and the humane slave owner had little difficulty in getting plenty
of negro help after the war. Very commonly his own slaves remained
with him and were treated as servants, not particularly differently
than they had been treated as slaves. Of course there were some
brutal slave holders, just as there are brutal horse owners, and
such men suffered very much from the loss of slave labor.

"The southern people have no regrets for the freeing of the slaves.
Probably it was the best thing that ever happened to us; and the
South would have less regret for the war itself, except that our
recovery from it was greatly delayed by the reconstruction policy
which was followed after the war. The immediate enfranchisement of
the negro, especially in those sections where this resulted in
placing all the power of the local government in the hands of the
negro, was a worse blow to the South than the war itself.

"It is believed that this would not have been done if Lincoln had
lived. Lincoln was always the President of all the people of the
United States, and his death was a far greater loss to the South
than to the North. To place the power to govern the intelligent
white of the South absolutely in the hands of their former ignorant
slaves was undoubtedly the most abominable political blunder
recorded in history; and even this was intensified by the
unprincipled white-skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon
our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called
reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the history of
modern civilization."

"I quite agree with you," said Percy, "and so far as I know them the
soldiers of the northern armies also agree with you. Several of my