pride in their libraries, pursued the
law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career,
and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing
ambition. Their domestic relations imparted manners that were
haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront,
and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation
into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost
without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially
and jealously careful of the public money. Too often ruinously
lavish in their personal expenditures, they believed in an economical
government, and, throughout the long period of their domination,
they guarded the Treasury with rigid and unceasing vigilance against
every attempt at extravagance, and against every form of corruption.