In pursuance of these acts, the district of Louisiana and Texas was placed under the command of General Sheridan; Arkansas and Mississippi under General Ord; Alabama, Georgia, and Florida under General Pope; North Carolina and South Carolina under General Sickles; and Virginia under General Schofield. The merits of this plan are obvious.
1. It places the rebels again under the control of the power which conquered them, and of the very officers to whom they surrendered.
2. It is well calculated to afford protection to all loyal people, white or colored, against those who would oppress or injure them on account of their loyalty.
3. It places the new State governments of the South upon the solid basis of justice and equal rights.
This plan received in Congress the support of many members of Congress who did not uniformly vote with the Union party, and was acceptable to some of its most distinguished adversaries. In the Senate, Reverdy Johnson, a Maryland Democrat, voted for it, and made effective speeches in its support. The loyal press of the North, without exception, upheld it.
In the South, its success was everywhere gratifying and unexampled. Its enemies had said that it would organize anarchy in the rebel States—that it would immediately inaugurate a war of races between whites and blacks—and compared the condition of the South under it to the condition of India under English oppression, and to Hungary under the despotism of Austria.
But the course of the public press, and the conduct, the letters, and speeches of public men in the rebel States, vindicated the wisdom and justice of the measure. I will quote only from rebel sources.
In Virginia, the Charlottesville Chronicle addressed its readers as follows:
"For White Folks and Colored Folks.—Every colored person may now go where and when he pleases. He is a free man and a full citizen. This is not all; by another bound they have become voters. They will take part in the government of the country. No people was ever so suddenly, so rapidly lifted up.
"Shall we all live happily together, or shall we hate each other, and quarrel and bear malice?