Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/329

 their old places in the government of the Union again. No wonder that they should have been exasperated by stinging disappointment when this permission was denied. No wonder that, on the other hand, the North took the peremptoriness of that demand for a new outbreak of “rebel insolence.” No wonder that, what should have been as gentle as possible a transition from one social state into another, degenerated into an angry political brawl, which grew more and more furious as it went on. No wonder, finally, that when at last the Congressional Reconstruction policy, which at first might have been quietly submitted to as something that might have been worse, and that could not be averted, came at last in the midst of that brawl, it was resented in the South as an act of diabolical malice and tyrannical oppression not to be endured. And the worst outcome of all was, that many white people of the South, who had at first still cherished a kindly feeling for the negroes on account of their “fidelity” during the war, now fell to hating the negroes as the cause of all their woes; that on the other hand the negroes, after all their troubles raised to a position of power, now were tempted to a reckless use of that power; and that a selfish partisan spirit growing up among the Republican majority, instead of endeavoring to curb that tendency, encouraged, or at least tolerated it, for party advantage. Thus, what might have been a measure of peaceable adjustment if it had come in time, now threatened to turn into a veritable Pandora's box of trouble.

I have to confess that I took a more hopeful view of the matter at the time, for I did not foresee the mischievous part which selfish partisan spirit would play in that precarious situation. I trusted that the statesmen of the Republican party would prove clear-sighted enough to perceive in time the danger of excesses which their reconstruction policy would bring