But she also has to proceed with a
great deal of caution.
The South is in a state of agitation and [foment?]. The air is laden
with rumors of a [rising?] conflict between the North and the South, and
any want of allegiance to Southern opinions is punished either as a
crime if the offender is a man, or with social ostracism and insult if a
woman.
The South in the palmy days of her pride and power would never tolerate
any heresy to her creed, whose formula of statement might have been
written we believe in the divine right of the Master, to take advantage
of the weakness, ignorance, and poverty of the slave; that might makes
right, and that success belongs to the strongest arm.[1]
Some of her former friends were beginning to eye her with coldness and
suspicion because she would not join in their fanatical hatred of the
North and because she would profess her devotion to the old flag, while
they were ready to spit upon and trample it under foot.
Her adopted brother was still in the North, and strange to say he did
not share her feelings; his sympathies were with the South, and although
he was too young to take any leading part in the events there about to
transpire, yet year after year when he spent his vacations at home, he
attended the hustings and political meetings, and there he learned to
consider the sentiment, "My country right or wrong," as a proper maxim
for political action.
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