midnight
She blushed with shame as she thought of the weak , vacillating nation which had given the promise of freedom to the ears of four millions of weak but trustful allies , and broken it to their hearts . She knew that the country had appealed to them in its hour of mortal agony , and they had answered with their blood . She knew that again it had appealed to them for aid to write the golden words of Freedom in its Constitution , words before unwritten , in order that they might not be continued in slavery , and they had heard and answered by their votes ; and then , while the world still echoed with boastings of these achievements , it had taken away the protecting hand and said to those whose hearts were full of hate , `` Stay not thine hand . '' She thought , too , that the men who did these things -- the midnight masqueraders -- were rebels still in their hearts . She called them so in hers at least -- enemies of the country , striving dishonorably to subvert its laws . She did not keep in mind that to every Southern man and woman , save those whom the national act brought forth to civil life , the Nation is a thing remote and secondary . To them the State is first , and always so far first as to make the country a dim , distant cloud , to be watched with suspicion or aversion as a something hostile to their State or section .