of them have taken the oaths of allegiance and amnesty, and associated
themselves with the second class in their political operations. This
element is by no means unimportant; it is strong in numbers, deals in
brave talk, addresses itself directly and incessantly to the passions and
prejudices of the masses, and commands the admiration of the women.

4. The multitude of people who have no definite ideas about the
circumstances under which they live and about the course they have to
follow; whose intellects are weak, but whose prejudices and impulses are
strong, and who are apt to be carried along by those who know how to
appeal to the latter.

Much depends upon the relative strength and influence of these classes.
In the course of this report you will find statements of facts which may
furnish a basis for an estimate. But whatever their differences may be,
on one point they are agreed: further resistance to the power of the
national government is useless, and submission to its authority a matter
of necessity. It is true, the right of secession in theory is still
believed in by most of those who formerly believed in it; some are still
entertaining a vague hope of seeing it realized at some future time, but
all give it up as a practical impossibility for the present. All
movements in favor of separation from the Union have, therefore, been
practically abandoned, and resistance to our military forces, on that
score, has ceased. The demonstrations of hostility to the troops and
other agents of the government, which are still occurring in some
localities, and of which I shall speak hereafter, spring from another
class of motives. This kind of loyalty, however, which is produced by the
irresistible pressure of force, and consists merely in the non-commission
of acts of rebellion, is of a negative character, and might, as such,
hardly be considered independent of circumstances and contingencies.