Carl Schurz

“ There are certainly many people there who entertain the best wishes for the welfare of the negro race, and who not only never participated in any acts of violence, but who heartily disapprove them. I have no doubt, a large majority can, as to actual participation—not, however, as to the bitter spirit—I offer a good plea of not guilty. But however large or small a number of people may be guilty of complicity in such acts of persecution, those who are opposed to them have certainly not shown themselves strong enough to restrain those who perpetrate or favor them. ”

“ Murder with his ghastly train stalks abroad at noonday and revels in undisputed carnage, while the bewildered and terrified freedmen know not what to do. To leave is death; to remain is to suffer the increased burden imposed on them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their labor wrung from them by every device an inhuman ingenuity can devise. Hence the lash and murder are resorted to to intimidate those whom fear of an awful death alone causes to remain, while patrols, negro dogs, and spies (disguised as Yankees) keep constant guard over these unfortunate people. ”

“ It is nonsense to talk so much about plans for getting the negroes to work. They do now and always have done, all the physical labor of the south, and if treated as they should be by their government, (which is so anxious to be magnanimous to the white people of this country, who never did work and never will,) they will continue to do so. Who are the workmen in these fields? Who are hauling the cotton to market, driving hacks and drays in the cities, repairing streets and railroads, cutting timber, and in every place raising the hum of industry? The freedmen, not the rebel soldiery. ”

“ I believe that affairs in South Carolina are yet in a very crude state; that outrages are being practiced upon the negro which the military arm should prevent. Doubtless many stories are fabricated or exaggerated, but a calm and candid citizen of Charleston has said: "Is it wonderful that this should be so; that men whose slaves have come at their call, but now demur, hesitate, and perhaps refuse labor or demand certain wages therefor—that such men, smarting under their losses and defeats, should vent their spite upon a race slipping from their power and asserting their newly acquired rights? ”

“ I may state here that there is such a general expression of contempt for negro religion, and such a desire to suppress it, if possible, that it seems as if the whites thought it a piece of terrible impertinence for the blacks to worship the same God that we do. The white people also fear, or affect to fear, that opposition to their plans, and even insurrection, will be hatched at the meetings of colored people. The Nemesis of slavery still holds her whip over them. ”

“ I have thought, and have said, and do now repeat, that my honest conviction is, we must accept the situation as it is until we can get control once more of our own State affairs. We cannot do otherwise and get our place again in the Union, and occupy a position, exert an influence, that will protect us against further and greater evils which threaten us. I must, as any other man who votes or holds an office, submit, for the time, to evils I cannot remedy. ”

“ I am, therefore, convinced that the education of the white and black must go hand in hand together until the system of free labor is so absolutely demonstrated that the interest of the employer will be found in the intelligence, the well-being, and the comfort of the employed. ”

“ It seems to me that we are forgetting the helpless and poor in our desire to assist our subjugated enemies, and that we are more desirous of showing ourselves to be a great and magnanimous nation than of protecting the people who have assisted us by arms, and who turned the scale of battle in our favor. We certainly commit a wrong, if, while restoring these communities to all their former privileges as States, we sacrifice one jot or tittle of the rights and liberties of the freedmen. ”

“ The first experience of the insurgents is a complete submission, followed by a promise to abstain from all further acts of rebellion—in fact, the nucleus of their loyalty is necessity, while perhaps some with still a sentiment of loyalty in their hearts for the old flag turn back, like the prodigal, with tearful eyes, wasted means, and exhausted energies.
At the present time there can be but few loyal men in the State of South Carolina who, through evil and good report, have withstood the wiles of secession. ”

“ I therefore cannot feel that I am an alien in your midst, and, with something of confidence as to the result, appeal to you for your suffrages for the office of district attorney. I am as fully identified with the interests of Mississippi as it is possible for any one to be, and in my humble way, will strive as earnestly as any one to restore her lost franchises and lost prosperity. In former years I held in Kentucky a position similar to the one I now seek at your hands, and I hope that I violate no rule of propriety in saying that I deem myself equal to its duties and responsibilities. ”

“ So far, the spirit of persecution has shown itself so strong as to make the protection of the freedman by the military arm of the government in many localities necessary—in almost all, desirable. It must not be forgotten that in a community a majority of whose members is peaceably disposed, but not willing or not able to enforce peace and order, a comparatively small number of bold and lawless men can determine the character of the whole. The rebellion itself, in some of the southern States, furnished a striking illustration of this truth. ”

“ Their preference for the "divine institution," and their intellectual belief in the right of a State to secede, are as much articles of faith in their creed at the present moment as they were on the day when the ordinance of secession was unanimously adopted. When the rebel armies ceased to exist, and there was no longer any force that could be invoked for waging war against the nation, the insurgents accepted that fact simply as proof of the impossibility of their establishing an independent government. ”

“ If, as long as the change from slavery to free labor is known to the southern people only by its destructive results, these people must be expected to throw obstacles in its way, would it not seem necessary that the movement of social "reconstruction" be kept in the right channel by the hand of the power which originated the change, until that change can have disclosed some of its beneficial effects? ”

“ Do you think that the white population of South Carolina, if restored to the possession of political power in this State, would carry out the spirit of the emancipation proclamation, and go to work in a bona fide manner to organize free labor? ”

“ Although somewhat ignorant of the proceeding of the federal Congress, if elected I shall try to promote the especial interests of this State. I shall urge that the United States government owe it as a duty to the State of Mississippi to repair her levees; her people are so impoverished by the war that they cannot stand the taxation necessary to rebuild them. I believe it to be the duty of the general government to appropriate money to assist the people to improve their railroads, rivers, and assist in like new enterprises. ”

“ The planters, who represented the wealth of the southern country, are partly laboring under the severest embarrassments, partly reduced to absolute poverty. Many who are stripped of all available means, and have nothing but their land, cross their arms in gloomy despondency, incapable of rising to a manly resolution. Others, who still possess means, are at a loss how to use them, as their old way of doing things is, by the abolition of slavery, rendered impracticable, at least where the military arm of the government has enforced emancipation. ”

“ Old associations, customs and prejudices, the pressure of public opinion, and the undying hostility to federal innovation, all conspire gainst impartiality to color. Such is the state of affairs in this city.
In the counties of this district above named there is no right of the negro which the white man respects; all is anarchy and confusion; a reign of terror exists, and the life of the freedmen is at the mercy of any villain whose hatred or caprice incites to murder. ”

“ As a people the South Carolinians are brave and generous in certain directions. In their cities there is great culture, and many of the citizens are persons of refinement, education and taste. The educated classes are well versed in the history of our country, and many have an intimate knowledge of the varied story of political parties. But from the lowest to the highest classes of the white population there is an instinctive dread of the negro and an utter abhorrence of any doctrine which argues an ultimate improvement of his condition beyond that of the merest chattel laborer. ”

“ All classes of society are intensely dissatisfied with things as they are. General explosions may be prevented, but they are always imminent. This state of uncertainty impedes all successful working of the social forces; people, instead of devoting themselves with confidence and steadiness to solid pursuits, are apt to live from hand to mouth, or to indulge in fitful experiments; capital ventures out but with great timity; the lawless elements of the community take advantage of the general confusion and dissatisfaction, and society drifts into anarchy. ”

“ I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the south accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections—slavery and State rights, or the right of a State to secede from the Union—they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal—arms—that man can resort to. ”

“ The loyalty of the masses and most of the leaders of the southern people, consists in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual instances, an entire absence of that national spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty and patriotism.
The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, and all independent State legislation will share the tendency to make him such. ”

“ The general government of the republic has, by proclaiming the emancipation of the slaves, commenced a great social revolution in the south, but has, as yet, not completed it. Only the negative part of it is accomplished. The slaves are emancipated in point of form, but free labor has not yet been put in the place of slavery in point of fact. ”

“ There is no doubt whatever that the state of affairs would be intolerable for all Union men, all recent immigrants from the north; and all negroes, the moment the protection of the United States troops was withdrawn.
In support of this opinion permit me to make a few remarks about the citizens. Although the people, as a general thing, are very anxious for peace, and for the restoration of law and order, they hardly realize the great social change brought about by the war. They all know that slavery, in the form in which it existed before the war, and in which they idolized it, is at an end ”

“ Nobody is absolutely free, white or black. I have been a slave all my life; you have been the same. We were subject to discipline from childhood, and the negro as well, and must continue to be subject to wholesome restraints all of us.
It is well to consider that the measures of the government have rendered labor scarce. It would be safe to say there is not half a supply; that every sort of inducement will be held out to get labor away from present situations; that the inclination of all who are unincumbered is, to get to the city and its neighborhood. ”