Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/265

 some well-meaning men, in view of the antagonism between the white and the black races, to deport and settle them in some convenient and safe place and thus to take them out of harm's way. But this plan had for various cogent reasons to be abandoned as a practical impossibility. To protect them temporarily by a military force appeared admissible and proper, but to prolong that military protection indefinitely would have not only been practically difficult but also obnoxious to our principles of government, and prolific of dangerous abuses. The alternative was to enable the emancipated slaves to protect themselves by giving them the suffrage as a means to exercise a certain power in the government as citizens. This had the advantage of being in harmony with our institutions. A grave objection to this plan consisted in the general ignorance of the colored masses. But as it was expected that in the course of time they would divide their votes between the different political parties, it was thought that the ignorance of the blacks would not be essentially worse in its effects than the ignorance already prevailing among the great mass of the Southern white voters, and that the resulting evil could be mitigated by the introduction of an educational or other qualification applicable to blacks and whites alike, and that, at any rate, the evil consequences likely to follow the enfranchisement of the blacks, would ultimately prove less dangerous than those apt to be brought about by any other available method of protecting the rights of the emancipated slaves.

In the concluding paragraph of my report I respectfully suggested to the President that he advise Congress to send one or more investigating committees into the Southern States to inquire for themselves into the actual condition of things before taking final and irreversible action. I sent the completed document to the President on the 22nd of