eve
that their descendants will be equal to the arduous task before them,
but it is worse than madness to expect that negroes will perform it for
us. Certainly we ought not to ask their assistance till we despair of
our own competency.

The great difference between the two races in physical, mental,
and moral characteristics will prevent an amalgamation or fusion
of them together in one homogeneous mass. If the inferior obtains the
ascendency over the other, it will govern with reference only to its own
interests--for it will recognize no common interest--and create such a
tyranny as this continent has never yet witnessed. Already the negroes
are influenced by promises of confiscation and plunder. They are taught
to regard as an enemy every white man who has any respect for the rights
of his own race. If this continues it must become worse and worse, until
all order will be subverted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields
of the South grow up into a wilderness. Of all the dangers which our
nation has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result
from the success of the effort now making to Africanize the half of
our country.

I would not put considerations of money in competition with justice and
right; but the expenses incident to "reconstruction" under the system
adopted by Congress aggravate what I regard as the intrinsic wrong of
the measure itself. It has cost uncounted millions already, and if
persisted in will add largely to the weight of taxation, already too
oppressive to be borne without just complaint, and may finally reduce
the Treasury of the nation to a condition of bankruptcy. We must not
delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing army and probably
more than $200,000,000 per annum to maintain the supremacy of negro
governments after they are established. The sum thus thrown away would,
if properly used, form a sinking fund large enough to pay the whole
national debt in less than fifteen years. It is vain to hope that
negroes will maintain their ascendency themselves. Without military
power they are wholly incapable of holding in subjection the white
people of the South.

I submit to the judgment of Congress whether the public credit may not
be injuriously affected by a system of measures like this. With our debt
and the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we can not
be too cautious of a policy which might by possibility impair the
confidence of the world in