This story is a border tale of southern Pennyslvania, dealing with certain phases of the Civil War and the events immediately preceding it. The historic details are based on fact.
An essay written during the Civil War that warns that slavery has concentrated power in the slave owners in the South - those who had been able to buy slaves and expand their business. Such power was destabilizing for society as a whole and should not be permitted following the war. "A numerous and independent yeomanry - that is to say , a large class of fairly schooled, intelligent, and respectable freeholders, of moderate, yet sufficient estate - spread over the country, with an honorable share in its government, constitutes one of the most important elements of a healthful state of a nation, and is wholly indispensable to a people whose type of government is that of substantial and orderly freedom..."
