ars of reconstruction quite a number of Negroes
began to invest in real estate and secure for themselves pleasant
homes. Their possessions increased yearly, as can be seen by a
reference to statistical reports. Some of the estates and homesteads
of the oldest and most reputable white families, who had put every
thing info the scales of Confederate rebellion, fell into the
possession of ex-slaves. Such a spectacle was not only unpleasant, it
was exasperating, to the whites. But so long as the Republican
governments gave promise of success there was but little or no
manifestation of displeasure on the part of the whites. Just as soon,
however, as they became the masters of the situation, the property of
many Negroes was seized, and sold upon the specious plea--"for
delinquent taxes"; and the Negroes were driven from eligible places to
the outskirts of the larger towns and cities. No Negro was allowed to
live in the vicinity of white persons as tenants; and it became a
social crime to sell property to Negroes in close proximity to the
whites. In the rural districts, where Negroes had begun to secure
small farms, this same cruel spirit was "the lion in their way." The
spirit that sought to keep the Negro ignorant as a slave, now that he
was at least nominally free, endeavored to deprive him of one of the
necessary conditions of happy and useful citizenship: the possession
of property, the aggregations of the results of honest labor. Nothing
could have been more fatal to the growth of the Negro toward the
perfect stature of free, intelligent, independent, and self-sustaining
manhood and citizenship. The object and result of such a system can
easily be judged. It was intended to keep the Negroes the laboring
element after as well as before the war. The accomplishment of such a
result would have been an argument in favor of the assertion of the
South that the normal condition of the Negro was that of a serf; and
that he, did not possess the elements necessary to the life of a
freeman. Thus would have perished the hopes, prayers, arguments and
claims of the friends of the cause of universal, manhood suffrage.

Among the masses of laboring men the iniquitous, outrageous, thieving
"_Plantation Credit System_" was a plague and a crime. Deprived of
homes and property the Negroes were compelled to "work the crops on
the shares." A plantation store was kept where the Negroes' credit was
good for any article it contained. He got salt