Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/361

Rh paying for his license. The mayor requires that the bondsmen must be freeholders. The laws of this State do not, and never did, allow a negro to own land or hold property; the white citizens refuse to sign any bonds for the freedmen. The white citizens and authorities say that it is for their interest to drive out all independent negro labor; that the freedmen must hire to white men if they want to do this kind of work.

I found several instances of a similar character in the course of my observations, of which I neglected to procure the documentary evidence.

It may be said that these are mere isolated cases; and so they are. But they are the local outcroppings of a spirit which I found to prevail everywhere. If there is any difference, it is in the degree of its intensity and the impatience or boldness with which it manifests itself. Of the agencies which so far restrained it from venturing more general demonstrations I shall speak in another part of this report.

It would seem that all those who sincerely desire to make the freedman a freeman in the true sense of the word, must also be in favor of so educating him as to make him clearly understand and appreciate the position he is to occupy in life, with all its rights and corresponding duties, and to impart to him all the knowledge necessary for enabling him to become an intelligent cooperator in the general movements of society. As popular education is the true ground upon which the efficiency and the successes of free-labor society grow, no man who rejects the former can be accounted a consistent friend of the latter. It is also evident that the education of the negro, to become general and effective after the full restoration of local government in the South, must be