[CHAPTER XIII.]
Reconstruction in the South—Great Progress in Education—The Fifteenth Amendment—Message of President Grant—Certificate of Mr. Secretary Fish Regarding the Same—Great Joy Over Amendment—It Goes to Work.
General Grant had been elected President of the United States in 1868 for his first term of office. In 1872 he carried the Southern States once more. He met with but little opposition in the South. Colored lieutenant-governors were elected in Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, in which three States the colored population is far greater than the white. The States of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina had colored men in their Houses of Representatives, and Mississippi had them also in her Senate House. Many of the most important offices in the Southern States were held by men of color. But by the year 1875 the white leaders in the Republican party had become intimidated by the Ku-Klux-Klan, and were quite driven out or destroyed by that deadly shot-gun. Thus the colored men in the legislatures were abandoned to their fate, and the presence of the United States Army became necessary to support them at elections, whilst they held office, and carried on the State governments. The whole South was in a bad way, and things had gone on from bad to worse. The sullen and stubborn leaders of the late rebellion had refused to lend a hand in building up the State governments once more, which they had torn down, and the Northern government of the whole nation had committed the reconstruction of the late rebel States to hands as yet far too feeble at such a time, and that was, namely, to colored men, many of whom had little experience before with carpet-baggers and scalawags. At the same time there did not seem to be any others who could be trusted by the national government to carry on the business of the Southern States. Even colored men, carpet-baggers and scalawags were either heartily or formally Republicans, and could be trusted by the Washington authorities in acting loyally and faithfully in the discharge of their duties at least. I am unable to see how the Washington government can be much blamed for committing the care of the Southern States to hands so feeble, so long as there did not seem to be anybody else to rule, and the late rebels themselves were still in too sullen a mood to lend a hand in the governments.
FIRST READING EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
But during all these unhappy years that followed the close of the war there was one thing that did not miscarry, and that was the great march of the emancipated slaves on the road to progress, and everything that tends to elevate and ennoble a nation. The fostering national government, the churches of the North, and all that which was best in this great republic, were straining themselves to the very utmost to lift up the entire redeemed race by affording them the best education that they could possibly bestow. Teachers still flocked down from the North in great numbers, all kinds of schools were opened, and institutes and colleges were set on float for the benefit of the boys and girls, and young men and young women, who wished to attend them. There was no branch of education that was not supplied to the white race that was not also supplied to the colored. And not only did children and youths attend those schools, but even men and women; parents and grandparents in thousands took up their spelling-books and first readers, and went to work with a hearty good will, and learned to read, write and spell with great rapidity. The progress that the emancipated race made in the line of education was perfectly marvelous, and astonished the whole nation. Even old preachers, who had been preaching the gospel for fifty years, went to work and learned how to read the Bible; they learned how to write letters and work arithmetic for the first time in their lives. It had been charged often enough that the colored race were unfitted by nature to learn this, that and other things. The studied policy of the slave-holders was, not to give them a chance, and then to tell a willful falsehood. But now that all were free, they rushed in at once, and showed the whole world that they were as capable of learning as any other race under the sun. Nay, more! They even crossed the oceans, and were recognized by all the nations on the face of the earth!
Nor did the people only learn how to read, write and work arithmetic, but all kinds of industrial schools were started throughout the South; first in one place, then in another, so that the young men learned different trades, and thus qualified themselves to learn a living in coming years. And they not only learned, but they learned well, were ambitious to excel, took naturally to it, and earned the good will and praise of their teachers. In short, after the war was over, the South was both cursed and blessed by a race of "volunteers," who came down from the North, and whose mission was to take advantage of the new state of things. The curse came in with those carpet-baggers, who came to take all they could get, and hold on as long as ever they could. It is true that they were not all bad, for indeed they ran all the way from good to middling. But they have generally been looked upon as a set of rapacious men, who came down to help themselves first, last and all the time; and when all was done, if anybody else could be benefitted by them, so much the better!
But with the teachers things were altogether different. They can in no sense be compared with the carpet-baggers, for they were a perfect blessing—all of them, or nearly all, being "volunteers" for the South, and for the benefit of freedmen, and for them alone. They were sent forth, as I have stated before, by the churches and societies of the North, and the national government encouraged them and their efforts in every possible way. And not only were public schools set on foot all over the land, but there were a great many who opened private schools, and thus the work went merrily on. And the walls of the new educational structure began to rise rapidly on all sides, "for the people had a mind to work," and, as the ancient Romans said, "Labor conquers all things."
