Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/347

Rh of the whites.” The consequence of all this was that, in a large number of places, negro schools could be established and maintained only under the immediate protection of the Federal troops, and that, once the military garrisons were withdrawn, schoolhouses would be set on fire and the teachers driven off. This opposition to negro schools, too, received a strong impulse from the expectation so much encouraged by President Johnson, that the late slave States would soon again be in unrestricted control of their home affairs, and that negro education, being an impediment in the way of reestablishment of an order of things nearly akin to slavery, would then again be done away with.

Such was the condition of things in the late Confederate States shortly after the civil war. In investigating it at the request of President Johnson, I honestly endeavored to see things as they were; I neglected no source of in formation open to me; I talked with all classes of people and improved every opportunity to observe with my own eyes. And when I reported to the President, I took care rather to understate than to overcolor my facts and conclusions, and as much as possible to let my authorities speak for themselves.

To recapitulate: The white people of the South were harassed by pressing necessities, and most of them in a troubled and greatly excited state of mind. The emancipation of the slaves had destroyed the traditional labor system upon which they had depended. Free negro labor was still inconceivable to them. There were exceptions, but, as a rule, their ardent, and, in a certain sense, not unnatural, desire was to resist its introduction and to save or restore as much of the slave labor system as possible. The Government of the Union was in duty and honor bound to maintain the emancipation of the slaves, and to introduce free labor. The solution of such a prob-