the two races at the South,--a bond that the institution of slavery with
all its horrors could not destroy, the Rebellion could not wipe out,
Reconstruction could not efface, and subsequent events have not been
able to change. The writer is aware of the fact that thousands of
intelligent people are now laboring under the impression that there
exists at the South a bitter feeling of antagonism between the two races
and that this has produced dangerous and difficult problems for the
country to solve. That some things have occurred that would justify such
a conclusion, especially on the part of those who are not students of
this subject, will not be denied.

After the rejection of the Constitution no further effort was made to
have Mississippi readmitted into the Union until after the Presidential
and Congressional elections of 1868. The Democratic party throughout the
country was solid in its support of President Andrew Johnson, and was
bitter in its opposition to the Congressional Plan of Reconstruction.
Upon a platform that declared the Reconstruction Acts of Congress to be
unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void, the Democrats nominated for
President and Vice-President, Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, of New York,
and General Frank P. Blair, of Missouri. The Republicans nominated for
President General U.S. Grant, of Illinois, and for Vice-President
Speaker Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana. These candidates were nominated
upon a platform which strongly supported and indorsed the Congressional
Plan of Reconstruction.

On this issue the two parties went before the people for a decision. The
Republicans were successful, but not by such a decisive majority as in
the Congressional election of 1866. In fact, if all the Southern States
that took part in that election had gone Democratic, the hero of
Appomattox would have been defeated. It was the Southern States, giving