N.C.’s ‘mask of nationality’ wasn’t to be trusted

“Much is said of the hypocrisy of the South. I found but little of it anywhere. The North-Carolinian calls himself a Unionist, but he makes no special pretence of love for the Union.

“He desires many favors, but he asks them generally on the ground that he hated the Secessionists. He expects the nation to recognize rare virtue in that hatred, and hopes it may win for his State the restoration of her political rights; but he wears his mask of nationality so lightly that there is no difficulty in removing it.”

— From “Three Months Among the Reconstructionists” by Sidney Andrews in The Atlantic (February 1866)

 

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