At Vicksburg I learned from General Slocum that Governor Sharkey himself had, upon more mature reflection, given up the organization of his State militia as too dangerous an experiment.
I left the South troubled by great anxiety. Four millions of negroes, of a race held in servitude for two centuries, had suddenly been made free men. That an overwhelming majority of them, grown up in the traditional darkness of slavery, should at first not have been able to grasp the duties of their new condition, together with its rights, was but natural. It was equally natural that the Southern whites, who had known the negro laborer only as a slave, and who had been trained only in the habits and ways of thinking of the master class, should have stubbornly clung to their traditional prejudice that the negro would not work without physical compulsion. They might have concluded that their prejudice was unreasonable; but, such is human nature, a prejudice is often the more tenaciously clung to the more unreasonable it is. There was, therefore, a strong tendency among the whites to continue the old practices of the slavery system to force the negro freedmen to labor for them. Thus the two races, whose well-being depended upon their peaceable and harmonious coöperation, confronted each other in a state of fearful irritation, aggravated by the pressing necessity of producing a crop that season, and embittered by race antagonism. The Southern whites wished and hoped to be speedily restored to the control of their States by the reëstablishment of their State governments. To this end they were willing to recognize "the results of the war," among them the abolition of slavery, in point of form. The true purpose was to use the power of the State governments, legislative and executive, to reduce the freedom of the negroes to a minimum and to revive as much of the old slave code as they thought necessary to make the blacks work for the whites.
Now President Johnson stepped in and, by directly encouraging the expectation that the States would without delay be restored to full self-control even under present circumstances, distinctly stimulated the most dangerous reactionary tendencies to more reckless and baneful activity.
An Ungracious Reception
This was my view of Southern conditions when I returned from my mission of inquiry. Arrived at Washington, I reported myself at once at the White House. The President's private secretary, who seemed surprised to see me, announced me to the President, who sent out word that he was busy. When would it please the President to receive me? The private secretary could not tell, as the President's time was much occupied by urgent business. I left the anteroom, but called again the next morning. The President was still busy. I asked the private secretary to submit to the President that I had returned from a three months' journey made at the President's personal request; that I thought it my duty respectfully to report myself back; and that I should be obliged to the President if he would let me know whether, and if so when, he would receive me to that end. The private secretary went in again, and brought out the answer that the President would see me in an hour or so. At the appointed time I was admitted. The President received me without a smile of welcome. His mien was sullen. I said that I had returned from the journey which I had made in obedience to his demand, and was ready to give him, in addition to the communications I had already sent him, such further information as was in my possession. A moment's silence followed. Then he inquired about my health. I thanked him for the inquiry and hoped the President's health was good. He said it was. Another pause, which I brought to an end by saying that I wished to supplement the letters I had written to him from the South with an elaborate report giving my experiences and conclusions in a connected shape. The President looked up and said that I need not go to the trouble of writing out such a general report on his account. I replied that it would be no trouble at all, but that I should consider it a duty. The President did not answer. The silence became awkward, and I bowed myself out.
President Johnson evidently wished to suppress my testimony as to the condition of things in the South. I resolved not to let him do so. I had conscientiously endeavored to see Southern conditions as they were. I had not permitted any political considerations or any preconceived opinions on my part to obscure my perception and discernment in the slightest degree. I had told the truth, as I learned it and understood it, with the severest accuracy, and I thought it due to the country that the truth should be known.
Why the President Reversed his Policy
Among my friends in Washington there were different opinions as to how the striking change in President Johnson's attitude had been brought about. Some told me that during the summer the White House had been fairly besieged by Southern men and women of high social standing, who had told the President that the only element of trouble in the South consisted of a lot of fanatical abolitionists who excited the negroes with all sorts of dangerous notions, and that all would be well if he would only restore the Southern State government as quickly as possible according to his own plan as laid down in the North Carolina proclamation, and that he was a great man to whom they looked up as their savior. It was now thought that Mr. Johnson, the plebeian who before the war had been treated with undisguised contempt by the slaveholding aristocracy, could not withstand the subtle flattery of the same aristocracy when they flocked around him as humble suppliants cajoling his vanity.
I went to work at my general report with the utmost care. My statements of fact were invariably accompanied by the sources of my information, my testimony being produced in the language of my informants. I scrupulously avoided exaggeration and cultivated sober and moderate forms of expression. It gives me some satisfaction now to say that none of those statements of fact has ever been effectually controverted. I cannot speak with the same assurance of my conclusions and recommendations, for they were matters, not of knowledge, but of judgment.
In the concluding paragraph of my report I respectfully suggested to the President that he advise Congress to send one or more investigating committees into the Southern States to inquire for themselves into the actual condition of things before taking final and irreversible action, I sent the completed document to the President on November 22, asking him at the same time to permit me to publish it, on my sole responsibility and in such a manner as would preclude the imputation that the President approved the whole or any part of it. To this request I never received a reply.