The war would thus have practically injured the negro, for after taking from him that form of protection which slavery afforded, it would have left him an object of still harsher oppression than slavery itself--an oppression that would be inspired and quickened by a spirit of vengeance.
Blaine warns that the aftermath of the war could lead to even harsher oppression for freedmen if protections were not maintained.
Share
More from James Blaine
As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die.
The deep-seated prejudice against color is assiduously cultivated by the public journals and leads to acts of cruelty, oppression, and murder, which the local authorities are at no pains to prevent or punish.
It was the insane folly of the South, in drawing the sword against the life of the Nation, that led irresistibly to the abolition of slavery.
In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
Other voices in this conversation
