transacting the business of the Bureau were
faulty; several cases of defalcation were proved, and other frauds
strongly suspected; there were some business transactions which savored
of dangerous speculation, if not dishonesty; and around it all lay the
smirch of the Freedmen's Bank.

Morally and practically, the Freedmen's Bank was part of the Freedmen's
Bureau, although it had no legal connection with it. With the prestige
of the government back of it, and a directing board of unusual
respectability and national reputation, this banking institution had
made a remarkable start in the development of that thrift among black
folk which slavery had kept them from knowing. Then in one sad day
came the crash,--all the hard-earned dollars of the freedmen
disappeared; but that was the least of the loss,--all the faith in
saving went too, and much of the faith in men; and that was a loss that
a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessness has never yet made
good. Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much
to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and
bankruptcy of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for
their especial aid. Where all the blame should rest, it is hard to
say; whether the Bureau and the Bank died chiefly by reason of the
blows of its selfish friends or the dark machinations of its foes,
perhaps even time will never reveal, for here lies unwritten history.

Of the foes without the Bureau, the bitterest were those who attacked
not so much its conduct or policy under the law as the necessity for
any such institution at all. Such attacks came primarily from the
Border States and the South; and they were summed up by Senator Davis,
of Kentucky, when he moved to entitle the act of 1866 a bill "to
promote strife and conflict between the white and black races . . . by
a grant of unconstitutional power." The argument gathered tremendous
strength South and North; but its very strength was its weakness. For,
argued the plain common-sense of the nation, if it is unconstitutional,
unpractical, and futile for the nation to stand guardian over its
helpless wards, then there is left but one alternative,--to make those
wards their own guardians by arming them with the ballot. Moreover,
the path of the practical politician pointed the same way; for, argued
this opportunist, if we cannot peacefully reconstruct the South with
white votes, we certainly can with bla