Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/348

324 lem would have been extremely difficult under any circumstances. It was in this case especially complicated by the partial failure of the Freedmen's Bureau, and still more by the decided encouragement given to the reactionary tendency prevailing among the Southern whites, by the attitude of President Johnson which permitted the Southern whites to expect that they would soon have the power to reestablish something similar to slave labor.

There was, no doubt, a general and sincere desire among the Northern people to restore the “States lately in rebellion” to their Constitutional functions as soon as this could be done with safety to the freedom of the emancipated slaves and the effective introduction of the free labor system in those States. The maintenance of the freedom of the emancipated blacks and the establishment of an order of things in which their rights would be safe were universally recognized as binding duties.

Those in power, mindful of that duty, saw a clear alter native before them: either the “States lately in rebellion” had to be kept under military rule until the Southern whites would have so accustomed themselves to the new order of things that the rights of the freedmen and the development of free labor would no longer require military protection, or the freedmen had to be endowed with a certain measure of political power so that they might be enabled to protect themselves in the enjoyment of their rights.

As to the first horn of the dilemma, the continuation of military rule in the South was difficult and highly objectionable for several reasons. The troops still occupying the Southern States consisted largely of war volunteers, many of whom, since the real war was over, were anxious, and claimed the right, to go home. But the protection of the rights of the freedmen and the introduction of the free labor system required the presence of a great many