alien institutions.

The story of Reconstruction has been told elsewhere.[1] A combination of
two ideas--high-minded altruism and a vindictive desire to humiliate a
proud people for partisan advantage--wrought mischief which has not been
repaired in nearly half a century. It is to be doubted, however, whether
Reconstruction actually changed in any essential point the beliefs of
the South. Left to itself, the South would not, after the War, have
given the vote to the negro. When left to itself still later, it took
the ballot away. The South would not normally have accepted the negro as
a social equal. The attempt to force the barrier between the races by
legislation with the aid of bayonets failed. Without the taste of power
during the Reconstruction period, the black South would not have
demanded so much and the determination of the white South to dominate
would not perhaps have been expressed so bitterly; but in any case the
white South would have dominated.

[Footnote 1: See _The Sequel of Appomattox_, by Walter Lynwood Fleming
(in _The Chronicles of America_).]

Economic and industrial development was hindered by Reconstruction. Men
of vision had seen before the War that the South must become more nearly
self-sufficient; and the results of the conflict had emphasized this
idea. The South believed, and believes yet, that it was defeated by the
blockade and not by military force. According to this theory, the North
won because the South could not manufacture goods for its needs, because
it did not possess ships to bring in goods from abroad, and because it
could not build a navy to defend its ports. Today it is clear that the
South never had a chance to win, so long as the will to conquer was firm
in the North. As soon as the War was over, the demand for greater
industrial development made itself felt and gained in strength when
Reconstruction came; but during that period the people had to devote all
their energies to living day by day, hoping for strength to endure.
When property was being confiscated under the forms of law, only to be
squandered by irresponsible legislators, there was little incentive to
remake the industrial system, and the ventures of the Reconstruction
government into industrial affairs were not encouraging. Farm property
in the South--and little was left except farm property after the
War--depreciated in value enormously in the decade following 1860.
Grimly, sullenly, the white man of the South