in fact or that if there was an apparent excess of punishment of
a black man the cause was ascertained to be in the nature of the
crime with which he was charged, or the attendant circumstances.

The educational advantages in the South, the committee regret to
say, were found to be insufficient, and far inferior to those of
most of the States of the North, but such as they were we found
in every case that the blacks had precisely the same advantages
that the whites enjoyed; that the school fund was divided among
them according to numbers; that their teachers were quite as
good, and chosen with as much care; that their schools existed as
many months in the year; in short, the same facilities were
afforded to the blacks as were to the whites in this respect; and
that these schools were generally supported by the voluntary
taxation imposed by the legislatures composed of white men,
levied upon their own property for the common benefit.

With regard to political outrages which have formed the staple of
complaint for many years against the people of the South, your
committee diligently inquired, and have to report that they found
nothing or almost nothing new. Many old stories were revived and
dwelt upon by zealous witnesses, but very few indeed ventured to
say that any considerable violence or outrage had been exhibited
toward the colored people of the South within the last few years,
and still fewer of all those who testified upon this subject, and
who were evidently anxious to make the most of it, testified to
anything as within their own knowledge. It was all hearsay, and
nothing but hearsay, with rare exceptions.

Many of the witnesses before us were colored politicians, men who
make their living by politics, and whose business it was to stir
up feeling between the whites and blacks; keep alive the embers
of political hatred; and were men of considerable intelligence,
so that what they failed to set forth of outrages perpetrated
against their race may be safely assumed not to exist. Many, on
the contrary, were intelligent, sober, industrious, and
respectable men, who testified to their own condition, the amount
of property that they had accumulated since their emancipation,
the comfort in which they lived, the respect with which they
were