Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/78

 Last Chapter of Reconstruction in South Carolina. 77

few judicial murders in the first flush of victory excepted). The Congress devoted itself to the work of reconstruction, and in the far distant regions of the whole civilized world their acts doubtless seemed full of humanity and wisdom. The whole body of States was reconstructed on the principle of equal rights to all men, and with this principle engrafted on the Constitution there seemed to be no reason why the States should not proceed harmoniously in the career of peaceful progress.

But there was an element in the population which rendered such a principle fatal to all peaceful progress. In many of the States, and in South Carolina particularly, a majority of the people had been slaves. All these were suddenly elevated to the rank of citizens. Were this all, even then there might be hope. The slaves had always lived well with their masters, bore no resentment for past injuries, and if they were let alone in their own mutual relations, the two races might, and doubtless would have harmonized and soon dis- covered the art of living together in peace. But this was not to be. With the progress of Northern arms grew up an institution founded ostensibly, perhaps really, for the protection of the rights of the newly emancipated slaves. This institution, known as the Freed- man's Bureau, became for the time the ruling power in the State. It interfered in all the concerns of whites and blacks, its officers were generally men who not only had no love for the South, but who made it their mission to foster in the minds of the blacks a bitter hatred and mistrust of the whites. They were, on all occasions, the champions of the negroes' rights, and never failed to instruct them that it was to the Republicans that they were indebted for all the rights which they enjoyed. In the train of the Bureau came the school mistresses who instilled into the minds of their pupils the same lessons of hatred and hostility. The consequence was, that though the personal relations between the races were friendly, though the blacks invariably addressed themselves to the whites as to true friends for all offices of love and kindness, of which they stood in need, they would never listen to them, if the latter wished to speak about politics. This feeling was intensified by the introduction of the Union League, a secret society, the members of which were solemnly bound never to vote for any but a Republican. The negro has a large development of secretiveness, and this associ- ation which bound the souls of all by its solemn oaths and which on holidays paraded the streets with the Bible borne by the president