od of history writing has been that of
suppression and distortion of facts.

(3) The true history of that period reveals some things that place Negro
Suffrage in a remarkably creditable light.

The statement has recently been made that "the reconstruction regime in
the South worked lasting injury to the colored race."[9] Place this
statement in juxtaposition with a few of the things that were really
done by these newly enfranchised people who were practicing their first
lessons in the science of government.

Judge Albion W. Tourgee has stated it thus:

"They obeyed the Constitution of the United States, and annulled
the bonds of states, counties, and cities which had been issued to
carry on the war of rebellion and maintain armies in the field
against the Union. They instituted a public school system in a
realm where public schools had been unknown. They opened the ballot
box and jury box to thousands of white men who had been debarred
from them by a lack of earthly possessions. They introduced home
rule into the South. They abolished the whipping post, the branding
iron, the stocks and other barbarous forms of punishment which had
up to that time prevailed. They reduced capital felonies from about
twenty to two or three. In an age of extravagance they were
extravagant in the sums appropriated for public works. In all of
that time no man's rights of person were invaded under the forms of
law. Every Democrat's life, home, fireside and business were safe.
No man obstructed any white man's way to the ballot box, interfered
with his freedom of speech or boycotted him on account of his
political faith."[10]

This is the record which it is said "has worked lasting injury to the
colored race." If the true history of this period proves anything it is
this, namely, that the only republican government in fact as well as in
form that has ever existed in the South was when the Negro, though a
mere tyro in the art of government, was a controlling factor in southern
politics. His "lasting injury" consists in the fact that he planted "the
seeds of all the New South's prosperity."

The Southern politicians, who in their desperation to perpetuate Negro
Slavery created a national debt of more than three billions and stained
every vale and hillside with the blood of freemen, point with ineffable
horror at the extravagant financial legislation of the