They couldn’t imagine where the worthless things had suddenly sunk to, until it occurred to some of them to observe that this disappearance began shortly after their reconstructed Legislature had embodied its wisdom in laws on the negro question.
Reid suggests that the disappearance of freedmen was linked to new laws enacted by the reconstructed Legislature.
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More from Whitelaw Reid
They appeared at times when public men often seemed to be groping in the dark on an unknown road, but it is now evident that the road which has been taken is substantially the road they marked out.
Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.
Will you take peace without territory and preserve the integrity of the Constitution of the country?...
But, in the main, they are surprisingly orderly, and cases of serious violence among them are quite rare.