Even the paltry pretext, afterwards so often advanced, that they were irritated and maddened by the interposition of carpet-bag power, does not avail in the least degree for the outrages in the era under consideration.
Blaine argues that the South's justifications for their actions during Reconstruction are insufficient.
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The need of action and of energy so pressed upon him that he found no time to utter lamentation, none to indulge even in the most sacred personal grief.
But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.
Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government.
In Congressional districts where the colored race constituted one-half of the total population (and in many instances the proportion was even larger), the vote of one white man offset the vote of two in a Northern district where suffrage…
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