The Broken Sword; Or, A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction

Book excerpt: "The Broken Sword; Or, A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction" by D. Worthington is a novel set in the particular period of American history from 1865 till 1877. The government of the South by carpet-baggers was essentially oppressive and inquisitorial. It was, in its practical operation, a pure and unadulterated despotism, superseding the protection guaranteed by the Federal Constitution to each and every State. It was under the dominion of organized anarchy, with legislatures and courts of justice, subordinated to a lawless assemblage of unprincipled men calling themselves the representatives and judges of the people. Among its necessarily implied powers was that of confiscation, and numbered in its enumeration of brutalities, was a nameless crime that shocked the moral sense of mankind. Reconstruction came upon the South with fearful impulse.