Events, as they developed in the stirring and sorrowful years that followed, were but a continual proof of that form of original blunder on the part of the Southern whites, which in affairs of civil administration is worse than a crime.
Blaine asserts that the mistakes made by Southern whites during Reconstruction were significant and damaging.
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The feeling in many portions of the country toward the emancipated slaves, especially among the ignorant and uneducated, is one of vindictive and malicious hatred.
Their success as civil magistrates, as legislators, as executives was not less marked and meritorious than their illustrious service in war.
It is to the eminent credit of the Republican members of Congress that they stood in a crisis of this magnitude true to principle, firm against all the power and all the patronage of the Administration.
The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.
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