might work practically. But he did not wait and see. He caused it to be generally understood that the “States lately in rebellion” would speedily be reconstructed, their people, meaning the white people, to elect their legislatures and executive as well as judicial officers, as before the war. When asked by the provisional governor of Mississippi, and other Southern men, for permission to organize the local militia, he readily gave his consent; whereupon the provisional governor of Mississippi forthwith called upon “the young men of the State who had so distinguished themselves for gallantry”—meaning of course Confederate soldiers—to respond promptly to this call. The result was that efforts were made to reorganize county patrols which “had already been in existence, and had to be disbanded on account of their hostility to Northern people and freedmen.”
The known attitude of President Johnson concerning the speedy reconstruction of the “States lately in rebellion” produced an effect that might easily have been foreseen. The white people of the South might have accommodated themselves in good faith to the introduction of free labor in the place of slavery, in spite of their prejudices and their traditional habits of life, had that introduction been presented to them as a stern and inexorable necessity. A good many of the difficulties standing in its way would have been overcome had the white people become convinced that there was absolutely nothing else to do. But when they heard that the President was willing, and even eager, without delay to put the entire management of their internal affairs into their hands again, they saw the way open for a sweeping reaction against the emancipation policy. The temptation was irresistible. The conviction that the negro would not work without physical compulsion grew stronger among them than ever. A little over two months after the close of the war, one of
