the South, and that the grant of the ballot to the negroes would be, all things considered, the most democratic as well as the most practicable means to thwart such a reaction.
It has since, in view of the fact that negro suffrage did not give good government to the South and did not secure the negro himself in the safe enjoyment of his rights, been asserted and widely accepted that the endowment of the recently liberated slaves with the suffrage was the worst mistake that could have been committed under the circumstances. I am far from denying that negro suffrage, as first exercised, brought on great scandals in the State and municipal governments in the South, and that it did not succeed in securing the negro in his rights; but it must not be forgotten that negro suffrage was resorted to in a situation so complicated that whatever might have been done to solve the most pressing problems would have appeared a colossal mistake in the light of subsequent developments. Would it have been better to leave the “States lately in rebellion” immediately after the war entirely to themselves? No one well acquainted with the drift of things in the South at that period will have the slightest doubt that such a policy, in spite of the acceptance of the Thirteenth Amendment, would have resulted in the substantial reenslavement of the freedmen, with incalculable troubles to follow. Would it have been better to keep the South under military rule until the free labor problem in the late slave States should have been satisfactorily solved? It is very questionable whether an indefinite continuation of military rule would not have resulted in abuses, and more or less permanent evils, so great that the latter-day critic might, quite pertinently, ask: “Why did not the statesmen of those times obviate the necessity of continuing military rule by granting to the freedmen the necessary political power to protect themselves?”
