among the Northerners. And, finally, they played into the hands of the politicians who were on the lookout for any pretext to fasten their grip on the South. [Pg 42] The struggle just then became intensified between the President and his opponents in Washington, with the Presidency and the control of the Government as the stake, and with the South holding the balance of power; and, unhappily, the Negroes appeared to the politicians an element that could be utilized to advantage by being made the “permanent allies” of what Mr. Stevens, Mr. Wade, and Mr. Sumner used to term “the party of the Union.” So, the Negro appeared to the politicians a useful instrument, and to the doctrinaires “a man and brother” who was the equal of his former master, and, if he were “armed with the weapon” of the ballot, would be able to protect himself and would inevitably rise to the full stature of the white. [Pg 43] [Pg 43] A large part of the people of the North were undoubtedly inspired by a missionary spirit which had a high motive beneath it. But a missionary spirit undirected by knowledge of real conditions is a dangerous guide to follow. And the danger was never better illustrated than in this revolution. Doubtless, some of the politicians were inspired partly by the same idea; but the major portion had but one ruling passion—the securing of power and the down-treading of the Southern whites.[19] Then came the crowning error: the practical carrying out of the theories by infusing into the body politic a whole race just emerging from slavery. The most intelligent and conservative class of the whites were disfranchised; the entire adult Negro population were enfranchised. It is useless to discuss the motives with which this was done. No matter what the motives it was a national blunder; in its way as great a blunder as secession. It is not uncommonly supposed that Mr. Lincoln was the originator of this idea. The weight[Pg 44] of his name is frequently given to it by the uninformed. Mr. Lincoln, however, was too level-headed and clear-sighted a statesman ever to have committed so great a folly. The furthest he ever went was in his letter to Governor Hahn, of Louisiana, in which he “suggested” the experiment of intrusting the ballot to “some of the colored people, for instance ... the very intelligent,” and as a reward for those who had fought for the Union.[20]
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