If by any chance the majority adopted a course obnoxious to the minority, the decision must be accepted loyally if not cheerfully, and the full white vote must be cast.

Objection to a candidate or measure must not be expressed at the ballot box.

Personal ambition must be restrained, and weakness and even unfitness in a candidate must be overlooked for the sake of white solidarity.
The task of creating a permanently solid South was not easy.

The Southerner had always been an individualist, freely exercising his right to vote independently, engaging in sharp political contests before 1861, and even during the War.

The Confederate Congress wrangled impotently while Grant was thundering at the gates of Richmond.