form their
task without changing materially their old social system. But they
likewise issued from their labors not less fortunate in another respect.
Their old political power would not suffer any radical change in
consequence of the abolition of slavery either. For whereas five slaves
had counted for them in the ante bellum apportionment of representatives
as three freemen, five serfs would count in the post-bellum apportionment
as five free men--a pretty large gain for the new power over the old one
in federal numbers. But in achieving this double success the old master
class overreached itself. The return of the South into the newly restored
Union stronger as a serf power than it had been as a slave power aroused
the instant fear of the North and set Congress in motion to thwart such
reappearance of that section into the arena of national politics.

Congress thereupon took upon itself the work of Southern reconstruction.
The extreme gravity of the situation as it affected the Negro lay in the
political solidity of that section with its one-party governments in which
he was denied a voice. His freedom could not long survive such a
combination of Southern race prejudice and passion and political power as
constituted at that time the solid South and its one-party governments.
They were then and they continue to be the greatest obstacle to the
freedom and advancement of the Negro as an American citizen. They
signalized their first entrance upon the stage of national affairs by an
attempt to create a serf class out of their former slaves. When I say that
they constitute the greatest obstacle to the freedom and advancement of
the Negro, I mean, of course, the greatest obstacle outside of the Negro
himself. For I take it that no race that possesses intelligence, industry
and character, coupled with unity of purpose and action can be kept
forever out of its rights and in a backward state even by the American
white people, accomplished as they are in this species of national
wickedness, unless they intend to reverse the wheel of their progress and
to retrograde in free institutions and civilization.

Against Southern political solidity and its one-party governments Congress
directed its reconstruction measures. With the dissolution of this
solidity and the introduction of bi-party in place of one-party
governments the Republican leaders looked for the passing of the danger to
Northern sectional supremacy and the freedom of t