that they were not doing their share of the fighting; and as rich
men were permitted to hire substitutes to represent them in the
army, this really baseless report was easily propped up in the
public mind with what appeared to be reason.

In North Carolina, where the peasant farmer was a larger
political factor than in any other State, this feeling against
the Confederate Government because of the tax in kind was most
dangerous. In the course of the summer, while the military
fortunes of the Confederacy were toppling at Vicksburg and
Gettysburg, the North Carolina farmers in a panic of
self-preservation held numerous meetings of protest and
denunciation. They expressed their thoughtless terror in
resolutions asserting that the action of Congress "in secret
session, without consulting with their constituents at home,
taking from the hard laborers of the Confederacy one-tenth of the
people's living, instead of taking back their own currency in
tax, is unjust and tyrannical." Other resolutions called the tax
"unconstitutional, anti-republican, and oppressive"; and still
others pledged the farmers "to resist to the bitter end any such
monarchical tax."

A leader of the discontented in North Carolina was found in W. W.
Holden, the editor of the Raleigh Progress, who before the war
had attempted to be spokesman for the men of small property by
advocating taxes on slaves and similar measures. He proposed as
the conclusion of the whole matter the opening of negotiations
for peace. We shall see later how deep-seated was this singular
delusion that peace could be had for the asking. In 1863,
however, many men in North Carolina took up the suggestion with