In my first visit to the Southern States, beginning in the spring of 1865, and ending in mid-summer, there were peculiar circumstances to be taken into account, in drawing conclusions as to any of the questions which the loyal portion of the nation was asking about the South. Our party was constantly surrounded by men desirous of impressing their own views. Southern politicians were endeavoring to convince the Chief-Justice of the returning loyalty of their people. Naturally, they suppressed unfavorable facts and expressions. Intelligent negroes were arguing the fitness of their people for suffrage. Naturally, they did what they could to hold the unfit ones away. Whoever approached the Chief-Justice or his party, was likely to have some special motive for doing so, either of courtesy or of interest. Naturally, whatever did not comport with that motive was glossed over, or kept out of sight.

The trip had thus shown us the leaders at their best. I now wanted to see the people, at home and out of company dress. The Secretary of the Treasury, and other members of the Cabinet, had been kind enough to furnish me with letters to the Provisional Governors who had been appointed for all the Southern States; but it was rather the governed than the governors who might be expected to reveal the actual feeling and condition of the community. Acting on what a large mass of his supporters thought a mistaken policy, the President had inaugurated a system of reconstruction. State governments had been set in motion; legislators and congressmen were being elected. It was an opportune time, before Congress met and the ardent Southern sentiment was chilled by the fresh breezes from the North, for a run among the reconstructed, avoiding officials, whether Northern Generals, or Southern Governors, candidates, or Freedmen’s Bureau Agents; moving quietly among the people, and seeing in what temper they were carrying on the work to which Mr. Johnson had summoned them.

When I had been last in Richmond—a day or two after the surrender—it was thought to be something of a feat to make the trip in a couple of days. In November, so rapidly had the broken ways been mended and the crooked paths made straight, it was accomplished in a night. The traveler southward left Washington at nine in the evening, and was aroused up next morning at five in Richmond.

The trip naturally inspires an appetite; but among the morning papers I found the following further appetizer from the Richmond Examiner, of Rebel memory:

“A special dispatch to the Baltimore Sun avers that ‘it is now pretty clear that the President has at heart the admission of Southern Congressmen, and will make it a measure of his Administration. Those opposing it will be regarded as hostile to the most material points of his policy.’ It would appear from this that the President does not agree with the learned librarian of the House,^[44] nor with the clerk of the House, who, it is said, will not enter the names of Southern Congressmen until after the organization, and their admission is specially granted by the exclusive members who are to participate. The President, if this be true, will have done a good part in shifting the burden of the difficulty from the shoulders of the Southern members to his own. The clerk and librarian may now have the pleasure of a dispute with his Excellency, if they will, instead of the luxury of looking solemn and severe at some Southern gentlemen they would like to keep out in the cold for a short time.”

Paragraphs like this served a special use. They illustrated the temper in which pardoned Rebels, who had sought the Attorney-General’s office^[45] as their “last ditch,” resumed their duties as loyal citizens. “None so hard to please as a beggar.” These men abjured all their rights under the Constitution, and did their best to overthrow it. They were forced back. Yesterday they cringed for pardon at the feet of “the boorish and drunken tailor” they had denounced; to-day they are harder to satisfy than ninety and nine just men who have no need of repentance.

An ex-colonel of a Virginia regiment was exceedingly anxious to argue his political principles. They were talking, he heard, about keeping the Southern members from participating in the organization of the House, just to enable the Radicals to get all the officers. But he didn’t believe they would dare to venture on so grossly tyrannical a course. If it was proposed to conciliate the South, they must no longer be subjected to such iniquitous oppression. The whole war had been of the same sort. The North had no business to begin its attack in the first place—no justification for it under the sun. The South was only defending itself from Northern violations of law. Didn’t Massachusetts, in her Legislature, threaten to secede in 1812?^[46] And wasn’t there a clause in the Constitution about importing slaves down to 1808, which was put in for her benefit, and at her peremptory demand?

“As for your niggers, you’ve got ’em on your hands. They won’t work, unless you force them to it, and they’ll steal rather than starve. You even talk about giving them suffrage! There are no words to express the infamy of such a proposition. This is a white man’s government, and must be kept so till the end of time. It’s true, there are a great many ignorant whites voting now; but so much the more need for stopping further addition to the ignorant vote.” There ought to be educational and property qualifications, he thought; but on no account would he permit negroes to avail themselves of these. Educated or ignorant, rich or poor, the niggers must be kept down.

In Richmond, and, as it appeared, throughout the South, there was a general reliance upon the President to secure the immediate admission of their Senators and Representatives. Whether all believed or not, all at any rate claimed, that their Representatives had a perfect right to participate in the organization of the House. The President was to see to it that they were admitted to this right. None of these former sticklers for a strict construction of the Constitution, hesitated for a moment at the suggestion that the President was as powerless in the premises as themselves. “Hasn’t he the army?” they asked. In the better days such a question would have been denounced as treasonable. After their four years of arbitrary rule, it seemed to them the most natural thing in the world.

Richmond was fallen from its high estate, but it was a capital still. The brains, the pluck, and the pride of the rebellion are there, and the Rebel capital still leads the returning Rebel States. The Northern public scarcely appreciated the amount of journalistic talent concentrated there in the interest of the Rebel cause. The newspapers of Richmond, throughout the war, were in many respects the ablest on the continent. Their writing was often turgid, but it was always effective; and it shaped the public sentiment of the whole Confederacy. Mr. Davis himself was not above writing leaders for his organ, and Benjamin is reported to have been a frequent contributor. In the midst of their destitution they managed to keep up double the number of average dailies that we had in Washington, and the editorials of each were generally the productions of educated thinkers, as well as red-hot partisans. Fortunately or unfortunately, a share of the old ability and fervor clings to the revived newspapers of Richmond, and it is curious to see with what avidity the Virginians gulp down the praises of their heroic dead, in which they tend to indulge so freely, since it is no longer so safe to extol the deeds of the pardoned or pardon-seeking survivors.

Yet, with all the fervid zeal of the newspapers, I doubt if the great mass of Virginians cared very much, in November, for any active participation in political movements. At the outset, they were disgusted with their vulgar, drunken Governor. Then their ablest men were all ineligible to office, because steeped in the rebellion; and they had the haughty pride of old families, which revolts against encouraging the aspirations of unknown or odious upstarts. And, besides, while they made a great show of establishing civil government, the galling consciousness remained that, whether they chose it or not, they must walk in a certain path, or be suppressed by the military. As the Enquirer itself said:

“As long as the civil authority is subordinate to the military, there can not and ought not to be any politics or any principles among a people so unhappily situated. A paper that is not as free to censure as to approve, has no virtue in its support, and no importance attaches to its utterances. Approbation is worthless where censure is forbid. The politics of the Enquirer, therefore, must be deferred until the return of those good times when a free press is the bulwark of the State.”

Even the hated “Radicals” would be apt to indorse so lucid a statement of so sound a principle. But they might possibly make the argument prove more than would be pleasing to Richmond. If there “ought not to be any politics among a people so unhappily situated,” neither ought there to be the farce of a form without the substance of State Government.

Though not making exactly this deduction, many Virginians were still ready for almost any political arrangement that would secure them the quiet and established order of civil government, and leave them to the task of repairing their shattered private fortunes. Even yet they had scarcely begun to comprehend the policy of a plot for bringing the men who had just been trying to overturn a government into the complete control of it. Many were still ready to accept, as final, whatever orders the Government might issue, and to make haste to do their part in obeying them.

“I tell you,” said a prominent man, “President Johnson can name his Senators and they will be straightway elected. He can say what he wants, and the Virginia Legislature, so-called, will register his edicts in legislative enactments. What we wish is to get settled, to know where we are and what we can depend upon, and then we want to go to work developing our material resources. We’re all poor; we want to regain our lost money, and we’ve got to let politics alone and go to work to do it.”

Beneath all this lay, of course, never-abandoned hopes of regaining political supremacy, after the social authority that comes of wealth has been restored. But the first want of Virginians was a settlement; something fixed on which capital could rely. They talked foolishly who said Virginia would not stand this, and the proud Virginians would revolt from that. The proud Virginians would stand anything, for the best of reasons. They could not help themselves. Statesmen might decide upon the course of statesmen for such emergencies; and whether it was pleasant or unpleasant, Virginia would submit, make the best of it, and go to work to improve her condition.

Meantime it was at any rate considered politic to keep the natural leaders of the community in the back ground. A son of ex-President Tyler had published the following significant warning:

“To the Editors of the Republic:

“Without assigning special reasons, I take the liberty, respectfully, but most earnestly, to advise that no person who has held a commission in the civil or military service of the late Confederate Government, shall permit himself to be a candidate for the Legislature, either Federal or State, at the ensuing elections.

“It is true, I believe, as a result of the recent struggle, that the entire people of Virginia have accepted the Union and the Government of the United States in good faith. The institution of slavery, too, has been extinguished. As matters now stand, I can not perceive what possible danger to the safety of the Union or the peace of the country could arise by allowing an absolute choice of Representatives to the whole constituent body; but there are circumstances in the present state of general and national politics which make it imperatively necessary, in my opinion, that those citizens who were prominently identified with the cause of the Confederacy should exercise a rigid political abstinence AT THIS TIME.

The English of all this was plain: Stand back, now, gentlemen! Your patriotic course has made you a little odious to the Yankees, and we must be careful about offending them till we have got our State representation in Congress again. You’re all right personally; we’re proud of you, and you shall have plenty of offices by and by, but just “at this time” it isn’t expedient to embarrass our cause at Washington, by carrying your conspicuous services in the war on our shoulders! Even school-boys would scarcely be misled thus. They could not forget their

“I was a Rebel,” said a conspicuous Southerner, “I submit because I was whipped, and have a great respect for the men that whipped me; but I shall have less respect for them if they prove such simpletons as to suppose that the Rebels of yesterday can to-day become fit men to be intrusted with the reorganization of a loyal government, by simply swearing an oath of allegiance.”

Capital already began to come in from the North. One gentleman had purchased a large tract of woodland on the James River, with the plan of selling the wood on it in large quantities. Others were seeking to avail themselves of the magnificent water-power afforded by the James, just above the city. The business men were anxious for the establishment of cotton factories, and already saw, in imagination, the manufacture of the great Southern staple transferred from Northern to Southern hands. There was much talk of mineral lands in the southwestern part of the State, and real estate agencies were springing up, to aid in bringing these lands into the market. The papers announced, with many flourishes, that a Mr. Black, whom they styled “a great Scotch capitalist,” had leased the famous White House estate, on the lower James, and was about to introduce upon it the Scotch tenantry system.

It was already considered certain that the confiscation law was to be a dead letter, and wealthy Rebels seemed to have no fear of the loss of their estates. But there were harassing confiscation suits, against which there was great outcry. “Are we never to see the end of those frightful lists of libeled property which the marshal and clerk are advertising?” exclaimed one of the papers. “Are costs to be piled, like Pelion upon Ossa, upon the heads of the gentlemen of Richmond and Petersburg, who have already been pardoned? A distinguished gentleman of this city has heard from President Johnson’s own lips, language of strong indignation at the wholesale confiscation proceedings which have been instituted against certain classes of our people.” Here, as always, President Johnson’s will was to be taken as the final expression and force of law.

An indignant correspondent of one of the newspapers^[47] brought heavy charges against the Government and one of the United States Judges:

“Major Nutt’s farm, near Alexandria, and Dr. Bowen’s farm, sold by decree of Judge John C. Underwood, are to be delivered up to Judge Underwood, Governor Pierpont, and Mr. Downey, the purchasers under the confiscation sale. It now appears that the principal property sold under Judge Underwood’s decrees, in and around Alexandria, was purchased by himself and those connected with him in the high position he holds, at a fractional part of its value only.

“Rumor says, and I have never heard it doubted, that Judge Underwood, during the rebellion, obtained permission to raise a regiment of negroes in Alexandria, which he succeeded in getting at a low price, which regiment he turned over to one of the Northern States, at a large advance, thereby realizing a large sum of money, with which he has been buying up the property confiscated by himself, under his own decree, in fee simple.”

The burnt district, comprising nearly all the business portion of the city, south and east of the capitol, was beginning to rise from its ruins. Between a fourth and a third of it would soon be better than before the conflagration, with which the Rebels signalized their abandonment of the city. But business was greatly overdone by Northern speculators who had rushed down with heavy supplies of goods immediately after the surrender. The first pressing necessities satisfied, the Virginians were too poor to trade largely.

Thanks to Northern loans, in sums ranging as high (in one or two cases, at least,) as a half-million dollars, the railroads were rapidly getting into running order, and old lines of travel were reopening. Already the Virginia Central Railroad was open to Staunton, and the Orange and Alexandria through its whole length, over a score or more of our battle-fields. Rival lines of steamers for Baltimore swarmed in the James River. Southward, Wilmington could be reached by rail, and even Charleston, a few gaps being filled by stage lines. South-westward, an unbroken line extended through Chattanooga and Atlanta—historic names—to Mobile.

As was entirely natural, a great deal of sullen bitterness was displayed against the negro. Men did not feel kindly that their old slaves should take time to consider the question of hiring with them, and should presume to haggle about wages. The least manifestation of a disposition to assert obtrusively his independence, brought the late slave into danger. Murders of negroes were occasionally reported; and the late masters made many wrathful promises to kill that were never fulfilled. Half-a-dozen times, in the course of a single day, I observed quarrels going on between negroes and white men. The latter constantly used the most violent and domineering language; the negroes several times seemed disposed to resent it.

Their schools were well attended, and the same good report of their progress was continually made. No man could fail to observe that the poor negroes were making much more earnest efforts to rise than the poor whites.

The restoration of confiscated property was again leaving many of the freedmen houseless. During the convulsions of the war they had left their old homes, and the authorities had established them upon the confiscated estates of absent Rebels. Pardoned, and resuming possession of their property, it was not unnatural that their first step should be to eject the vagrant negroes from their premises. The superintendent of schools under the Freedmen’s Bureau estimated the entire number of persons thus rendered houseless in Eastern Virginia, at the beginning of winter, to be not less than seventy thousand.

Small-pox was also making ravages among them. They had not yet learned to take care of themselves; the emancipation had removed them from the care of their masters, and exposure, neglect, and disease were rapidly thinning out the population on which the wasted State had to rely for labor. The prevalent tone of public feeling indicated indifference to this public calamity. Virginians had not yet learned that their interests in laborers did not end when they ceased to own them; and many seemed to gloat over the facts, as a proof of the wisdom of their own opinions, and of the folly of their anti-slavery enemies. “This,” exclaimed a newspaper, “is one of the practical results of negro freedom—one of the curses that has fallen on this unfortunate race, and one for which somebody must be held responsible at the bar of God. Who that somebody is, must be determined by a higher authority than human, though many are disposed to believe that the responsibility rests not on the people of the South. But be that as it may, the ‘freedmen’ are dying by hundreds and thousands. Where are the philanthropists of the North? Where are the Christian Commissions of Boston, and the Freedmen’s Aid Societies of Philadelphia? Where are those who wanted an anti-slavery God and an anti-slavery Bible? Yes! where are they, when the negro is freed and is so sadly in need of their kind (?) offices?”

Where it could, the Government was still issuing rations to these poor waifs of the war, but the suffering was beyond any governmental control. Some of the old masters did their best to care for former slaves; but they were themselves impoverished and destitute. November winds already blew sharply—what might be expected before the winter was over?