for the Freedmen, the
so-called
abolition
of
slavery would be but a name. Furthermore there
were grave political difficulties: According to the
celebrated compromise in the Constitution, three-fifths of the slaves were counted in the Southern
states as a basis of representation and this gave
the white South as compared with the North a
large political advantage. This advantage was
now to be increased because, as freemen, the
whole Negro population was to be counted and
still the voting was confined to whites. The North,
therefore, found themselves faced by the fact that
the very people whom they had overcome in a
costly and bloody war were now coming back with
increased political power, with determination to
keep just as much of slavery as they could and
with freedom to act toward the nation that they
had nearly destroyed, in whatever way the deep
hatreds of a hurt and conquered people tempted
them to act. All this was sinister and dangerous.
Assume as large minded and forgiving an attitude
as one could, either the abolition of slavery must
be made real or the war was fought in vain.
The Negroes themselves naturally began to insist that without political power it was impossible to accomplish their economic freedom. Frederick Douglass said to President Johnson: “Your noble and humane predecessor placed in our hands the
