Strangely enough, too, none of those Union men of
the South, who had been refugees during the war or friends of that
Union after its close, joined in the complaints and denunciations
which were visited on this institution and its agents. Neither did
the teachers of colored schools, nor the officers and agents of
those charitable and missionary associations of the North, whose
especial work and purpose was the elevation and enlightenment of
the colored man, see fit to unite in that torrent of detraction
which swept over the country in regard to the "Bureau" and its
agents. But then, it may be that none of these classes were able
to judge truly and impartially of its character and works! They may
have been prepossessed in its favor to an extent which prevented
a fair and honest determination in regard to it.
Certain it is that those who stood upon the other side--those who
instituted and carried on rebellion, or the greater part of them,
and every one of those who opposed reconstruction, who fought to
the last moment the enfranchisement of the black; every one who
denied the right of the nation to emancipate the slave; every one
who clamored for the payment of the State debts contracted during
the war; all of those who proposed and imposed the famous "black
codes,"--every one of these classes and every man of each class avowed
himself unable to find words to express the infamy, corruption, and
oppression which characterized the administration of that climacteric
outrage upon a brave, generous, overwhelmed but unconquered
--forgiving but not to be forgiven, people.
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