Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/269

 fostering care of those who will give them good counsel, and on whom they can rely.” As to the practical things to be done, General Grant's views were not so very far apart from mine; but President Johnson's friends insisted upon representing him as favoring the immediate restoration of all “the States lately in rebellion” to all their self-governing functions, and this became the general impression—probably much against his wish. My report, after its publication as an “Executive Document,” became widely known in the country. A flood of letters of approval and congratulation poured in upon me from all parts of the United States. I may be pardoned for expressing here my own opinion of the merits of my work after having critically and retrospectively re-examined it in the course of writing these reminiscences. I am far from saying that somebody else might not have performed the task much better than I did. But I do think that this report is the best paper I have ever written on a public matter. The weakest part of it is that referring to negro-suffrage,—not as if the argument as far as it goes were wrong, but as it leaves out of consideration several aspects of the matter, the great importance of which has since become apparent. Of this more hereafter. On the whole, I venture to say the student of the history of that period will find my description of Southern conditions immediately after the war well worth reading.