Walter L. Fleming

“ No one is allowed to talk five minutes without interruption, and one interruption is a signal for another and another, until the original speaker is smothered under an avalanche of them. Forty questions of privilege will be raised in a day. At times, nothing goes on but alternating questions of order and of privilege. The inefficient colored friend who sits in the Speaker's chair cannot suppress this extraordinary element of the debate. Some of the blackest members exhibit a pertinacity of intrusion in raising these points of order and questions of privilege that few white men can equal. ”

“ Congress should punish the "rebels" by abolishing slavery, by giving civil and political rights to negroes, and by educating them with the whites.
Not essentially different, but harsher, was Thaddeus Stevens's plans for treating the South as a conquered foreign province. Let the victors treat the seceded States "as conquered provinces and settle them with new men and exterminate or drive out the present rebels as exiles." ”

“ Charles Sumner was a persistent agitator for equal rights. In 1871 he declared in a letter to a South Carolina negro convention that the race must insist not only upon equality in hotels and on public carriers but also in the schools. "It is not enough," he said, "to provide separate accommodations for colored citizens even if in all respects as good as those of other persons.... The discrimination is an insult and a hindrance, and a bar, which not only destroys comfort and prevents equality, but weakens all other rights. ”

“ Beyond this, no harm would be done the South by negro suffrage. The old owners would cast the votes of their people almost as absolutely and securely as they cast their own. If Northern men expected in this way to build up a northern party in the South, they were gravely mistaken. They would only be multiplying the power of the old and natural leaders of Southern politics by giving every vote to a former slave. ”

“ Everywhere their objects were the same: to recover for the white race their former control of society and government, and to destroy the baneful influence of the alien among the blacks. The people of the South were by law helpless to take steps towards setting up any kind of government in a land infested by a vicious element—Federal and Confederate deserters, bushwhackers, outlaws of every description, and negroes, some of whom proved insolent and violent in their newly found freedom. Nowhere was property or person safe, and for a time many feared a negro insurrection. ”

“ It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption.... It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet. And, though it is done without malice and without vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done.... We will enter the House of Representatives. ”

“ I am now confining my argument to negro suffrage in the rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites? In the second place, it is necessary in order to protect the loyal white men in the seceded States. With them the blacks would act in a body, and it is believed that in each of these States, except one, the two united would form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. ”

“ Is it consistent with reason and our knowledge of human nature, to believe the masses of Southern men able to face about, to turn their backs on those they have trusted and followed, and to adopt the lead of those who have no magnetic hold on their hearts or minds? ”

“ In the opinion of the League, white Democrats were bad enough, but black Democrats were not to be tolerated. It was almost necessary, as a measure of personal safety, for each black to support the radical program. It was possible in some cases for a negro to refrain from taking an active part in political affairs. He might even fail to vote. But it was actually dangerous for a black to be a Democrat; that is, to try to follow his old master in politics. The whites in many cases were forced to advise their few faithful black friends to vote the radical ticket in order to escape mistreatment. ”

“ Too much pains were taken to bring about an ecclesiastical reunion, and irritating offers of reconciliation are made by the Northern churches, all based on the assumption that the South has not only sinned, but sinned knowingly, in slavery and in war. We expect them to be penitent and to gladly accept our offers of forgiveness. But the Southern people look upon a 'loyal' missionary as a political emissary, and 'loyal' men do not at present possess the necessary qualifications for evangelizing the Southerners or softening their hearts, and are sure not to succeed in doing so. ”

“ With fewer than ten thousand soldiers the generals maintained 147 order and carried on the reconstruction of the South. The whites made no attempt at resistance, though they were irritated by military rule and resented the loss of self-government. But most Southerners preferred the rule of the army to the alternative reign of the carpetbagger, scalawag, and negro. The extreme radicals at the North, on the other hand, were disgusted at the conservative policy of the generals. The apathy of the whites at the beginning of the military reconstruction excited surprise on all sides. ”

“ The few Northern women felt the ostracism more keenly than did the men. Benjamin C. Truman, an agent of President Johnson, thus summed up the situation: "There is a prevalent disposition not to associate too freely with Northern men or to receive them into the circles of society; but it is far from unsurmountable. Over Southern society, as over every other, woman reigns supreme, and they are more embittered against those whom they deem the authors of all their calamities than are their brothers, sons, and husbands." ”

“ At this point the negro was always willing to take an oath of secrecy, after which he was asked to swear with a solemn oath to support the 183 principles of the Declaration of Independence, to pledge himself to resist all attempts to overthrow the United States, to strive for the maintenance of liberty, the elevation of labor, the education of all people in the duties of citizenship, to practice friendship and charity to all of the order, and to support for election or appointment to office only such men as were supporters of these principles and measures. ”

“ The moral support behind the government was that of President Grant and the United States army, not that of a free and devoted people.
Of the twenty men who served as governors eight were scalawags and twelve were carpetbaggers—men who were abler than the scalawags and who had much more than an equal share of the spoils. The scalawags, such as Brownlow of Tennessee, Smith of Alabama, and Holden of North Carolina, were usually honest but narrow, vindictive men, filled with fear and hate of the conservative whites. ”

“ Mixed schools were provided in some States; militia for the black districts but not for the white was to be raised; while in South Carolina it was made a penal offense to call a person a "Yankee" or a "nigger." Few of the negro delegates demanded proscription of whites or social equality; they wanted schools and the vote. The white radicals were more anxious to keep the former Confederates from holding office than from voting. The generals in command everywhere used their influence to secure moderate action by the conventions, and for this they were showered with abuse. ”

“ The average Republican or Unionist in the North, if he had not been brought by skillful misrepresentation to believe a new rebellion impending in the South, was at any rate painfully alive to the fear that the Democratic party might regain power. With the freeing of the slaves the representation of the South in Congress would be 138 increased. At first it seemed that the South might divide in politics as before the war, but the longer the delay the more the Southern whites tended to unite into one party acting with the Democrats. ”

“ What would the negro become if these leaders of reconstruction were to have their way? Something better than a serf, something less than a citizen—a second degree citizen, perhaps, with legal rights about equal to those of white women and children. Governor Marvin hoped to make of the race a good agricultural peasantry; his successor was anxious that the blacks should be preferred to European immigrants; others agreed with Memminger that after training and education he might be advanced to full citizenship. ”

“ Each convention framed a more or less complicated school system and undertook to provide for its support. The negroes in the conventions were anxious for free schools; the conservatives were willing; but the carpetbaggers and a few mulatto leaders insisted in several States upon mixed schools. Only in Louisiana and South Carolina did the constitutions actually forbid separate schools; in Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Arkansas the question was left open, to the embarrassment of the whites. Generally the blacks showed no desire for mixed schools unless urged to it by the carpetbaggers. ”

“ In the effort to realize their new-found freedom, the negroes were heavily handicapped by their extreme poverty and their ignorance. The total value of free negro property ran up into the millions in 1860, but the majority of the negroes had nothing. There were a few educated negroes in the South, and more in the North and in Canada, but the mass of the race was too densely ignorant to furnish its own leadership. ”

“ New men, negroes, merchants, and Jews became landowners. The number of small farms naturally increased but so in some instances did the land concentrated into large holdings.
It was inevitable that conditions of negro life should undergo a revolutionary change during the reconstruction. The serious matter of looking out for himself and his family and of making a living dampened the negro's cheerful spirits. Released from the discipline of slavery and often misdirected by the worst of teachers, the negro race naturally ran into excesses of petty criminality. ”

“ Some of the poor whites, especially in the remote districts, never again reached a comfortable standard 16 of living; some were demoralized by too much assistance; others were discouraged and left the South for the West or the North. But the mass of the people accepted the discipline of poverty and made the best of their situation.
The difficulties, however, that beset even the courageous and the competent were enormous. The general paralysis of industry, the breaking up of society, and poverty on all sides bore especially hard on those who had not previously been manual laborers. ”

“ The foundation of radical power in the South lay in the alienation of the races which had been accomplished between 1865 and 1868. To maintain this unhappy distrust, the radical leaders found an effective means in the negro militia. Under the constitution of every reconstructed State a negro constabulary was possible, but only in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi were the authorities willing to risk the dangers of arming the blacks. No governor dared permit the Southern whites to organize as militia. ”

“ As was to be expected the whites criticized the attitude of the school officials, disapproved of the attempts made in the schools to teach the children radical ideas, and objected to the contents of the history texts and the "Freedmen's Readers." A white school board in Mississippi, by advertising for a Democratic teacher for a negro school, drew the fire of a radical editor who inquired: "What is the motive by which this call for a 'competent Democratic teacher' is prompted? The most damning that has ever moved the heart of man. ”

“ They are all bound to be governed by blacks spurred on by worse than blacks—white wretches who dare not show their faces in respectable society anywhere. This is the most abominable phase barbarism has assumed since the dawn of civilization. ”

“ The South faced the work of reconstruction not only with a shortage of material and greatly hampered in the employment even of that but still more with a shortage of men. The losses among the whites are usually estimated at about half the military population, but since accurate records are lacking the exact numbers cannot be ascertained. The best of the civil leaders, as well as the prominent military leaders, had so committed themselves to the support of the Confederacy as to be excluded from participation in any reconstruction that might be attempted. ”