Yet Mr. Lamar desired most sincerely the reconciliation of
the sections, that the age-long strife should come to an end
and be forgotten, and that the whole South should share the
prosperity and wealth and refinement and contentment, which
submission to the new order of things would bring.
He was a far-sighted man. He was not misled by temporary
excitement or by deference to the majority of his political
friends who were less far-sighted than he, into any mistakes.
When there was an attempt to break faith in regard to what
was called the Wheeler compromise in the Democratic House,
Mr. Lamar interposed and prevented it. Just after the count
under the Electoral Commission had been completed, there was
a very dangerous movement to delay action on the returns from
Vermont, which would have prevented the completion of the
work before the 4th of March. Mr. Lamar put forth all his
powerful influence among his Democratic associates on the
floor of the House, and saved the peace of the country. He
knew very well that the cause of the South, as he would have
called it, and the cause of the Democratic Party itself, would
not be promoted by a new civil convulsion, still less by any
breach of faith.
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