There is one word that described the whole feeling in the South at this
time, and that was "hope." The most cheerful city, I found, was New
Orleans. She was rejoicing in the release from years of unrighteous
government. Just how the State of Louisiana had been badgered, and her
every idea of self-government insulted, can be appreciated only by those
who come face to face with the facts. While some of the best patriots of
the North went down with the right motives to mingle in the
reconstruction of the State governments of the South, many of these
pilgrimists were the cast-off and thieving politicians of the North,
who, after being stoned out of Northern waters, crawled up on the beach
at the South to sun themselves. The Southern States had enough dishonest
men of their own without any importation. The day of trouble passed.
Louisiana and South Carolina for the most part are free. Governor
Nichols of the one, and Governor Wade Hampton of the other, had the
confidence of the great masses of the people.

It was my opinion then that the largest fortunes were yet to be made in
the South, because there was more room to make them there. During my two
weeks in the South, at that time, mingling with all classes of people, I
never heard an unkind word against the North, and that only a little
over ten years since the close of the war. Congressional politicians
were still enlarging upon the belligerency of the South, but they had
personal designs at President making. There was no more use for Federal
military in New Orleans than there was need of them in Brooklyn. I was
the guest in New Orleans of the Hon. E.J. Ellis, many years in Congress,
and I had a taste of real Southern hospitality. It was everywhere. The
spirit of fraternity was in the South long before it reached the North.
Up to this time I had echoed Horace Greeley's advice, "Go West." For
years afterwards I changed it. In my advice to young men I said to all,
"Go South."