can conceive, the hand of man will find a way to execute. The
awful work was carried out with dread dispatch. Oh, what a
record to read; what a picture to gaze upon; how awful the fact!
An official edict offering expatriation or death to a peaceable
community with no crime proved against them, and guilty of no
offense other than that of choosing to differ in opinion from the
masses! American school boys read with emotions of horror of the
Albigenses, driven, beaten and killed, with a papal legate
directing the butchery; and of the Vaudois, hunted and hounded
like beasts as the effect of a royal decree; and they yet shall
read in the history of their own country of scenes as terrible as
these in the exhibition of injustice and inhuman hate.

In the dread alternative offered them, the people determined
again to abandon their homes; but whither should they go?
Already they had fled before the lawless oppressor over well nigh
half a continent; already were they on the frontiers of the
country that they had regarded as the land of promised liberty.
Thus far every move had carried them westward, but farther west
they could not go unless they went entirely beyond the country of
their birth, and gave up their hope of protection under the
Constitution, which to them had ever been an inspired instrument,
the majesty of which, as they had never doubted, would be some
day vindicated, even to securing for them the rights of American
citizens. This time their faces were turned toward the east; and
a host numbering from ten to twelve thousand, including many
women and children, abandoned their homes and fled before their
murderous pursuers, reddening the snow with bloody footprints as
they journeyed. They crossed the Mississippi and sought
protection on the soil of Illinois. There their sad condition