Historical voices

But for a negro, or for a Northern farmer without capital, to attempt the sugar culture on a small scale, would, as matters now stand, be utter folly.

A freeman naturally looks forward to the time when he can own the soil he cultivates.

This statement at once discloses the great difficulty of adapting the free-labor system to the culture of sugar.

Some day Yankees will invent machinery to do all this; but now, the unequal length of the stalks and the necessity for cutting each one at the upper joint to exclude the injurious juices of the top, are supposed to require this slow…

Many are now making desperate efforts to retrieve themselves, and some will succeed.

Extravagant living left nearly every planter enormously in debt when the war came.

Other places along the river have since sold at higher figures; but I believe that any one who is willing to devote two or three months to watching for an opportunity, may make equally favorable purchases any time within the next two years.

I had left Washington in the midst of a heavy snow storm, and the telegraph brought accounts of continued cold weather; but in this deserted garden we plucked bouquets of rare flowers, growing in the open air, which scarcely a green-house…

In effect it gave the Rebels absolute control of the political machinery of the State.

The significance of such an election could not be misunderstood, save by the willfully blind.

Their new-found freedom had soon liberated them, in very many cases, from all services on earth.

There seemed no reason to doubt that during the war there had been an actual and very great disappearance of negroes.

For even the limited number of plantations which were being worked, the supply of labor was wholly inadequate; nor would all the idle negroes in the cities have made it up.

The gentlemen of the country should be the ruling class of the country.

In short, no man ought to vote unless he had landed property and was educated.

Or what sort of government could be expected from the votes of men too ignorant to know anything about government?

What right had any man to a share in shaping the legislation of the country who had no settled interest in the country?

What business had any man to cast a vote for the imposition of taxes who had no taxes to pay?

Negro suffrage, they argued, would only be another step in a path which had already led to most of our existing troubles.

Perhaps it was honest in thinking them not entitled to membership; but the refusal of seats to men bearing certificates of election was a gross and studied discourtesy which could not be forgotten or forgiven.

Nothing, he thought, could exceed the indignity with which Congress had treated honorable Southern gentlemen elected to it in good faith by Southern constituencies, in refusing them the empty privilege of seats on the floor.

It was elected under a war pressure, and it is proving itself utterly unfit to deal with the issues which the peace has brought forward.

Ah, but the present Congress doesn’t reflect the real views of the Northern people.

The position of the Republicans is so utterly untenable that they must soon find it out.