Removal of Disabilities

Holden wants the removal of disabilities to happen slowly in order to keep his power.

Removal of Disabilities. - Holden's paper (the North Carolina Standard) is decidedly opposed to the removal of disabilities from the "rebels" - "if there ever was a time when" it "was safe and expedient, that time has passed," says the Standard. Of course Holden is perfectly content for things to stand just where they are. He wants no elections and no changes of any kind. He is in the Governor's seat - he and his friends have all the offices, and their arms are deeply thrust into the treasury ; of course, " thus circumstanced," removal of disabilities or any change whatever is out of the question! As well expect swindlers and robbers to proclaim that every man should give up what didn't belong to him ! But this suggestion of Holden's points to his danger. It proceeds from the fears of a guilty conscience. The disabilities will be removed, and then there will be a knocking at the Governor's mansion that will strike a terror to its occupant like that which filled the heart of Macbeth when he heard the thunders at the castle-gate the morning after the murders. Those who know the crimes and depravities of Holden may well forget the horrors of his rule in the pleasing anticipations of the not very distant retribution that is to burst upon him.

“Removal of Disabilities,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed March 30, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1082.