han his father, but there
was still perceptible the shade which marked him as effectually an
outcast from the freedom of American society, and the rights of American
citizenship, as though it had been the badge of crime or the strait
jacket of a madman. Something of this was manifested in the conversation
in which the two were engaged.

"It is folly, Robert, for you to carry your refinement and culture into
the ranks as a common soldier, to fight and to die, without thanks. You
are made of too good stuff to serve simply as food for powder."

"Better men than I, father, have gone there, and are there to-day; men
in every way superior to me."

"Perhaps,--yes, if you will have it so. But what are they? white men,
fighting for their own country and flag, for their own rights of manhood
and citizenship, for a present for themselves and a future for their
children, for honor and fame. What is there for you?"

"For one thing, just that of which you spoke. Perhaps not a present for
me, but certainly a future for those that come after."

"A future! How are you to know? what warrant or guarantee have you for
any such future? Do you judge by the past? by the signs of to-day? I
tell you this American nation will resort to any means--will pledge
anything, by word or implication--to secure the end for which it fights;
and will break its pledges just so soon as it can, and with whomsoever
it can with impunity. You, and your children, and your children's
children after you, will go to the wall unless it has need of you in the
arena."

"I do not think so. This whole nation is learning, through pain and
loss, the lesson of justice; of expediency, doubtless, but still of
justice; and I do not think it will be forgotten when the war is ended.
This is our time to wipe off a thousand stigmas of contempt and
reproach: this"--

"Who is responsible for them? ourselves? What cast them there? our own
actions? I trow not. Mark the facts. I pay taxes to support the public
schools, and am compelled to have my children educated at home. I pay
taxes to support the government, and am denied any representation or any
voice in regard to the manner in which these taxes shall be expended. I
hail a car on the street, and am laughed to scorn by the conductor,--or,
admitted, at the order of the passengers am ignominiously expelled. I
offer my money at the door of any place of public amusement, and it is
flung back to me with an oath. I enter a train t