SECTIONALISM. 255 



the hearts and homes of his victims. In his mad rush for office and 

 spoils he has forgotten that there is a just God, who has said : " Ven- 

 geance is mine, I will repay." 



It is indeed a gloomy picture that the past thirty years present, in 

 this so-called free land of America. Designing demagogues, sustained 

 by the money and monopolistic power of the world, have so far suc- 

 ceeded in deceiving the people, and arraying them against one another, 

 and despoiling them of their homes, the fruits of their labor, and their 

 hope of the future. Liberty, with the great mass, has become an 

 empty farce, and American independence an "iridescent dream." 



This for the past ; but what of the future ? The early fathers told us 

 that " eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Have we been vigilant? 

 Do not political sins bring political death, as surely as moral sins bring 

 moral death, or a violation of the laws of health brings on physical dis- 

 ease and death ? The fathers taught us that in unity is strength. Have 

 we as a people obeyed their injunction? Sectionalism, with its agitators, 

 has stood guard over the bursting vaults of the public plunderer, and if 

 any one raised his voice in protest against the infamous robbery, the 

 "bloody shirt " was brought out on one side, and the " Yankee hireling " 

 howlers split the air on the other ; and the robbery of the people went on. 



But I wanted to take a peep into the future ; I wanted to write of the 

 time when sectionalism shall be buried deep. Its grave is being dug 

 now. The "great common people " of the South and of the North are 

 realizing their condition and its cause, and they are meeting together, 

 becoming acquainted, and wondering why they ever should have been 

 enemies. 



The stock in trade of the sectional agitator is going below par. He 

 will soon be a thing of the past. He is now in his dying throes, and 

 while some of them are bowing to the inevitable, others are nerving 

 themselves for a last supreme effort. But their time has come. The 

 people are awaking from their lethargy, and th<*y find themselves made 

 beggars while they slept. They are fast learning the truth. The " alien- 

 ator " is out of a job. The " white rose of peace " is being planted over 

 the grave of sectionalism. It is being watered by the repentant tears of 

 the victims of this hideous monster sectional strife. 



The old leaders, who have been responsible for the sectional hate of 

 the past, are being sent into retirement. New blood and new ideas are 

 coming. The people are looking to the future instead of brooding over 

 the past. They know that they have been robbed by infamous legisla- 

 tion, and that righteous legislation will give them back their homes and 

 happiness again. They are refusing to be mere hewers of wood and 



