cers of the
Union Army, on duty in the South, and Northern men who go there to
engage in business, are generally detested and proscribed," and that
"Southern men who adhered to the Union are bitterly hated and
relentlessly persecuted."

Upon the conclusion of the work of the respective conventions, the
election of State Legislatures and of senators and representatives
in Congress followed as promptly as was practicable in the several
States. The Legislatures were all in session before the close of the
year 1865, and their proceedings startled the country. If any need
existed for proof of the spirit that animated the conventions, or of
the ends to which they had directed their work, it was furnished in
full by the action of the Legislatures. Indeed, when the latter bodies
assembled, they were inspired with a fresh accession of courage and
daring, imparted by the example of the former and the apparent
acquiescence of the North in their proceedings. The period between
the adjournment of the conventions and the assembling of the
Legislatures was so short that there was no time for the maturing of
public opinion in the North, and still less for bringing it to bear in
any way upon Southern action. It is, moreover, doubtful whether any
representation, however strong, from the North, would have exerted the
slightest influence in holding the South back from its mad course.
Emboldened by the support of the National Administration, the Southern
leaders believed that they could carry their designs through, and,
instead of being restrained by the protest or the advice of
Republicans, they chose with apparent gladness the course that would
prove most offensive to them. It would indeed, according to their own
boasts, add a peculiar gratification to their anticipated triumph if
they could feel assured that it would bring chagrin or a sense of
humiliation to the Republican masses of the loyal States.

At this critical period it was the ill fortune of the South to be
misled by the Democratic press and the Democratic orators of the North,
as it had been before on perilous occasions. The South had been
induced by the same press and the same orators to believe, in the
winter of 1860-61, that efforts at secession would not be resisted by
arms. Many Northern Democrats had indeed given the assurance that if
any attempt at coercion should be made by the Republican National
Administration, they would themselves meet it with force, and