of the Negro governments made was to put these
black men and their friends out of power. Outside the curtailing of expenses and stopping of
extravagance, not only did their successors make
few changes in the work which these legislatures
and conventions had done, but they largely carried out their plans, followed their suggestions
and strengthened their institutions. Practically
the whole new growth of the South has been accomplished under laws which black men helped to
frame thirty years ago. I know of no greater
compliment to Negro suffrage, and no greater
contribution to real American democracy.[1]
The counter revolution came but it was too late. The Negro had stepped so far into new economic freedom that he could never be put back into slavery; and he had widened democracy to include not only a goodly and increasing number of his own group but the mass of the poor white South. The economic results of Negro suffrage were so great during the years from 1865 to 1876 that they have never been overthrown. The Freedmen’s Bureau came virtually to an end in 1869. General Howard’s report of that year said: “In spite of all disorders that have pre-
- ↑ Cf. W. E. B. Du Bois, Reconstruction (American Historical Review, XV, No. 4, p. 871).
W. E. B. Du Bois, Economics of Negro Emancipation (Sociological Review, Oct., 1911, p. 303).
