The masses of the Southern whites regarded the emancipation of
the negro simply as an arbitrary exercise of power, intended as
a punishment for the act of attempted secession--which act, while
many believed it to have been impolitic, few believed to be in
conflict with the true theory of our government. They considered
the freeing of the slave merely a piece of wanton spite, inspired,
in great measure, by sheer envy of Southern superiority, in part
by angry hate because of the troubles, perils, and losses of the
war, and, in a very small degree, by honest though absurd fanaticism.
They did not believe that it was done for the sake of the slave,
to secure his liberty or to establish his rights; but they believed
most devoutly that it was done solely and purposely to injure
the master, to punish the rebel, and to still further cripple and
impoverish the South. It was, to them, an unwarrantable measure of
unrighteous retribution inspired by the lowest and basest motives.
But if, to the mass of Southern white men, emancipation was a
measure born of malicious spite in the breast of the North, what
should they say of that which followed--the _enfranchisement_
of the black? It was a gratuitous insult--a causeless infamy! It
was intended to humiliate, without even the mean motive of advantage
to be derived. They did not for a moment believe--they do not
believe to-day--that the negro was enfranchised for his own sake,
or because the North believed that he was entitled to self-government,
or was fit for self-government; but simply and solely because it
was hoped thereby to degrade, overawe, and render powerless the
white element of the Southern populations.
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