Hamilton James Eckenrode

Name: The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction — Chapter 4
Author: Hamilton James Eckenrode

The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

Summary

“The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction — Chapter 4”, published in 1904, is a work by Hamilton James Eckenrode. It explores elements such as the Union League, negroes and bureau.

Quotes from The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (Hamilton James Eckenrode)

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ Doubtless if the freedmen had been left to themselves by their Northern friends, they would have united with their former masters and have voted solidly at their dictation. The negroes would hardly have been able to assert their independence of the white race without outside assistance. But new forces had begun to work upon them. The Union soldiery, the schools taught by radicals, Northern settlers, itinerant politicians all moved the blacks to sever their old connections. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ The society was singularly adapted to the character of the freedmen, and the men who organized and managed it were often acute and masterful politicians. The Union League threatened to place the negro race in permanent power in several States; consequently the whites made it the point of attack, and when they succeeded in breaking it down, they had mastered one of the chief issues in the contest for supremacy. The effect of the Union League in Virginia was to completely separate, politically, the black race from the white. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ The bureau thus existed in the community as a foreign and independent judicial, social, economic and political power. Consequently, by the spring of 1867, it had done much to emancipate the colored race from Southern dominance. But it might have been expected that the blacks would be outgeneraled politically by the astute whites. Yet this did not happen. On the other hand, the freedmen were well organized and incorporated as a body in the Republican party. The radical politicians accomplished this clever feat by means of a political secret society called the Union League. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ The league was organized as an aid to the effective carrying out of the humane objects and purposes of those in the North who believed that the ballot in the hands of the negro would be preferable to bullets in the muskets of a standing army, which would have been necessary for an indefinite period in many sections of the South." 18 The Union League was a secret society, to which few but negroes and the white leaders had access. The club always met at night and the chief exercises consisted in the political education of the freedmen. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ The bureau reports stated that the freedmen were willing to work for fair wages. The agents usually drew up contracts for them. The rate of wages was about nine dollars a month and rations, an advance over that of the year 1865. The negroes, like the whites, paid taxes per capita, all males above sixteen years of age being subject to taxation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ The Nation, 1865, p. 268.
p.58 The Political Reconstruction of Virginia.
a useful and beneficent institution. But, however much good the bureau may have done the negro, it was thoroughly disliked by the white people. It was an alien control of the working population; it intervened between the planter and the laborer, between white and black. It oftentimes saved the freedmen from injustice. It oftentimes gave ear to causeless and silly complaints on the part of the negroes, who were, of course, prone to use its power of protection to the utmost. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hamilton James Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (1904)

“ It was a system of night school in which they were instructed in the privileges of citizenship and the duties they owed to the party which had made them free and given them exercise of suffrage." 19 The services were conducted in total darkness. ”

Hamilton James Eckenrode

Summary

Quotes from The Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction… (Hamilton James Eckenrode)

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