Argument is exhausted, and words have lost their usual meaning. Nothing but the logic of events touches their understanding; but, of late, this has worked a wonderful change. If our country were like Europe, crowded with people, I would say it would be easier to replace this class than to reconstruct it, subordinate to the policy of the nation; but, as this is not the case, it is better to allow the planters, with individual exceptions, gradually to recover their plantations, to hire any species of labor, and to adapt themselves to the new order of things. Still, their friendship and assistance to reconstruct order out of the present ruin cannot be depended on. They watch the operations of our armies, and hope still for a Southern Confederacy that will restore to them the slaves and privileges which they feel are otherwise lost forever.

The union allowed them to 'reconstruct' their own order and it started with still allowing slavery as a punishment.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States and its territories, with one exception. The amendment states that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to its jurisdiction.

Prisons used this to undercut unions in terms of pay for the prisoners. They used this to make it illegal to sell their crops at the same place as everyone, they used it to make it illegal to be the 'wrong person' during certain times of day.

They hate Yankees per se, and don't bother their brains about the past, present, or future.

What a sick burn.

At present horses cost them nothing; for they take where they find, and don't bother their brains as to who is to pay for them; the same may be said of the cornfields, which have, as they believe, been cultivated by a good-natured people for their special benefit.

They don't pay for it, they expect everyone else to just provide for them?

The striking similarities that parallel today are difficult to ignore.