William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

“ [345] the North were minded to deny our wealth, intelligence, and enterprise, they could not rob us of our majority of votes, except through treason to the first principle of a Republic. Such was their case and ours. Forget our common origin-our blood, our history, our literature, our civilised life-things which we hold in common from our English ancestry; and in the absence of all ties of memory and affection, we demand, as members of a free society, the right of settling things by a majority of voices.”

“Such a claim is hardly to be denied in a Republic.”

“ Yet that claim was set aside by President Grant. For what? Because he hankered after a second term, and needed Southern votes. A gang of dollar-hunters swarmed into Texas, not to settle in the country, but to eat it up; fellows having no stake in the soil, no knowledge of the people, no concern with planting towns, no interest in promoting order. Backed by Federal officers, they organized Black clubs, and convened private meetings of scalawags. Seizing our electoral lists, they put in names and struck out names, according to their ”