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if he persists in his demand, he is knocked down, or, more often, shot; if he resents the blow, his death is certain, for no negro dare strike a white man here, unless there be a company of soldiers present. To kill a negro is no crime here, and I have heard men talk of their exploits in this line with the utmost complacency. The only protection that the colored man now has in the South is the Freedmen's Bureau, backed up by Federal bayonets. Break up the Bureau before reconstruction is effected, and the colored race will be exterminated in ten years, unless a 'war of races' ensues, and the whites be brought to their senses thereby. It appears to be the policy of not a few leaders to bring about such a conflict. The excessive tyranny practiced upon the poor blacks, and the appeals to the prejudices and baser passions of the whites, tend to that end, and certainly must have that object.

"Great destitution prevails in the interior of Alabama and Mississippi, but it is by no means so severe as has been represented. Here again is another fiendish device of the opponents of reconstruction. The colored laborer is defrauded out of most of his earnings. As a consequence, he is in want, and his family are nigh to starvation. This is heralded forth to the world as an evidence of the negro's natural laziness and disability to take care of himself. If the whites had dealt justly and generously by their colored laborers, they would not now be asking alms of the North, nor begging relief of government. It makes me mourn for the white race when I witness their oppression of the negro. A just Providence cannot permit such iniquities to be perpetrated.

"The prime cause of Southern want is the laziness of the whites. The Southern climate is notoriously enervating, and is made the excuse for not working by the 'privileged classes.' At every crossroads doggery, every shop, and every store in every town and village, is to be found a crowd of long-haired, stalwart fellows engaged in whittling sticks, chewing tobacco, and cursing the negro three things which they do well and industriously follow up. Without a dollar, save what they make or defraud their laborers out of, they spend their time, week in and week out, in idleness, regretting old times,' instead of turning to work and industriously striving to retrieve their fallen fortunes. They have land in abundance, but this few only will sell, lest the negroes get a foothold and become prop

erty owners. The South is by no means as impoverished as has been represented. The Southern people still have in abundance all the elements of wealth, and it only requires industry among the whites, and encouragement and fair dealing toward the colored laborers, to raise the late Rebel States to even a higher state of prosperity than they ever before enjoyed."

Still amid all this gloom and darkness there were some gleams of light. EDUCATION is and has been, for the past two years, advancing in the South with a rapidity hitherto unknown. Heretofore in most of the Southern States, everywhere except in the large towns, education was only the boon of the wealthy, and the poor white had almost as little chance of learning to read and write as the slave, to whom all knowledge of books was prohibited by law under the severest penalties. But now, thanks to the efforts of the philanthropic citizens of the North, the Missionary Associations, Home Missionary Societies, Freedmen's Aid Societies and Commissions, and to the Freedmen's Bureau, there were thousands of schools where the negro and the child of the poor white were taught the elements of knowledge, and an intense rivalry, in which truth compels us to say the negro child oftenest came out winner, ensued between the two in regard to the rapid acquisition of knowledge.

This laudable enterprise for the general diffusion of education in the South was powerfully aided and will continue to be so by the munificent gift by George Peabody, Esq., of the sum of more than two millions of dollars, the income of which is to be distributed annually to southern schools and institutions of learning, without distinction of color or race. Several institutions have been founded in Washington, D. C., Wilmington, N. C., New Orleans, and Pittsburgh for the higher education of colored young men, with a view to qualify them for teachers and preachers among their own people.

The constitutional conventions of the desolated States have wisely incorporated into their bills of rights and their constitutions the right and the provision for universal education,

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and the legislatures elected are manifesting a willingness to tax themselves for this purpose, to an extent which, in their present impoverished condition, is highly creditable to them.

The result of this will be that in a few years the mass of voters in the Southern States will be equal in intelligence to the people of any other section of the country, or to any nation in the world, and with that intelligence they may safely be trusted to govern themselves. In all countries and states, and at all times, ignorance, which brings in its train all other vices, has been the worst foe of good government. But with an intelligent and enterprising people no form of despotism, neither autocracy, oligarchy, or mob law, can prevail. Hence dark as may be the clouds which now overhang the South, we look confidently for a brighter future, when its despotic aristocracy shall no longer hold sway.

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CHAPTER LXXXVI.

IMPEACHMENT.

The determination of the President to proceed with his own plan of restoring the states lately in insurrection to their former status, in violation of all law, and of the rights of the Legislative branch of the Government, to whom this work had been confided by the constitution, as well as the defiant and hostile spirit he manifested toward all who opposed his course, led many of the members of both houses of Congress to feel that it would be necessary to check his career by impeachment.

Still there was a very great reluctance to resort to such an extreme measure, except under circumstances of extraordinarily aggravated offence. Many of the Republican members believed for months that Mr. Johnson's course was merely experimental, and that he would ere long return to harmony and co-operation with the party which had elected him to the Vice-Presidency; and entertaining this view, they were unwilling to resort to any measures which should alienate him still more.

The more advanced Republicans were convinced that these views were erroneous; that Mr. Johnson really sought a breach with the Republicans; that he was at heart a Democrat, and in sympathy with the Rebel leaders; that his violations of the laws and of the rights of Congress had been deliberate and intentional, and that he intended to continue his course so long as he could do it with impunity.

The first positive movement looking toward impeachment, was made on the 17th of December, 1866, when the Hon. James M. Ashley, of Ohio, moved a suspension of the rules.