Again they were all unhit--at first.

But presently one man looked up and asked me to state that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding.

I did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his fist down and said _he_ didn't believe a nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal from a nation its will and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes.
I said to myself: "This one's a man.

If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome change in its system of government." You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.