Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 http://archive.org/details/proofsforworkingOOunse PROOFS FOR WORKINGMEN OF THE MONARCHIC AND ARISTOCRATIC DESIGNS OF THE SOUTHERN CONSPIRATORS AND THEIR NORTHERN ALLIES. The main object of the war for the Union is to vindicate the rights and privileges of the laboring classes of our country, against the treacherous and despotic designs of an armed Con- federacy of monarchists and aristocrats. In the loyal States there are many disloyal men, who sympathize with the aims of these anti-Republican traitors, and are in secret league with them. Their plan is to divide, subdivide, and distract the country, and then declare for a monarchy, as the only refuge from anarchy or military despotism. Should they succeed, direful would be the results to the great body of the people, and especially to the working man. The substitution of a monarchy for our Republic, would produce political and social changes, of which no one can form an adequate conception, who has not had the opportunity of comparing our Government with the monarchies of the old world. There would be privileged orders. There would be an established church, supported by legal taxation. The £Ujlit of voting would be restricted to the nobility and gentry. The free school system would be abolished. The poor whites would be amalgamated with the negroes, and both would be reduced to slavery. Some of our brother laboring men clearly perceive this to be the general programme of the traitors. If all could see it, the nefarious scheme would be instantly exploded. There would be no need of a draft for soldiers, and no need of large bounties for volunteers. They would neither wait to be drafted, nor paid, but would up together, saying, " Show us the way to the infernal conspirators against our political equality and the free manhood of our children, and we will throw ourselves upon and crush them as the mountain avalanche crushes all things human in its course." Let the following proof from Southern lips and pens be carefully considered : I. — THE PECULIAR STRUCTURE *0F THE CONFEDERATE CONSTI- TUTION. The part of that instrument specially alluded to is the pre- amble " We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent Federal Government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity; invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this constitution for the Confederate States of America." Please mark the words in italics ! Each State acted in its sovereign and independent character in forming the Confederate Government. Each State, therefore, acting in the same character, may withdraw from the Confederacy at pleasure. The right of secession is thus expressly recognized. This is not a hempen cable, nor a chain of brass, but a rope of sand. And for what could such a government as this have been made ? The interests of the States embraced within its jurisdiction are diverse, and even conflicting. The necessities of South Carolina and Virginia, are no more identical than are those of South Carolina and Massachusetts. Yet here is a government formed for fifteen large States, widely differing in their population, products, and wants, which would not bear the slightest strain, which cupidity or wounded pride, or local prejudice, or personal ambition might take to pieces at any moment. Now, although the lead- ing conspirators are not great statesmen, neither are they great fools. They never would have incurred the risks involved in secession and rebellion, to form a government of States utterly wanting in the main element of permanent existence. Their whole system as it stands is what a human body would be with- out a back-bone. Such a body would not stand. Neither would the rebel Confederacy, nor did they design it should when they formed it. It was intended as a temporary concession to the extreme " States' Rights" party in the South, which* was to be withdrawn upon the first convenient occasion. It was a system artfully contrived to flatter local vanity, till the work of secession from the old Union could be completed, and a large and efficient army organized. Then the disjointed structure without cohesion, or strength of any kind, was to be taken down, and a monarchy substituted in its place. And if you say the eyes of the ijeople would then have been opened, and that with a single breath of their hot indignation, they would have blasted their betrayers forever. I have only to remind you that it would then have been too late. With all parts of civil authority in the hands of the monarchists, and all military 3 commands invested in their friends, what could the people have done ? And had this fell scheme proved successful in the slave-holding, it would then have been attempted in the non- slave-holding States, also. For the name of the sympathizers with that scheme in these States is *' legion." You remember the advice of that traitor and lineal descendant of a tory, Wil- liam B. Reed, of Philadelphia. ' Rather than unite with the non-seceding States, to support the Federal Government in an attempt to coerce the Southern seceders back into the Union, that pacific, and somewhat notorious worthy, advised that Pennsylvania should resume her sovereignty, proclaim her in- dependence, and unite her fortunes with the slave-breeder's monarchy. II. — THE RECENT DECLARATION OP THE REBEL PRESIDENT. In the month of August, year of grace, 1864, two gentlemen of purest Union blood, Col. Jaques, of the 73d Illinois Volun- teers, who is an eminent Methodist clergyman, as -well as a brave and skillful soldier, and Mr. Gilmore, a distinguished American author, crossed the lines of General Grant, with a pass from President Lincoln, and went to Richmond. They had no authority from their Government, but went on their own responsibility, desiring if possible, to ascertain upon what conditions peace might be re-established, and the dreadful effusion of blood at once and forever stayed. They had an interview with Davis, the account of which is, in all its particu- lars, interesting, but in none so much so as in that which sets forth that arch traitor's view of what should be the governing power in a nation. We, in that republican simplicity, which we inherited from our Revolutionary forefathers, have always maintained that the governing power should belong to a majority of duly qualified voters, and so thought the aforesaid visitors to the rebel chief. But that distinguished functionary, as we learn, entertains no such opinion. Hear him on the ruling power of majorities: " Jaques. — Suppose the* two Governments should agree to something like this : to go to the people with two propositions, say peace, with disunion and Southern independence, as your proposition ; and peace, with union, emancipation, no confisca- tion, and universal amnesty, as ours. Let the citizens of all the United States, (as they existed before the war,) vote 4 yes,' or ' no,' on these two propositions, at a special election, within sixty days. If a majority votes disunion, our Government to be bound by it, and to let you go in peace. If a majority votes union, yours to be bound by it, and to stay in peace. The 4 two Governments can contract in this way, and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their rulers ?" " Davis. — The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one State, it might work ; but as it is, if one Southren State objected to emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing ; for you are aware the people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia." "Jaques: — But three-fourths of the States can amend the Constitution. Let it be done in that way, or any way so that it be done by the people. I am not a statesman or a politician, and I do not know just how such a plan could be carried out, but you get the idea that the people shall decide the question." " Davis. — That the majority shall decide it, you mean? We seceded to rid ourselves of the rule of the majority ; and this would subject us to it again." "Jaques. — But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots." " Davis. — I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true." Here is Mr. Davis' express, unqualified avowal that the Southern disunionists seceded to rid themselves from the rule of a majority. Now what sort of a Republic would it be in which a minority should rule the majority ? It might be a Republic in name, but not in fact, according to the American idea of that theory of, government. And is it not obvious as the light of day, that men who were no longer willing to submit to the majority rule of true Repub- licanism, must have contemplated a monarchy from the moment of the first thought of setting that rule at defiance ? III. — THE OFT REPEATED AND RANK AVOWALS OF SOUTHERN JOURNALISTS BEFORE THE WAR. The extracts about to be given will show how harmoniously the ideas of slavery and monarchy were blended in the public ' mind of the South : " Until recently, the defence of slavery has labored under great difficulties, because its apologists (for they were mere apologists,) took half-way grounds. They confined the defence of slavery to mere negro slavery, thereby giving up the slavery principle, and admitting other forms of slavery to be wrong. The line of defence is now changed. The South now T main- tains that slavery is right, natural, and necessary, and does not depend on difference of complexion. The laws of the 5 slave States justify the holding of white men in bondage." — Richmond Examiner. " Slavery is the natural and normal condition of the laboring man, whether white or black. The great evil of Northern free society is that it is burdened with a servile class of me- chanics and laborers, unfit for self government, and yet clothed with the attributes and powers of citizens. Master and slave is a relation in society as necessary as that of parent and child ; and the Northern States will yet have to introduce it. Their theory of free government is a delusion." — Charleston Mercury. " Repeatedly have we asked the North, Has not the experi- ment of universal liberty failed ? Are not the evils of free society insufferable ? And do not most thinking men among you propose to subvert and reconstruct it ? Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive proof added to many other conclusive evidences, we have furnished that free society, in the long run, is an impracticable form of society ; it is every- where starving, demoralized, and insurrectionary." — Richmond Inquirer. " We repeat, then, that policy and humanity alike forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming generations. Two opposite and conflicting forms of society cannot, among civilized . men, coexist and endure. The one must give way and cease to exist. The other must become universal. If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must fall, and give way to slave society — a social system as old as the world, as universal as man." — Richmond Inquirer, " Free society ! we sicken at the name. What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small- fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists. All the Northern, and especially the New England States, are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevailing class one meets withf political oaths will lead to the conclusion that they can be very serviceable in certain emergencies and for certain objects, but that they have never insured the stability of a government, and never improved the morals of a people. Feeling towards the Soldiers and the People op the North. A more substantial evidence of " returning loyalty" would be a favorable change of feeling with regard to the government's friends and agents, and the people of the loyal States generally. But no instance has come to my notice in which the people of a city or a rural district cordially fraternized with the army. Here and there the sol- diers were welcomed as protectors against apprehended dangers ; but general exhibitions of cordiality on the part of the population I have not heard of. There are, indeed, honorable individual exceptions to this rule. Many per- sons, mostly belonging to the first of the four classes above enumerated, are honestly striving to soften down the bitter feelings and traditional antipathies of their neighbors ; others, who are acting more upon motives of policy than inclination, maintain pleasant relations with the officers of the government. But, upon the whole, the soldier of the Union is still looked upon as a stranger, an intruder — as the " Yankee," "the enemy." No observing northern man can come into contact with the different classes composing southern society without noticing this aversion. He may be received in social circles with great politeness, even with apparent cordialit}'; but soon he will become aware that, although he may be esteemed as a man, he is detested as a "Yankee," and, as the conversation becomes a little more confidential, and throws off ordinary restraint, he is not unfrequently told so ; the word " Yankee" still signifies to them those traits of character which the southern press has been so long in the habit of attributing 4 to the northern people ; and whenever they look around them upon the traces of the war, they sec in them, not the consequences of their own folly, but the evidences of "Yankee wickedness." In making these general statements, I beg to be understood as alwa} T s excluding the individual ex- ceptions above mentioned. Situation op Unionists. It would have been a promising indication of returning loj'alty if the old, consistent, uncompromising Unionists of the south had received that measure of consideration to which their identification with the new order of things entitled them. This appears to have been the case during that "first period" of anxious uncertainty when known Unionists were looked up to as men whose protection and favor might be of high value. At least it appears to have been so in some individual instances. But the close of that "first period" changed the aspect of things. It struck me soon after my arrival in the south that the known Unionists — I mean those who during the war had been to a certain extent identified with the national cause — were not in communion with the leading social and political circles ; and the further my observations extended the clearer it became to me that their existence in the south was of a rather precarious nature. Already in Charleston my attention was called to the current talk among the people, that, when they had the control of things once more in their own l^ands, and were no longer restrained by the presence of " Yankee" . soldiers, men of Dr. Mackey's stamp would not be permitted to live there. At first I did not attach much importance to such reports ; but as I proceeded through the country, I heard the same thing so frequently repeated, at so many different places, and by so many different persons, that I could no longer look upon the apprehensions expressed to me by Unionists as entirely groundless. I found the same opinion entertained by most of our military commanders. Even Governor Sharkey, in the course of a conversation I had with him in the presence of Major-General Osterhaus, admitted that, if our troops were then withdrawn, the lives of northern men in Mississippi would not be safe. A letter, addressed to me by General Osterhaus, states that he was compelled to withdraw the garrison from Attala county, Mississippi, the regiment to which that garrison belonged being mustered out, and that when the troops had been taken away, four murders occurred, two of white Union men, and two of negroes. He goes on to say : " There is no doubt whatever that the state of affairs would be intolerable for all Union men, all recent immigrants from the north, and all negroes, the moment the pro- tection of the United States troops was withdrawn." General Slocum, in his order prohibiting the organization of the State militia in Mississippi, speaks of the " outrages committed against northern men, government couriers, and negroes." General Canby stated to me that he was obliged to disband and prohibit certain patrol organizations in Louisiana, because they indulged in the gratification of private vengeance. Lieutenant Hickney, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, at Shreveport, Louisiana says : ' ' The life of a northern man who is true to his country, and frankly enun- ciates his principles, is not secure where there is not a military force to pro- tect him." The affair of Scottsborough, in the military district of northern Alabama, where a sheriff arrested and attempted to bring to trial for murder Union soldiers who had served against the guerrillas in that part of the country, an attempt which was frustrated only by the prompt interference of the district commander, has become generally known through the news- papers. It is true these are mere isolated cases, for which i would be wrong to 1 5 hold anybody responsible who was not connected with them ; but it is also true that the apprehensions so widely spread among the Unionists and northern men were based upon the spirit exhibited by the people among whom they lived. I found a good many thinking of removing themselves and their families to the northern States, and if our troops should be soon withdrawn, the exodus will probably become quite extensive, unless things meanwhile change for the better. Aspect of the Political Field. The status of this class of Unionists in the political field corresponds with what I have said above. I was in Mississippi immediately after the adjourn- ment of the State convention, and while the canvass preparatory to the election of the legislature and of the State and county officers Was going on. Events have since sufficiently developed themselves in the other States to permit us to judge how far- Mississippi can be regarded as a representative of the rest. The Mississippi convention was, in its majority, composed of men belong- ing to the first two of the four classes above mentioned. There were several Union men in it of the inoffensive, compromising kind — men who had been opposed to secession in the beginning, and had abstained from taking a prominent part in the rebellion unless obliged to do so, but who had at least readily acquiesced in what was going on. But there was, as far as I have been able to ascertain, only one man there who, like the Unionists of East Tennessee, had offered active resistance to the rebel authorities. This was Mr. Crawford, of Jones county ; he was elected by the poor people of that region, his old followers, as their acknowledged leader, and his may justly be looked upon as an exceptional case. ' The impulses by which voters were actuated in making their choice ap- peared more clearly in the canvass for State officers, Congressmen, and members of the legislature. A Union meeting at Vicksburg may, therefore, be produced as a not unfavorable exponent of Mississippi Unionism. The speakers represented themselves as Union men, and I have learned nothing about them that would cast suspicion upon the sincerity of their declarations as far as they go ; but all there qualified their Unionism by the same im- portant statement. Mr. Cooper: " In 1850 I opposed an attempt to break up the United States government, and in 1860 I did the same. I travelled in Alabama and Mississippi to oppose the measure. (Applause.) But after the State did secede, I did all in my power to sustain it." (Heavy applause.) Mr. Evans In 1861 I was a delegate from Lauderdale county to the State convention, then and in 1860 being opposed to the act of secession, and fought against it with all my powers. But when the State had seceded, I went with it as a matter of dut}^, and I sustained it until the day of the surrender with all my body and heart and mind." (Great applause.) These speeches, fair specimens of a majority of those delivered by the better class of politicians before the better class of audiences, furnish an indication of the kind of Unionism which, by candidates, is considered palatable to the people of that region. When, at the commencement of the war, Kentucky resolved to remain in the Union, Mr. Hogan, so he informs the constituency, was a citizen of Kentucky ; because Kentucky refused to leave the Union Mr. Hogan left Kentucky. He went to Mississippi, joined the rebel arnry, and was wounded in battle ; and because he left his native State to fight against the Union, "therefore," Mr. Hogan tells his Mississippian constituency, "he cannot feel that he is an alien in their midst, and, with something of confidence in the result, appeals to them for their suffrages." 6 j I am sure no Mississippian will deny that if a candidate there based his claims upon the ground of his having left Mississippi when the State seceded, in order to fight for the Union, his pretensions would be treated as a piece of impudence. The kind of Patriotism taught in Schools. While I was in New Orleans an occurrence took place which may be quoted as an illustration of the sweep of what I might call the reactionary move- ment. When General Shepley was military governor of Louisiana, under General Butler's regime, a school board was appointed for the purpose of reorganizing the public schools of New Orleans. A corps of loyal teachers was appointed, and the education of the children was conducted with a view to make them loyal citizens. The national airs were frequently sung in the schools, and other exercises introduced, calculated to impregnate the youth- ful minds of the pupils with affection for their country. It appears that this feature of the public schools was distasteful to that class of people with whose feelings they did not accord. Mr. II. Kennedy, acting mayor of New Orleans, early in September last, disbanded the school board which so far had conducted the educational af- fairs of the city, and appointed a new one. The composition of this nefw school board was such as to induce General Canby to suspend its functions until he could inquire into the loyalty of its members. He found that a large majority of the members had sympathized with the rebellion, and aided the confederate government in a variety of ways. But as no evidence was elicited proving the members legally incapable of holding office, General Canb}' considered himself obliged to remove the prohibition^ and the new school board* entered upon its functions. Without offering any comment of my own, I annex an editorial taken from the "New Orleans Times," of September 12. " The schools of New Orleans have been institutions so intensely and demonstratively lo}~al as to become unpopular with those of our fellow-citizens to whom such demonstrations are distasteful, and they must be brought back under ' popular control,' so as to make them cease to be obnoxious in that particular." It was gener- ally understood, when the new school board was appointed, that a Mr. Rodgers was to be made superintendent of public schools. In Major Lowell's report to General Canby this Mr. Rodgers figures as follows : " Mr. Rodgers, the candidate for the position of superintendent of public schools, held the same office at the commencement of the war. His conduct at that time was imbued with extreme bitterness and hate towards the United States, and, in his capacity as superintendent, he introduced the * Bonnie Blue Flag' and other rebel songs into the exercises of the schools under his charge. In histories and other books where the initials ' U. S.' occurred he had the same erased, and ' C. S.' substituted. He used all means in his power to imbue the minds of the youth intrusted to his care with hate and malignity towards the Union. He has just returned from the late confed- eracy, A*here he lias resided during the war. At the time i he left the city to Join the army he left his property in the care of one Finley, who claims to be a British subject, but held the position of sergeant in a confederate re- giment of militia." No sooner was the above-mentioned prohibition by General Canby removed when Mr. Rodgers was actually appointed, and lie now presides over the educational interests of New Orleans. There is something like system in such proceedings. Treason not odious. There are two principal points to which I beg to call your attention. In 7 the first place, the rapid return to power and influence of so many of those who but recently were engaged in a bitter war against the Union has had ,one effect, which was certainly not originally contemplated by the govern- ment. Treason does, under existing circumstances, not appear odious in the south. The people are not impressed with any sense of its criminality. And. secondly, there is, as yet, among the southern people an utter absence of national feeling. I made it a business, while in the south, to watch the symptoms of " returning loyalty" as they appeared not only in private con- versation, but in the public press and in the speeches delivered and the re- solutions passed at Union meetings. Hardly ever was there an expression of hearty attachment to the great republic, or an appeal to the impulses of patriotism ; but whenever submission to the national authorhVy was declared and advocated, it was almost uniformly placed upon two principal grounds : that, under present circumstances, the southern people could "do no better;" and then that submission was the only means by which they could rid them- selves of the federal soldiers and obtain once more control of their own affairs. Repudiation of our War Debt. But there is another matter claiming the attention and foresight of the government. It is well known that the levying of taxes for the pa}^ment of the interest on our national debt is, and will continue to be, very un- popular in the south. It is true, no striking demonstrations have as yet been made of any decided unwillingness on the part of the people to contribute to the discharge of our national obligations. But most of the conversations I had with southerners upon this subject led me to apprehend that the}-, politicians and people, are rather inclined to ask monejr of the government as compensation for their emancipated slaves, for the rebuilding of the levees on the Mississippi, and various kind of damage done by our armies for military purposes, than, as the current expression is, to "help pay the expenses of the whipping they have received." In fact, there are abundant indications in newspaper articles, public speeches, and electioneering docu- ments of candidates, which render it eminently probable that on the claim of compensation for their emancipated slaves the southern States, as soon as readmitted to representation in Congress, will be almost a unit. In the Mississippi convention the idea was broached by Mr. Potter, in an elaborate speech, to have the late slave States relieved from taxation "for years to come," in consideration of " debt due them" for the emancipated slaves ; and this plea I have frequently heard advocated in private conversations. I need not go into details as to the efforts made in some of the southern States in favor of the assumption by those States of their debts contracted during the rebellion. It may be assumed with certainty that those who want to have the southern people, poor as they are, taxed for the payment of rebel debts, do not mean to have them taxed for the purpose of meeting our national obligations. But whatever devices may be resorted to, present in- dications justify the apprehension that the enforcement of our revenue laws will meet with a refractory spirit, and may require sterner measures than | the mere sending of revenue officers into that part of the country. The Negro Question. That the result of the free labor experiment made under circumstances so extremely unfavorable should at once be a perfect success, no reasonable person would expect. Nevertheless, a large majority of the southern men with whom I came in contact announced their opinions with so positive an j assurance as to produce the impression that their minds were fullv made up. In at least nineteen cases of twenty the reply I received to my inquiry about 8 their views on the new system was uniform!}- this : " You cannot make the negro work without physical compulsion." I heard this hundreds of times, heard it wherever I went, heard it in nearly the same words from so many different persons, that at last I came to the conclusion that this is the pre- vailing sentiment among the southern people. There are exceptions to this rule, but, as far as my information extends, far from enough to affect the rule. Unfortunately the disorders necessarily growing out of the transition state continually furnished food for argument. Every irregularity that i ccurred was directly charged against the s} T stem of free labor. If some negroes shirked, or did not perform their task with sufficient alacrity, it was produced as irrefutable evidence to show that physical compulsion was actually indispensable to make the negro work. If negroes, idlers or refugees crawling about the towns, applied to the authorities for sub- sistence, it was quoted as incontestably establishing the point that the negro was too improvident to take care of himself, and must necessarily be consigned to the care of a master. I heard a Georgia planter argue most seriously that one of his negroes had shown himself certainly unfit for free- dom because he impudently refused to submit to a whipping. It frequently struck me that persons who conversed about every other subject calmly and sensibly would lose their temper as soon as the negro question was touched. A belief, conviction, or prejudice, or whatever you may call it, so widely spread and apparent^ so deepty rooted as this, that the negro will not work without physical compulsion, is certainly calculated to have a very serious influence upon the conduct of the people entertaining it. In many instances negroes who walked away from the plantations, or were found upon the roads, were shot or were otherwise severely punished, which was calculated to produce the impression among those remaining with their masters that an attempt to escape from slavery would result in certain destruction. Brigadier-General Fessenden reported to Major-General Gilmore from Winnsboro', South Carolina, July 19, as follows : " The spirit of the peo- ple, especially in those districts not subject to the salutary influence of General Sherman's army, is that of concealed and, in some instances, of open hostility, though there are some who strive with honorable good faith to promote a thorough reconciliation between the government and their peo- ple. A spirit of bitterness and persecution manifests itself towards the negroes. They are shot and abused outside the immediate protection of our forces by men icho announce their determination to take the laic into their awn hands, in defiance of our authority. To protect the negro and punish these still rebellious individuals it will be necessary to have this country pretty thickly settled with soldiers. " I received similar verbal reports from other parts of South Carolina. To show the hopes still indulged in by some, I may mention that one of the sub-district commanders, as he him- self informed me, knew planters within the limits of his command who had made contracts with their former slaves avowedly for the object of keeping them together on their plantations, so that they might have them near at hand, and thus more easily reduce them to their former condition, when, after the restoration of the civil power, the " unconstitutional emancipation proclamation" would be set aside. Cases in which negroes were kept on the plantations, either by ruse or violence, were frequent enough in South Carolina and Georgia to call forth from General Saxton a circular threatening planters who persisted in this practice with loss of their property. At Atlanta, Georgia, 1 had an oppor- tunity to examine some cases of the nature above described myself. While I was there, 9th and 10th of August, several negroes came into town with 9 bullet and buckshot wounds in their bodies. From their statements, which, however, were only corroborating information previously received, it ap- peared that the reckless and restless characters of that region had combined to keep the negroes where they belonged. Several freedmen were shot in the attempt Vo escape, others succeeded in eluding the vigilance of their persecutors ; large numbers, terrified by what they saw and heard, quietly remained under the restraint imposed upon them, waiting for better oppor- tunities. The commander of the sub-district and post infowned me that bands of guerrillas were prowling about within a few miles of the city, making it dangerous for soldiers and freedmen to show themselves outside of the immediate reach of the garrison, and that but a few days previous to my arrival a small squad of men he had sent out to serve an order upon a planter, concerning the treatment of freedmen, had been driven back by an armed band of over twenty men, headed by an individual in the uniform of a rebel officer. The provost-marshal at Selma, Alabama, Major J. P. Houston, says : " There have come to my notice officially twelve cases, in which I am morally certain the trials have not been had yet, that negroes were killed by whites. In a majority of cases the provocation consisted in the negroes trying to come to town or to return to the plantation after having been sent away. The cases above enumerated, I am convinced, are but a small part of those that have actually been perpetrated. " In a report to Gen. Swayne assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, communicated to me by the General, Captain Poillon, agent of the bureau at Mobile, says of the condition of things in the southwestern part of the State, July 29 : " There are regular patrols posted on the rivers, who board some of the boats ; after the boats leave they hang, shoot, or drown the victims they may find on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the rivers are almost invariably murdered. * * * * The bewildered and terri- fied freedmen know not what to do — to leave is death ; to remain is to surfer the increased burden imposed upon them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their labor, wrung from them b}~ every device an inhuman inge- nuity can devise ; hence the lash and murder is resorted to to intimidate those whom fear of an awful death alone cause to remain, while patrols, ne- gro dogs and spies, disguised as Yankees, keep constant guard over these unfortunate people." In a letter addressed to myself, September 9, Captain Poillon says : " Organized patrols, with negro hounds, keep guard over the thoroughfares ; bands of lawless robbers traverse the county, and the unfortunate who attempts to escape, or he who returns for his wife or child, is waylaid or pursued with hounds, and shot or hung." Here I will insert some remarks on the general treatment of the blacks as a class, from the whites as a class. It is not on the plantations and at the hands of the planters themselves that the negroes have to suffer the greatest hardships. Not only the former slaveholders, but the non-slaveholding whites, who, even previous to the war, seemed to be more ardent in their pro-slavery feelings than the planters themselves, are possessed by a singu- larly bitter and vindictive feeling against the colored race since the negro has ceased to be property. The pecuniary value which the individual negro formerly represented having disappeared, the maiming and killing of colored men seems to be looked upon by many as one of those venial offences which must be forgiven to the outraged feelings of a wronged and robbed people. Besides, the services rendered by the negro to the national cause during the war, which make him an object of special interest to the loyal people, make him an object of particular vindictiveness to those whose hearts were set upon the success of the rebellion. The number of murders and assaults per- 10 petrated upon negroes is very great ; we can form only an approximate esti- mate of what is going on in those parts of the south which are not closely garrisoned, and from which no regular reports are received, by what occurs under the very eyes of our military authorities. As to my personal experi- ence, I will only mention that during my two days sojourn at Atlanta, one negro was stabbed with fatal effect on the street, and three were poisoned, one of whom died. While I was at Montgomery, one negro was cut across the throat evidently with intent to kill, and another was shot, but both es- caped with their lives. Several papers attached to this report give an ac- count of the number of capital cases that occurred at certain places during a certain period of time. It is a sad fact that the perpetration of those acts is not confined to that class of people which might be called the rabble. Several " gentlemen of standing" have been tried before military commis- sions for such offences. General Ideas and Schemes of Whites Concerning the Freedmen. Some of the planters with whom I had occasion to converse expressed their determination to adopt the course which best accords with the spirit of free labor, to make the negro work by offering him fair inducements, to stimulate his ambition, and to extend to him those means of intellectual and moral improvement which are best calculated to make him an intelligent, reliable and efficient free laborer and a good and useful citizen. Those who expressed such ideas were almost invariably professed Union men, and far above the average in point of mental ability and culture. I found a very few instances of original secessionists also Manifesting a willingness to give the free-labor experiment a fair trial. I can represent the sentiments of this small class in no better way than by quoting the language used by an Alabama judge in a conversation with me. " I am one of the most tho- roughly whipped men in the south," said he ; " I am a genuine old secession- ist, and I believe now, as I always did, we had the constitutional right to secede. But the war has settled that matter, and it is all over now. As to this thing of free negro labor, I do not believe in it, but I will give it a fair trial. I have a plantation and am going to make contracts with my hands, and then I want a real Yankee to run the machine for me ; not one of your New Yorkers or Pennsylvanians, but the genuine article from Massachu- setts or Vermont — one who can not only farm, but sing Psalms and pray, and teach school — a real abolitionist, who believes in the thing just as I don't believe in it. If he does not succeed, I shall consider it proof conclu- sive that you are wrong and I am right." • I regret to say that views and intentions so reasonable I found confined to a small minority. Aside from the assumption that the negro will not work without physical compulsion, there appears to be another popular no- tion prevalent in the south, which stands as no less serious an obstacle in the way of a successful solution of the problem. It is that the negro exists for the special object of raising cotton, rice and sugar for pic whites, and that it is illegitimate for him to indulge, like other people, in the pursuit of his own happiness in his own way Although it is admitted that he has ceased to be the property of a master, it is not admitted that he has a right to be- come his own master. As Colonel Thomas, assistant commissioner of the Freeclmen's Bureau in Mississippi, in a letter addressed to me, very pun- gently expresses it : " The whites esteem the blacks their property by natu- ral right, and, however much they may admit that the relations of masters and slaves have been destroyed by the war and by the President's emancipa- tion proclamation, they still have an ingrained feeling that the blacks at large belong to the whites at large, and whenever opportunity serves, they 11 treat the colored people just as their profit, caprice or passion may dictate. An ingrained feeling like this is apt to bring forth that sort of class legis- lation which produces laws to govern one class with no other view than to benefit another. This tendency can be distinctly traced in the various schemes for regulating labor which here and there see the light." Immediately after the emancipation of the slaves, when the general con- fusion was most perplexing, the prevalent desire among the whites seemed to be, if they could not retain their negroes as slaves, to get rid of them entirely, Wild speculations were indulged in, how to remove the colored population at once and to import white laborers to fill its place ; how to ob- tain a sufficient supply of coolies, &c, &c. Even at the present moment the removal of the freedmen is strongly advocated by those who have the traditional horror of a free negro, and in some sections, especially where the soil is more adapted to the cultivation of cereals than the raising of the staples, planters appear to be inclined to drive the negroes away, at least from their plantations. I was informed by a prominent South Carolinian, in July, that the planters in certain localities in the northwestern part of the State had been on the point of doing so, but better counsel had been made to prevail upon them; and Colonel Robinson, 9Tth United States Colored Infantry, who had been sent out to several counties in southern Alabama to administer the amnesty oath, reported a general disposition among the planters of that region to "set the colored people who had cul- tivated their crops during the summer adrift as soon as the crops would be secured, and not to permit the negro t o remain upon any footing of equality with the white man in that county." The disposition to drive away all the negroes from the plantations was undoubtedly confined to a few dis- tricts ; and as far as the scheme of wholesale deportation is concerned, prac- tical men became aware, that if they wanted to have any labor done, it would have been bad policy to move away the laborers they now have before others were there to fill their places. All these devices promising at best only distant relief, and free negro labor being the only thing in immediate pros- pect, many ingenious heads set about to solve the problem, how to make free labor compulsoi^ by permanent regulations. Shortly after the close of the war some South Carolina planters tried to solve this problem by introducing into the contracts provisions leaving only a small share of the crops to the freedmen, subject to all sorts of construc- tive charges, and then binding them to work on° the indebtedness they might incur. It being to a great extent in the power of the employer to keep the laborer in debt to him, the employer might thus obtain a perma- nent hold upon the person of the laborer. It was something like the sys- tem of peonage existing in Mexico. When these contracts were submitted to the military authorities for ratification, General Hatch, commanding at Charleston, at once issued an order prohibiting such arrangements. I had an opportunity to examine one of these contracts, and found it drawn up with much care, and evidently with a knowledge of the full bearings of the provisions so inserted. Municipal Regulation. Mr. W. B. Stickney, agent of the Freedmen's Bureau at Shreveport, Louisiana, reported to the assistant commissioner of the bureau in Louisi- ana as follows : " August 1. — The following is a literal copy of a docu- ment brought to this office by a colored man, which is conclusive evidence that tflere are those who still claim the negro as their property : " ' This boy Calvin has permit to hire to whom he please, but I shall hold 12 him as my propperty untill set Free by Congress. July 1, 1865. (Signed.) E. V. Tully.' M An ordinance passed by the police board of the town of Opelousas, Lou- isiana, deserves careful perusal. Among a number of regulations appl)'- ing exclusively to the negro, and depriving him of all liberty of locomo- tion, the following striking provisions are found : Section 3. No negro or freedman shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within the limits of the town under any circumstances, and any one thus offending shall be ejected and compelled to find an employer or leave the town in twenty-four hours. The lessor or furnisher of the house leased or kept as above shall pay a fine of ten dollars for each offence. Section 4. No negro or freedman shall reside within the limits of the town of Opelousas who is not in the regular service of some white person or former owner. Section 8. No freedman shall sell, barter or exchange, any articles of merchandise or traffic within the limits of Opelousas without permission in writing from his employer, or the mayor, or president of the board. This ordinance was at first approved by a lieutenant colonel of the United States forces having local command tiiere, and it is worthy of note that thereupon the infection spread at once, and similar ordinances were enter- tained by the police boards of the town of Franklin and of the parish of St. Landry. (Accompanying document No. 35.) The parish ordinance of St. Landry differs from the town ordinances of Opelousas and Franklin in several points, and wherever there is any difference, it is in the direction of greater severity. It imposes heavier fines and penalties throughout, and provides, in addition, for a sj'stem of coporal punishment. It is also or- dained "that the aforesaid penalties shall be summarily enforced, and that it shall be the duty of the captain or chief of patrol to see that the afore- said ordinances are promptly executed." While the town ordinances pro- vide that a negro who does not find an employer shall be compelled to leave the town, the parish or county ordinance knows nothing of letting the negro go, but simply compels him to find an employer. Finally, it is ordained " that it shall be the duty of every citizen to act as a. police officer for the detection of offences and the apprehension of offenders, who shall be imme- diately handed over to the proper captain or chief of patrol " On the whole, this piece of legislation is a striking embodiment of the idea that although the former owner has lost his individual right of pro- perty in the former slave, " the blacks at large belong to the whites at large." It is needless to say that as soon as these proceedings came to the knowl- edge of the Freedmen's Bureau and the department commander they were promptly overruled. But Governor Wells v did not remove the police boards that had thus attempted to revive slavery in a new form. Here and there municipal regulations were gotten up heavily taxing or otherwise impeding those trades and employments in which colored people are most likely to engage. Colonel Thomas says : M You will see by the city ordinance that a drayman, or hackman, in Vicksburg, must file a bond of five hundred dollars, in addition to paying for his license. The ma}'or requires that the bondsmen must be freeholders. The laws of this State do not, and never did, allow a negro to own land or hold property ; the white citizens refuse to sign any bonds for the freedmen. The white citizens and authorities saj- that it is for their interest to drive out all in- dependent negro labor ; that the freedmen must hire to white men if they want to do this kind of work." 13 Education of the Freedmen. I made it a special point in most of the conversations I had with southern men to inquire into their views with regard to this subject. I found, in- deed, some gentlemen of thought and liberal ideas who readily acknowl- edged the necessity of providing for the education of the colored people, and who declared themselves willing to co-operate to that end to the ex- tent of their influence. Some planters thought of establishing schools on their estates, and others would have been glad to see measures taken to that effect by the people of the neighborhoods in which they lived. But , whenever I asked the question whether it might be hoped that the legisla- tures of their States or their county authorities would make provisions for negro education, I never received an affirmative, and only in two or three instances feebly encouraging answers. At last I was forced to the con- clusion that, aside from a small number of honorable exceptions, the popu- lar prejudice is almost as bitterly set against the negroes having the ad- vantage of education as it was when the negro was a slave. There maybe an improvement in that respect, but it would prove only how universal the prejudice was in former days. Hundreds of times I heard the old assertion repeated, that " learning will spoil the negro for work," and that " negro education will be the ruin of the south." The consequence of the prejudice prevailing in the southern States is that colored schools can be established and carried on with safety only under the protection of our military forces, and that where the latter are withdrawn the former have to go with them. There may be a few locali- ties forming exceptions, but their number is certainly very small. General Kilby Smith referring to the condition of things in Mobile, Ala- bama, says : Threats were made to destroy all school-houses in which colored children were taught, and in two instances they were fired. The same threats were made against all churches in which colored people as- sembled to worship, and one of them burned. Continued threats of assas- sination were made against the colored preachers, and one of them is now under special guard by order of Major General Woods." While I was in Louisiana General Canby received a petition, signed by a number of prominent citizens of Xew Orleans, praying him "to annul Order No. 38, which authorizes a board of officers to levy a tax on the tax-payers of the parish of Xe»w Orleans to defray the expenses of educat- ing the freedmen." The reasons given for making this request are as fol- lows : "Most of those who have lost their slaves by the rebellion, and whose lands are in the course of confiscation, being thus deprived of the means of raising corn for their hungry children, have not airything left wherewith to pay such a tax. The order in question, they consider, vio- lates that sacred principle which requires taxation to be equal throughout the United States. If the freedmen are to be educated at public expense, let it be done from the treasury of the United States." Many of the signers of this petition, who wanted to be relieved of the school tax on the ground of poverty, were counted among the wealthy men of Xew Orleans, and they forgot to state that the free colored element of Louisiana, which represents a capital of at least thirteen millions and pays a not inconsiderable propor- tion of the taxes, contributes at the same time for the support of the schools for whites, from which their children are excluded. The Freedmen. That there are among the negroes a good many constitutionally lazy individuals is certainly true. The propensity to idleness seems to be rather 14 ptrongly developed in the south generall}', without being confined to any particular race. It is also true that the alacrit}* negroes put into their work depends in a majority of cases upon certain combinations of circum- stances. It is asserted that the negroes have a prejudice against working in the cultivation of cotton, rice and sugar. Although this prejudice, pro- bably arising from the fact that cotton, rice, and sugar fields remind the former slave of the worst experiences of his past life, exists to some ex- tent, it has not made the freedmen now on the plantations unwilling to cul- tivate such crops as the planters may have seen fit to raise. A few cases of refusal may have occurred. But there is another fact of which I have become satisfied in the course of ru} r observations, and which is of great significance ; while most of the old slaveholders complain of the laziness and instability of their negro laborers, the northern men engaged in plant- ing, with whom I have come into contact, almost uniformly speak of the negro laborers with satisfaction, and these northern men almost exclusively devote themselves to the cultivation of cotton. A good many southern planters in view of the fact, expressed to me their intention to ^ngage northern men for the management of their plantations. This circumstance would seem to prove that under certain conditions the negro may be ex- pected to work well. There are two reasons by which it may be explained ; first, that a northern man knows from actual experience what free labor is, and understands its management, which the late slaveholder, still clinging to the traditions of the old system, does not ; and then, that the negro has more confidence in a northern man than his former master. When a north- ern man discovers among his laboring force an individual that does not do his duty, his first impulse is to discharge him, and he acts accordingly. When a late slaveholder discovers such an individual among his laborers, his first impulse is to whip him, and he is very apt to suit the act to the impulse. Northern men engaged in planting almost uniformly pay wages in mo- ney, while southern planters, almost uniformly, have contracted with their laborers for a share in the crop. In many instances the shares are allotted between employers and laborers with great fairness; but in others the share promised to the laborers is so small as to leave them in the end very little or nothing. I have heard a good many freedmen complain that, tak- ing all things into consideration, they really did not know what they were working for except food, which in many instances was bad and scanty ; and such complaints were frequently well founded. Man}* cases of negroes engaged in little industrial pursuits came to my notice, in which they showed considerable aptness not only for gaining money, but also for saving and judiciously employing it. Some were even surprisingl}- successful. I visited some of the plantations divided up among freedmen and cultivated by them independent^ without the supervision of white men. In some instances I found very good crops and indications of general thrift and good management; m others the corn and cotton crops were in a neglected and unpromising state. The excuse made was in most cases that they had obtained possession of the ground too late in the season, and that, until the regular crops could be harvested, they were obliged to devote much of their time to the raising and sale of vegetables, watermelons, &C, for the purpose of making a living in the mean time. On the whole I feel warranted in making the following statement: Many freedmen — not single individuals, but whole ''plantation gangs" — are work- ing well; others do not. The difference in their efficiency coincides in a great measure with a certain difference in the conditions under which they live. The conclusion lies near, that if the conditions under which they 15 work well become general, their efficiency as free laborers will become general also, aside from individual exceptions. Certain it is, that by far the larger portion of the work done in the south is done by freedmen. Vagrancy. — Large numbers of colored people left the plantations as soon as they became aware that they could do so with impunity. That they could so leave their former masters was for them the first test of the reality of their freedom. A great many flocked to the military posts and towns to obtain from the "Yankees" reliable information as to their new rights. Others were afraid lest by staying on the plantations where they had been held as slaves they might again endanger their freedom. Still others went to- the cities, thinking that there the sweets of liberty could best be enjoyed. In some places they crowded together in large numbers, causing serious in- convenience. But a great many, probably a very large majority, remained on the plantations and made contracts with their former masters. The military authorities, and especially the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, succeeded by continued exertions in returning most of those who were adrift to the plantations, or in finding other employment for them. After the first rush was over the number of vagrants grew visibly less. It may be said that where the Freedmen's Bureau is best organized there is least vagrancy among the nergoes. Here and there they show considerable restlessness, partly owing to local, partly to general causes. Among the former, bad treatment is probably the most prominent ; among the latter, a feeling of distrust, uneasiness, anxiety about their future, which arises from their pres- ent unsettled condition. It is true, some are going from place to place because they are fond of it. The statistics of the Freedmen's Bureau show that the whole number of colored people supported Ivy the Government since the close of the war was remarkably small and continually decreasing. Contracts. — Freedmen frequently show great disinclination to make con- tracts with their former masters. They are afraid lest in signing a paper they sign away their freedom, and in this respect they are distrustful of most southern men. It generally requires pei sonal assurance from a United States officer to make them feel safe. But the advice of such an officer is almost uni- formly followed. In this manner an immense number of contracts has been made, and it is daily increasing. A northern man has no difficulty in making contracts, and but little in enforcing them. The complaints of southern men that the contracts are not well observed by the freedmen are in many in- stances well founded. The same can be said of the complaints of freedmen with regard to the planters. The negro, fresh from slavery, has naturally but a crude idea of the binding force of a written agreement, and it is gallinsr to many of the planters to stand in such relations as a contract establishes to those who formerly were there slaves. I was, however, informed by offi- cers of the Freedmen's Bureau, and by planters also, that things were im- proving in that respect. Contracts will be more readily entered into and more strictly kept as soon as the intimate relations between labor and com- pensation are better understood and appreciated on both sides. Insolence and insubordination. — The new spirit which emancipation has awakened in the colored people has undoubtedly developed itself in some in- dividuals, especially j r oung men, to an offensive degree. Hence cases of in- solence on the part of freedmen occur. But such occurrences are compara- tively rare. On the whole, the conduct of the colored people is far more submissive than anybod} 7 had a right to expect. The acts of violence per- petrated by freedmen against white persons do not stand in any proportion to those committed by whites against negroes. Every such occurrence is sure to be noticed in the southern papers, and we have heard of but very few. When southern people speak of the insolence of the negro, they generally 16 mean something which persons who never lived under th$ system of slavery- arc not apt to appreciate. It is but very rarely what would be calkd inso- lence among equals. But, as an old planter said to me, " our people cannot realize yet that the negro is free." A negro is called insolent whenever his conduct varies in any manner from what a southern man was accus- tomed to when slavery existed. Extravagant notions. — In many localities I found an impression prevail- ing among the negroes that some great change was going to take place about Christmas. Feeling uneasy in their present condition, they in dulged in the expectation that government intended to make some further provision for their future welfare, especially by ordering distributions of land among them. Impressions like the above are very apt to spread among the negroes, for the reason that they ardently desire to become freeholders. In the inde- pendent possession of landed property they see the consummation of their deliverance. However mistaken their notions may be in. other respects, it must be admitted that this instinct is correct. The negro is constitutionally docile and eminently good-natured. In- stances of the most touching attachment of freedmen to their old masters and mistresses have come to my notice. To a white man whom they be- lieve to be sincerely their friend they cling with greater affection even than to one of their own race. By some northern speculators their confidence has been sadly abused. Nevertheless, the trust they place in persons coming from the north, or in any way connected with the Government, is most child- like and unbounded. There may be individual exceptions, but I am sure they are not numerous. Those who enjoy their confidence also enjoy their affection. Centuries of slavery have not been sufficient to make them the enemies of the white race. If in the future a feeling of mutual hostility should develop itself between the races, it will probably not be the fault of those who have shown such an inexhaustible patience under the most adverse and trying circumstances. Education. — That the negroes should have come out of slavery as an igno- rant class is not surprising when we consider that it was a penal offence to teach them while they were in slavery; but their eager desire to learn, and alacrity and success with which they avail themselves of every facility offered to them in that respect, has become a matter of notoriety. The statistics of the Freedmen's Bureau show to what extent such facilities have been offered and what results have been attained. As far as my information goes, these results are most encouraging for the future. Prospective — the Reactionary Tendency. I have stated above that, in my opinion, the solution of the social problem in the south did not depend upon the capacity and conduct of the negro alone, but in the same measure upon the ideas and feelings entertained and acted upon by the whites. What their ideas and feelings were while under my observation, and how they affected the contact of the two races, I have already set forth. The question arises, what policy will be adopted by the " ruling class" when all restraint imposed upon them by the militaiy power of the national government is withdrawn, and they are left free to regulate matters according to their own tastes ? It would be presumptuous to speak of the future with absolute certainty ; but it may safely be assumed that the same causes will always tend to produce the same effects. As long as a majority of the southern people believe that " the negro will not work with- out physical compulsion," and that "the blacks at large belong to the whites at large," that belief will tend to produce a system of coercion, the enforce- 17 ment of which will be aided by the hostile feeling against the negro now prevailing among the whites, and by the general spirit of violence which in the south was fostered by the influence slavery exercised upon the popu- lar character. It is, indeed, not probable that a general attempt will be made to restore slavery in its old form, on account of the barriers which such an attempt would find in its way ; but there are systems intermediate between slavery as it formerly existed in the south, and free labor as it exists in the north, but more nearly related to the former than to the latter, the introduction of which will be attempted. I have noticed some movements in that direction, which were made under the very eyes of our military authorities, and of which the Opelousas and St. Landry ordinances were the most significant. Other things of more recent date, such as the new negro code submitted by a committee to the Legislature of South Carolina, are before the country. They have all the same tendency, because they all spring from the same cause. It is worthy of note that the convention of Mississippi — and the conven- tions of other States have followed its example — imposed upon subsequent legislatures the obligation not only to pass laws for the protection of the freedmen in person and property, but also to guard against the dangers arising from sudden emancipation. This language is not without its significance; not the blessings of a full development of free labor, but only the dangers of emancipation are spoken of. It will be observed that this clause is so vaguely worded as to authorize the legislatures to place any restriction they may see fit upon the emancipated negro, in perfect consistency with the amended State constitutions ; for it rests with them to define what the dangers of sudden emancipation consist in, and what measures may be required to guard against them. A mors tangible evidence of good intentions would seem to have been fur- nished by the admission of negro testimony in the courts of justice, which has been conceded in some of the southern States, at least in point of form. This being a matter of vital interest to the colored man, I inquired into the feel- ings of people concerning it with particular care. At first I found hardly any southern man that favored it. Even persons of some liberality of mind saw seemingly insurmountable objections. The appearance of a general order issued by General Swayne in Alabama, which made it optional for the civil authorities either to admit negro testimony in the State courts or to have all cases in which colored people were concerned tried by officers of the bureau or military commissions, seemed to be the signal for a change of position on the part of the politicians. A great many of them, seeing a chance of getting rid of the jurisdiction of the Freedmen's Bureau, dropped their opposition somewhat suddenly and endeavored to make the admission of negro testimony in the Stats courts palatable to the masses by assuring them that at all events it would rest with the judges and juries to determine in each case before them whether the testimony of negro witnesses was worth anything or not. It is probable that the laws excluding negro testimony from the courts will be repealed in all the States lately in rebellion if it is believed that a satisfac- tory arrangement of this matter may in any way facilitate the " readmission" of the States, but I apprehend such arrangements will hardly be sufficient to secure to the colored man impartial justice as long as the feelings of the whites are against him and they think that his rights are less entitled to respect than their own. More potent certainly than the laws of a country are the opinions of right and wrong entertained by its people. When the spirit of a law is in conflict with such opinions,, there is but little prospect of its being 18 faithfully put in execution, especially where those who hold such opinions are the same who have to administer the laws. The Militia. I do not mean to say that the southern people intend to retrace the steps they have made as soon as they have resumed control of their State affairs. Although they regret the abolition of slavery, they certainly do not intend to re-establish it in its old form. Although they are at heart opposed to the ad- mission of negro testimony in the courts of justice, they probably will not re- enact the laws excluding it. But while accepting the "abolition of slavery," they think that some species of serfdom, peonage, or some other form of com- pulsory labor is not slaveiy, and may be introduced without a violation of their pledge. Although formally admitting negro testimony, they think that negro testimony will be taken practically for what they themselves consider it "worth. " What particular shape the reactionary movement will assume it is at present unnecessary to inquire. There are a hundred wa} r s of framing ap- prenticeship, vagrancy, or contract laws, which will serve the purpose. Even the mere reorganization of the militia upon the old footing will go far towards accomplishing the object. To this point I beg leave to invite your special attention. The people of the southern States show great anxiety to have their militia reorganized, and in some instances permission has been given. In the case of Mississippi I gave you my reasons for opposing the measure under existing circumstances. They were, first, that county patrols had already been in exist- ence, and had to be disbanded on account of their open hostilhyto Union peo- ple and freedmen. Second, that the governor proposed to arm the people upon the ground that the inhabitants refused to assist the military authorities in the suppression of crime, and that the call was addressed, not to the loyal citizens of the United States, but expressly to the " young men who had so distinguished themselves for gallantly" in the rebel service. And third, because the State was still under martial law, and the existence of organized and armed bodies not under the control of the military commander was inconsistent with that state of things. But there are other more general points of view from which this question must be looked at in order to be appreciated in its most important bearings. I may state, without fear of contradiction, that, in eveiy case, where permission . was asked for reorganizing the militia, the privilege or duty of serving in that armed organization was intended to be confined to the whites. In the con- versations I had with southern men about this matter, the idea of admitting colored people to the privilege of bearing arms as a part of the militia was uniformly treated by them as a thing not to be thought of. The militia, when- ever organized, will thus be composed of men belonging to one class, to the total exclusion of another. This concentration of organized physical power in the hands of one class will necessarily tend, and is undoubtedly designed, to give that class absolute physical control of the other. The specific purpose for which the militia is to be reorganized appears clearly from the uses it was put to whenever a local organization was effected. It is the restoration of the old patrol S3*stem which was one of the characteristic features of the regime of slaver}- . The services which such patrols are expected to perform con- sist in maintaining what southern people understand to be the order of society. Indications are given in several of the accompanying documents. Among others, the St. Laudry and Bossier ordinances define with some precision what the authority and duties of the " chief patrols" are to be. . The militia, organized for the distinct purpose of enforcing the authority of the whites over the blacks, is in itself practically sufficient to establish 19 and enforce a system of compulsory labor without there being any explicit laws for it ; and, being sustained and encouraged by public opinion, the chief and members of " count}" patrols'' are not likely to be over-nice in the construction of their orders. This not a mere supposition, but an opinion based upon experience already gathered. As I stated above, the reorgani- zation of the county patrol system upon the basis here described will result in the establishment of a sort of permanent martial law over the negro. It is, therefore, not even necessary that the reaction against that result of the war. which consists in emancipation, should manifest itself by very obnoxious legislative enactments, just as in some of the slave States slavery did not exist by virtue of the State constitution. It may be practically accomplished, and is, in fact, practically accomplished whenever the freed man is not protected by the federal authorities, without displaying its character and aims upon the statute book. Negro Insurrections and Anarchy. That in times like ours, and in a country like this, a reaction in favor of compulsory labor cannot be ultimately successful, is as certain as it was that slavery could not last forever. But a movement in that direction can prevent much good that might be accomplished, and produce ni'uch evil that might be avoided. Not only will such a movement seriously interfere with all efforts to organize an efficient system of free labor, and thus very ma- terially retard the return of prosperity in the south, but it ma}' bring on a crisis as dangerous and destructive as the war of the rebellion itself. I stated above that I did not deem a negro insurrection probable as long as the freedmen were assured of the direct protection of the national gov- ernment. Whenever they are in trouble, they raise their eyes up to that power, and although they may suffer, yet, as long as that power is visibly present, they continue to hope. But when State authority in the south is fully restored, the federal forces withdrawn, and the Freedruems Bureau abolished, the colored man will find himself turned over to the mercies of those whom he does not trust. If then an attempt is made to strip him again of those rights which he justly thought he possessed, he will be apt to feel that he can hope for no redress unless he procure it himself. If ever the negro is capable of rising, he will rise then. Men who never struck a blow for the purpose of gaining their liberty, when they were slaves, are apt to strike when, their liberty once gained, they see it again in danger. How- ever great the patience and submissiveness of the colored race may be, it cannot be presumed that its active participation in a war against the very men with whom it again stands face to face, has remained entirely without influence upon its spirit. What a general insurrection of the negroes would result in, whether it would be easy or difficult to suppress it, whether the struggle would be long or short, what race would suffer most, are questions which will not be asked by those who understand the problem to be, not how to suppress a negro insurrection, but how to prevent it. Certain it is, it would inflict terrible calamities upon both whites and blacks, and present to the world the spectacle of atrocities which ought to be foreign to civilized nations. The negro, in his ordinary state, is docile and good-natured ; but when once engaged in a bloody business, it is difficult to say how far his hot impulses would carry him ; and as to the southern whites, the barbarous scenes the country has witnessed since the close of the rebellion, indicate the temper with which they w T ould fight the negro as an insurgent. It would be a war of extermination, revolting in its incidents, and with ruin and desolation in its train. There may be different 20 moans by which it can be prevented, but there is only one certain effect : it is, that the provocations be avoided which may call it forth. But even if it be prevented by other means, it is not the only danger which a reactionary movement will bring upon the South. Nothing renders society more restless than a social revolution but half accomplished. It naturally tends to develop its logical consequences, but is hindered by adverse agencies which work in another direction ; nor can it return to the point from which it started. There are, then, continual vibrations and fluctuations between two opposites which keep society in the nervous uneasiness and excitement grow- ing from the lingering strife between the antagonistic tendencies. All classes of society are intensely dissatisfied with things as they are. General explo- sions may be prevented, but they are always imminent. This state of uncer- tainty impedes all successful w r orking of the social forces ; people, instead of devoting themselves with confidence and steadiness to solid pursuits, are apt to live from hand to mouth, or to indulge in fitful experiments ; capital ven- tures out but with great timidity ; the lawless elements of the community take advantage of the general confusion and dissatisfaction, and society drifts into anarchy. There is probably at the present moment no country in the civilized world w T hich contains such an accumulation of anarchical elements as the South. The strife of the antagonistic tendencies here described is aggravated by the passions inflamed and the general impoverishment brought about by a long and exhaustive war, and the South will have to suffer the evils of anarchical disorder until means are found to effect a final settlement of the labor question in accordance with the logic of the great revolution. Difficulties and Remedies. The true nature of the difficulties of the situation is this : The general gov- ernment of the republic has, by proelaiming the emancipation of the slaves, commenced a great social revolution in the South, but has, as yet, not com- pleted it. Only the negative part of it is accomplished. The slaves are eman- cipated in point of form, but free labor has not yet been put in the place of slavery in point of fact. And now, in the midst of this critical period of transition, the power which originated the revolution is expected to turn over its whole future development to another power which from the begin- ning was hostile to it and has never yet entered into its spirit, leaving the class in whose favor it was made completely without power to protect itself and to take an influential part in that development. The history of the world will be searched in vain for a proceeding similar to this which did not lead either to a rapid and violent reaction, or to the most serious trouble and civil disorder. It cannot be said that the conduct of the southern people since the close of the war has exhibited such extraordinary wisdom and self-abnegation as to make them an exception to the rule. It is certain that every success of free negro labor will augment the num- ber of its friends, and disarm some of the prejudices and assumptions of its opponents. I am convinced one good harvest made by unadulterated free labor in the south would have a far better effect than all the oaths that have been taken, and all the ordinances that have as^ T et been passed by southern conventions. But how can such a result be attained ? The facts enumerated in this report, as well as the news we receive from the south from day to day, must make it evident to every unbiased observer that un- adulterated free labor cannot be had at present, unless the national govern- ment holds its protective and controlling hand over it. It appears, also, that the more efficient this protection of free labor against all disturbing and reactionary influences, the sooner may such a satisfactory result be looked for. One reason why the southern people are so slow in accommo- 21 dating themselves to the new order of things is, that they confidently ex- pect soon to be permitted to regulate matters according to their own no- tions. Every concession made to them by the government has been taken as an encouragement to persevere in this hope, and, unfortunately for them, this hope is nourished by influences from other parts of the country. Hence their anxiety to have their State governments restored at once, to have the troops withdrawn, and the Freedmen's Bureau abolished, although a good many discerning men know well that, in view of the lawless spirit still pre- vailing, it would be far better for them to have the general order of society firmly maintained by the federal power until things have arrived at a final settlement. Had, from the beginning, the conviction been forced upon them that the adulteration of the new order of things by the admixture of elements belonging to the system of slavery would under no circumstances be permitted, a much larger number would have launched their energies into the new channel, and, seeing that they could do " no better," faithfully co-operated with the government. It is hope which fixes them in their per- verse notions. That hope nourished or full} r gratified, they will persevere in the same direction. That hope destroyed, a great many will, by the force of necessity, at once accommodate themselves to the logic of the change. If, therefore, the national government firmly and unequivocally announces its policy not to give up the control of the free-labor reform until it is finally accomplished, the progress of that reform will undoubtedly be far more rapid and far less difficult than it will be if the attitude of the government is such as to permit contrary hopes to be indulged in. The machinery by which the government has so far exercised its protec- tion of the negro and of free labor inthe.south — the Freedmen's Bureau — is very unpopular in that part of the country, as every institution placed there as a barrier to reactionary aspirations would be. That abuses were committed with the management of freedmen's affairs ; that some ef the offi- cers of the bureau were men of more enthusiasm than discretion, and in many cases went beyond their authority : all this is certainly true. But, while the southern people are always ready to expatiate upon the short- comings of the Freedmen's Bureau, they are not so ready to recognize the services it has rendered. I feel warranted in saying that not half of the labor that has been done in the south this year, or will be done there next year, would have been or would be done but for the exertions of the Freed- men's Bureau. A Chinese Trait — Immigration the Corrective. A temporary continuation of national control in the southern States would also have a most beneficial effect as regards the immigration of north- ern people and Europeans into that country : and such immigration would, in its turn, contribute much to the solution of the labor problem. Nothing is more desirable for the south than the importation of new men and new r ideas. One of the greatest drawbacks under which the southern people are laboring is, that for fifty years they have been in no sympathetic communion with the progressive ideas of the times. While professing to be in favor of free trade, they adopted and enforced a system of prohibition, as far as those ideas were concerned, which was in conflict with their cherished in- stitution of slavery ; and, as almost all the progressive ideas of our days were in conflict with slavery, the prohibition was sweeping. It had one peculiar effect, which we also notice with some Asiatic nations which follow a similar course. The southern people honestly maintained and believed, not only that as a people they were highly civilized, but that their civiliza- tion was the highest that could be attained, and ought to serve as a model 22 to other nations the world over. The more enlightened individuals among them felt sometimes a vague impression of the barrenness of Jheir mental life, and the barbarous peculiarities of their social organization ; but very few ever dared to investigate and to expose the true cause of these evils. Thus the people were so wrapt up in self-admiration as to be inaccessible to the voice even of the best-intentioned criticism. Hence the delusion they indulged in as to the absolute superiority of their race — a delusion which, in spite of the severe test it has lately undergone, is not yet given up ; and will, as every traveller in the south can testify from. experience, sometimes express itself in singular manifestations. This spirit, which for so long a time has kept the southern people back while the world besides was moving, is even at this moment still standing as a serious obstacle in the way of progress. Nothing can, therefore, be more desirable than that the contact between the southern people and the outside world should be as strong and intimate as possible ; and in no better way can this end be subserved than by im- migration in mass. But among the principal requisites for the success of the immigrant are personal security and a settled condition of things. Personal security is honestly promised by the thinking men of the south ; but another question is, whether the promise and good intentions of the thinking men will be sufficient to restrain and control the populace, whose animosity against " Yankee interlopers" is only second to their hostile feeling against the negro. The south needs capital. But capital is notoriously timid and averse to risk itself, not only where there actually is trouble, but where there is serious and continual danger of trouble. How long the national government should continue that control depends upon contingencies. It ought to cease as soon as its objects are attained ; and its objects will be attained sooner and with less difficulty if nobody is permitted to indulge in the delusion that it will cease before they are attained. This is one of the cases in which a determined policy can accomplish much, while a half-way policy is liable to spoil things already accomplished. Xegro Suffrage. It would seem that the interference of the national authority in the home concerns of the southern States would be rendered less necessary, and the whole problem of political and social reconstruction be much simplified, if, while the masses lately arrayed against the government are permitted to vote, the large majority of those who were always loyal, and are naturally anxious to see the free labor problem successfully solved, were not excluded from all influence upon legislation. In all questions concerning the Union, the national debt, and the future social organization of the south, the feel- ings of the colored man are naturally in sympathy with the views and aims of the national government. While the southern- white fought against the Union, the negro did all he could to aid it ; while the southern white sees in the national government his conqueror, the negro sees in it his protec- tor ; while the white owes to the national debt his defeat, the negro owes to it his deliverance ; while the white considers himself robbed and ruined by the emancipation of the slaves, the negro finds in it the assurance of future prosperity and happiness. In all the important issues the negro would be led by natural impulses to forward the ends of the government, and by making his influence, as part of the voting body, tell upon the 23 legislation of the States, render the interference of the national authority less necessary. As the most difficult of the pending questions are intimately connected with the status of the negro in southern society, it is obvious that a cor- rect solution can be more easily obtained if he has a voice in the matter. In the right to vote he would find the best permanent protection against oppressive class-legislation, as well as against individual persecution. The relations between the white and black races, even if improved by the gradual wearing off of the present animosities, are likely to remain long under the troubling influence of prejudice. It is a notorious fact that the I rights of a man of some political power are far less exposed to violation than those of one who is, in matters of public interest, completely subject to the will of others. A voter is a man of influence ; small as that influence may be in the single individual; it becomes larger when that individual belongs to a numerous class of voters who are ready to make common cause with him for the protection of his rights. Such an individual is an object of interest to the political parties that desire to have the benefit of his ballot. It is true, the bringing face to face at the ballot-box of the white and black races may here and there lead to an outbreak of feeling, and the first trials ought certainly to be made while the national power is still there to prevent or repress disturbances ; but the practice once success- fully inaugurated under the protection of that power, it would probably be more apt than anything else to obliterate old antagonisms, especially if the colored people — which is probable, as soon as their own rights are suffi- ciently secured — divide their votes between the different political parties. But it is idle to say that it will be time to speak of negro suffrage when the whole colored race will be educated, for the ballot may be necessary to him to secure his education. Aside from a very few enlightened men, I found but one class of people in favor of the enfranchisement of the blacks ; it was the class of the Unionists who found themselves politically ostracised and looked upon the enfranchisement of the lo}^al negroes as the salvation of the whole loyal element. But their numbers and influence are sadly insufficient to secure such a result. The masses are strongly opposed to colored suffrage ; any body that dares to advocate it is stigmatized as a dangerous fanatic ; nor do I deem it probable that in the ordinary course of things prejudices will wear off to such an extent as to make it a popular measure. The only manner in which, in my opinion, the southern people can be induced to grant to the freedmen some measure of self-protecting power in the form of suffrage, is to make it a condition precedent to "readniission." Deportation op the Freedmen. I have to notice one pretended remedy for the disorders now agitating the south, which seems to have become the favorite plan of some promi- nent public men. It is that the whcle colored population of the south should be transported to some place where the} 7 could live completely separated from the whites. It is hardly necessary to discuss, not only the question of right and justice, but the difficulties and expense necessarily attending the deportation of nearly four millions of people. But it may be asked, what would become of the industry of the south for many years, if the bulk of its laboring population were taken away ? The south stands in need of an increase and .not of a diminution of its laboring force to repair the losses and disasters of the last four years. Much is said of importing European laborers and northern men ; this is the favorite idea of many planters who want such immigrants to work on their plantations. But 24 they forget that European and northern men will not come to the south to serve as hired hands on the plantations, but to acquire property for them- selves, and that even if the whole European immigration at the rate of 200,000 a year were turned into the south, leaving not a single man for the north and west, it would require between fifteen and twenty years to fill the vacuum caused by the deportation of the freedmen. It is, however, a question worthy of consideration whether it would not be wise to offer attractive inducements and facilities for the voluntary mi- gration of freedmen to some suitable district on the line of the Pacific railroad. It would answer a double object: 1. It would aid in the con- struction of that road ; and 2. If this migration be effected on a large scale it would cause a drain upon the laboring force of the South ; it would make the people affected by that drain feel the value of the freedmen's labor, and show them the necessity of keeping that labor at home by treating the la- borer well, and by offering him inducements as fair as can be offered elsewhere. Conclusion. I may sum up all I have said in a few words. If nothing were necessary but to restore the machinery of government in the States lately in rebellion in point of form, the movements made to that end by the people of the South might be considered satisfactory. But if it is required that the southern people should also accommodate themselves to the results of the war in point of spirit, those movements fall far short of what must be insisted upon. The loyalty of the masses and most of the leaders of the southern people, consists in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual instances, an entire absence of that national spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty and patriotism. The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, and all independent State legislation will share the ten- dency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery passed by the conventions under the pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude. Practical attempts on the part of the southern people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the control of the national government in the States lately in rebellion until free labor is fully devel- oped and firmly established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm declaration on the part of the government, that national control in the South will not cease until such results are secured. 25 Extract frcm Documents accompanying the Report of Major General Carl Schnrz. STATEMENT OP GEtfEKAL THOMAS KILBY SMITH. September 14, 1865. I have been in command of the southern district of Alabama since the commencement of General Canby's expedition against Mobile. On the 4th "of July I permitted in Mobile a procession of the freedmen, the only class of people in Mobile who craved of me the privilege of celebrating the anniversary of the Declara- tion of Independence. S : x thousand well-dressed and orderly colored people, escorted by two regiments of colored troops, paraded the streets, assembled in the public squares, and were addressed in patriotic speeches by orators of their own race and color. These orators coun- selled them to labor and to wait. This procession and these orations were the signal for a storm of abuse upon the military and the freedmen and their friends, fulminated from the street corners by the then mayor of the city and his common council and in the daily news- papers, and was the signal for the hirelings of the former slave power to hound down, perse- cute, and destroy the industrious and inoffensive negro. These men were found for the most part by the police of the city, acting under the direction of the mayor, R. H. Hough, since removed. The enormities committed by these policemen were fearful. Within my own knowl- edge colored girls seized upon the streets had to take their choice between submitting to out- rage on the part of the policemen or incarceration in the guard-house. These men^ having mostly been negro drivers and professional negro whippers, were fitting tools for the work in hand." Threats of and attempts at assassination were made against myself. Threats were made to destroy all school-houses in which colored children were taught, and in two instances they were fired. The same threats were made against all churches in which colored people assembled to worship, and one of them burned. Continued threats of assas&ti>ation were made against the colored preachers, and one of them is now under special guard by order of Major-General Wood. When Mayor Hough was appealed to by this man for protection, he was heard to say that no one connected with the procession of the 4th of July need to come into his court, and that their complaints would not be considered. Although Mayor Hough has been removed, a large majority of these policemen are still in office. One of the most intelligent and high-bred ladies of Mobile, having had silver plate stolen from her more than two years ago, and having, upon affidavit, secured the incarceration of two of her former slaves whom she suspected of the theft, came to me in my official capacity, and asked my order to have them whipped and tortured into a confession of tbe crime charged and the participants in it. This lady was surprised when I informed her that the days of the rack and the thumbscrew were passed, and, though pious, well-bred, and a member of the church, thought it a hardship that a negro might not be whipped or tortured till he would confess what he might know about a robbery, although not even a prima facie case existed against him, or that sort of evidence that would induce a grand jury to indict. I offer this as an instance of the feeling that exists in all classes against the negro, and their inability to realize that he is a free man and entitled to the rights of citizenship. Speeches of Hon. Sylvanus Evans and Richard Cooper, candidates for Congress and Attorney- General, Vicksburg, September 19, 1865. Pursuant to a call published in our yesterday's issue, a large number of citizens assembled at Apollo Hall last evening to listen to addresses from prominent candidates for office at the ensuing election. Shortly after 8 o'clock Hon. A. Burwell introduced Hon. Richard Cooper to the meeting, who addressed them as follows : SPEECH OF MR. COOPER. Fellow-Citizens : I present myself before you to-night as a candidate for ihe office of attorney-general. I have not before spoken in public since announcing myself, relying wholly upon my friends and past record. I have resided in this State twenty-nine years, and have for twelve years been a prosecuting attorney. Soon after announcing myself I found I had an opponent, and I concluded to accompany my friend, Judge Evans, to Vicksburg, merely to make myself known, not intending to make a speech. 1 was born in Georgia. The first vote I ever cast was with the old-line Whig party. [Ap- plause.] In 1850 I opposed an attempt to break up the United States government, and in 1860 1 did the same thing. I travelled in Alabama and Mississippi to oppose the measure. [Applause.] But after the State did secede I did all in my power to sustain it. [Heavy applause.] I never entered the army, having held a civil office, and was advised by my friends that I could do more good in" that way than by entering the service. I believed in secession while it lasted, but am now as good a Union man as exists, and am in favor of breaking down old barriers, and making harmony and peace prevail. I was a delegate to the State convention lately in session at Jackson, and hope the legisla- ture wi>l carry out the suggestions of the convention. I believe the negro is entitled to the claims of a freeman, now that he is made free, and I hope he will have them secured to him. I am thankful that Mississippi has the right of jurisdiction; and I hope she will always have it. The office I am a candidate for is not a political, but strictly a judicial office. If elected I shall use my utmost endeavors to promote the interests of the State and country. Hon. Sylvanus Evans was then introduced to the audience by Mr. Cooper, who spoke sub- stantially as follows : 2G SPEECH OF JUDGE EVANS. VgLLOW-ClTTmrfl of Wabbik County: I am grateful to meet yon here this evening, although a stranger to most of you. Here you must judge of my standing, and I hope you will pardon me while I attempt to explain my position to you. I came to Mississippi in 1837, and moved to Lauderdale county in 1330 ; by profession in early life, a blacksmith, latterly a lawyer, practicing in eastern Mississippi ; to some extent a politician, always bc- 1 cving in the policy of the old-line Whigs, and always acting with them. In 1851 I "was a delegate from Lauderdale county to the State convention, then, as in 1860. being opposed to the act of secession, and fought against it with all my powers. But after the State had seceded I went with it as a matter of duty, and I sustained it until the day of tbe surrender with all my body and heart and mind. [Great applause.] I believed that tbe majority of tbe people did not know what was to come, but, blending their interests with mine, I could not, with honor, keep from it. We are now emerging; now daylight is dawning upon ns. But whether peace and pros- perity shall return in its fullness is now a question with the people. I am a candidate before you for the United States Congress. Let me say to you, as wise men, that unless the people and the legislature do their duty, it is useless to send me or any one else to Washington, as we cannot tbere obtain seats in Congress. We are not willing that the negro shall testify in our courts. We all revolt at it, and it is natural tbat we should do so ; but we must allow it as one of the requisites of our admission to our original standing in the Union. To-day the negro is as competent a witness in our State as the white man, made so by the action of the convention. The credibility of the witness is to be determined by the jurors and justices. If you refuse his testimony, as is being done, the result will be the military courts and.Freedmen's Bureau will take it up, and jurisdiction is lost, and those who best know the negro will be denied the privilege of passing judgment upon it, and those who know him least are often more in favor of his testimony than yours. The President and the conservative element of the North are determined that the negro shall be placed where nature places him, in spite of the fanatics. Another important point — a great debt has been contracted by the federal government. The South cannot pay a proportion of that debt. I am opposed to repudiation, but am in favor of relieving the South of the internal revenue tax. My opponent, Mr West, contends that Mississippi must pay her taxes up to 1865. I do not think so ; and this is the only issue between us. I deny that the government has a right to levy such a tax, and contend that the government cannot impose a tax upon a State unless that State participates in the accumulation of that debt. At tbe time t.bis debt was contracted -. we were recognized as belligerents, and not liable to a share of the debt then contracted for. That back tax can only be collected by a special act of Congress, and, if elected, I shall op # pose any such act. Determine for yourselves whether or not the President does not offer terms that should suit any of us ; is he not trying to stay the tide of fanaticism at the North that would overwhelm us 1 Has he not shown it in our own State, in the appointment of our military governor? No man in the State could have been appointed to give more general satisfaction than W. L. Sharkey, an able, straightforward, just man. The President, in his speech to the Southern delegation, assures them that he is determined to stay the tremendous tide of the fanatics of the North, and that suffrage to the negro shall not be forced upon the people of the South. If elected, I will heartily co-operate with the President in his policy of reconstruction, for I am bi teriy opposed to conferring the right of suffrage upon the negro. List of colored people killed or maimed by ivhite men and treated at Post Hospital, Montgomery. 1. Nancy, colored woman, ears cut off. She had followed Wilson's column towards Macon two or three days, and when returning camped near the road, and while asleep a white man by the name of Ferguson, or Foster, an overseer, came upon her and cut her ears off. This happened in April, about thirty miles east of Montgomery. 2. Mary Steel, one side -of her head scalped ; died. She was with Nancy. 3. Jacob Steel, both ears cut off; was with the same party. 4. Amanda Steel, ears cut off; was with the same party. 5. Washington Booth, shot in the back, near Montgomery, while returning from his work, May 1. He was shot by William Harris, of Pine Level, thirty miles from here, without any provocation. 6. Sutton Jones, beard and chin cut off. He belonged to Nancy's party, and was maimed by the same man. 7. About six colored people were treated at this hospital, who were shot by persons in ambuscade during the months of June and July. Their names cannot be found in a hasty review of the record. 8. Robert, servant of Colonel Hough, was stabbed while at his house by a man wearing in part tbe garb of a confederate soldier ; died on the 26th of June, in this hospital, about seven days after having been stabbed. 9. Ida. a young colored girl, was struck on the head with a club by an overseer, about thirtv miles from here ; died of her wouud at this hospital, June 20. 10. " James Taylor, stabbed about half a mile from town ; had seven stabs that entered his 27 Inngs. two in his arms, two pistol-shots grazed hiin, and one arm cut one-third off, on the ISt.h of June. Offender escaped 11. James Monroe, cut across the throat while engaged in saddling a horse. The offen der, a white man by the name of Metcalf, was arrested. No provocation. Case happened on August 19, in this city. These cases came to my notice as surgeon in charge of the post hospital at Montgomery. I treated them myself, and certify that the above statements are correct. Montgomery Hall, August 21, 1865. J. M. PHIPPS, Acting Staff Surgeon, in charge of Post Hospital. Office Provost Marshal, Post of Selma, Alabama, August 22, 18G5. I have the honor to report the following facts in regard to the treatment of colored persons by whites within the limits of my observation : There have come i*nder my notice, officially, twelve cases in which I am morally certain (the trials have not beeu had yet) that negroes were killed by whites, In a majority of cases the provocation consisted in the negroes trying to come to town, or to return to the plantation after having been sent away. These cases are in part as follows : Wilson H. Gordon, convicted by military commission of having shot and drowned a negro, May 14, 1865. Samuel Smiley, charged, with having shot one negro and wounded another, acquitted on proof of an alibi. It is certain, however, that one negro was shot and another wounded, as stated. Trial occurred in June. Three negroes were killed in the southern part of Dallas county ; it is supposed by the Vaughn family. I tried twice to arrest them, but they escaped into the woods. Mr. Alexander, Perry county, shot a negro for being around his quarters at a late hour. He went into his house with a gun and claimed to have shot the negro accidentally. The fact is, the negro is dead. Mr. Dermott, Perry county, started with a negro to Selma, having a rope around the negro's neck. He was seen dragging him in that way; but returned home before he could have reached Selma. He did not report at Selma, and the negro has never since been heard of. The neighbors declare their belief that the negro was killed by him. This was about the 10th of July. Mr. Higginbothom, and Threadgill, charged with killing a negro in Wilcox county, whose body was found in the woods, came to my notice the first week of August. A negro was killed on Mr. Brown's place, about nine miles from Selma, on the 20th of August. Nothing further is known of it. Mr. Brown himself reported. A negro was killed in the calaboose of the city of Selma, by being beaten with a heavy club ; also, by being tied up by the thumbs, clear of the floor, for three hours, and by further gross abuse, lasting more than a week, until he died. I can further state, that within the limits of my official observation crime is rampant ; that life is insecure as well as property ; and that the country is filled with desperadoes and ban- ditti who rob and plunder on every side, and that the county is emphatically in a condition of anarchy. The cases of crime above enumerated, I am convinced, are but a small part of those that have actually been perpetrated. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. P. HOUSTON Major 5th Minnesota, and Provost Marshal IT. S. Forces at Selma, Alabama. Major General Carl Schdrz. Freedmen's Bureau, July 29, 1865. Sir : I have the honor to report some testimony I have received of the murders and bar- barities committed on the freedmen in Clark, Choctaw, Washington and Marengo counties, also the Alabama and Bigbee rivers. About the last of April, two freedmen were hung in Clark county. On the night of the eleventh of May, a freedman named Alfred was taken from his bed by his master and others and was hung, and his body still hangs to the limb. About the middle of June, two colored soldiers (at a house in Washington county) showed their papers and were permitted to remain all night. In the morning the planter called them out and shot one dead, wounded the other, and then with the assistance of his brother (and their negro dogs) they pursued the one who had escaped. He ran about three miles and found a refugeln a white man's house, who informed the pursuers that he had passed. The soldier was finally got across the river, but has not been heard of since. At Bladen Springs, (or rather six miles from there,) a freedman was chained to a pine tree and burned to death. About two weeks after, and fifteen miles from Bladen, another freedman was burned to death. In the latter part of May, fifteen miles south of Bladen, a freedman was shot outside of the planter's premises and the body dragged into the stable, to make it appear he had shot him in the act of stealing. About the first of June, six miles west of Bladen, a freedman was hung. His body is still hanging. 28 About the last of May, three freed men were coming down the Bigbee river in a shift when two ol them were sbot ; the other escaped to the other shore. At Magnolia Bluff (Bigbee river) a frcedman (Darned George) was ordered out of his cabin to be whipped 5 he started to run, when the men (three of them) set their docs (five of them) on him, and one of the men rode up to George and struck him to the earth with a loaded whip. Two of them dragged him back by the heels while the dogs were lacerating his face and body. They then placed a stick across his neck, and while one stood on it the others beat him until life was nearly extinct. About the first of May, near Landing, in Choctaw county, a freedman was hung ; and about the same time, near the same neighborhood, a planter shot a freedman, (who was talking to one of his servants, ) and dragged the body into his garden to conceal it. A preacher (near Bladen Springs) states in the pulpit that the roads in Choctaw county Stunk with the d ad bodies of servants that had fled from their masters. 1 ho peop'e about Bladen declare that no negro shall live in the countv, unless he remains with his master and is as obedient as heretofore. In Clark county, about the first of June, a freedman was shot through the heart : his bodv lies uuburied. About the last of May, a planter hung his servant (a woman) in presence of all the neigh- borhood. Said planter had killed this woman's husband three weeks before. This occurred at Suggsville, Clark county. About the last of April, two women were caught near a certain plantation in Clark county and hung ; their bodies are still suspended. On the 19th of July, two freedmen were taken off the steamer Commodore Ferrand, tied, and hung ; then taken down, their heads cut off and their bodies thrown in the river. July 11, two men took a woman off the same boat and threw her in the river. This wo- man had a coop, with some chickens. They threw all in together, and told her to go to the damned Yankees. The woman'was drowned. There are regular patrols posted on the rivers, who board some of the boats ; after the boats leave they 4 'hang, 6hoot or drown the victims they may find on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the river are most invariably murdered. This is only a few of the murders that are committed on the helpless and unprotected freed- men of the above-named counties. W. A. POILLON, Captain and Ass't. SupH Freedmen. Brig. Gen. Swatne. A true copy of the original deposited in this office. CHARLES A. MILLER, Major and A. A. A. General. Statement of Colonel Samuel Thomas, Assistant Commissioner B. R. F. and A. L.for Mississippi and N. E. Louisiana. Vicksburg, August Zd, 1865. The admission of negro testimony will never secure the freedmen justice before the courts of this State as long as that testimony is considered valueless by the judges and juries who hear it. It is of no consequence what the law may be if the majority be not inclined to have it executed. A negro might bring a suit before a magistrate and have colored witnesses examined in his behalf, according to provisions of general orders and United States law, and yet the prejudices of the community render it impossible for him to procure justice. The judge would claim the right to decide whether the testimony was credible, and among the neighbors that would surround him, in many places, he would be bold indeed, if he be- lieved the sworn evidence of a negro when confronted by the simple assertion or opposed even to the interest of a white man. I recently heard a circle of Mississippians conversing on this subject. Their conclusion was, that they would make no objection to the admission of negro testimony, because " no southern man would believe a nigger if he had the damned impudence to testify contrary to the statement of a white man." I verily believe that in many places a colored man would refuse, from fear of death, to make a complaint against a white man before a State tribunal if there were no efficient military protection at hand. | Wherever I go — the street, the shop, the house, the hotel, or the steamboat — I hear the peoplu talk in such a way as to indicate that they are yet unable to conceive of the negro as possessing any rights at all. Men who are honorable in their dealings with their white neighbors will cheat a negro without feeling a single twinge of their houor. To kill a negro | they'do not deem murder; to debauch a negro woman they do not think fornication ; to take the property away from a negro they do not consider robbery. The people boast that w r hen they get freedmen affairs in their own hands, to use their own expression, " the niggers wilh catch hell." I The reason of all this is simple and manifest. The whites esteem the blacks their property, by natural right, and however much they may admit that the individual relations of masters( and slaves have been destroyed by the war and by the President's emancipation proclamation,! they still have an ingrainedfeeling that the blacks at large belong to the whites at large, and! whenever opportunity serves they treat the colored people just as their profit, caprice or pas-( sion may dictate. 29 Ordinance relative to the police of recently emancipated negroes or freedmen within the corporate limits of the town of Opelousas. "Whereas, the relations formerly existing between master and slave have become changed by the action of the controlling authorities ; and whereas it is necessary to provide for the proper police and government of the recently emancipated negroes or freedmen in their new relations to the municipal authorities : Section 1. Be it therefore ordained by the board of police of the town of Opelousas, That no negro or freedman shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas with- out special permission from his employers, specifying the object of his visit and the time necessary for the accomplishment of the same. Whoever shall violate this provision shall suffer imprisonment and two days' work on the public streets, or shall pay a fine of two dollars and fifty cents. Sect. 2. Be it further ordained, That every negro freedman who shall be found on the streets of Opelousas after ten o'clock at night without a written pass or permit from his em- ployer shall be imprisoned and compelled to work five days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars. Sect. 3. No negro or freedmen shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within the limits of the town under any circumstances, and any one thus offending shall be ejected and com- pelled to find an employer or leave the town within twenty-four hours. The lessor or furnisher of the house leased or kept as above shall pay a fine of ten dollars for each offence. Sect. 4. No ne