recorded his impressions of the South after a visit in 1865, was of the
opinion that the Unionists "do not like niggers." "For there is," he said,
"more prejudice against color among the middle and poorer classes--the Union
men of the South who owned few or no slaves--than among the planters who owned
them by scores and hundreds." The reports of the Freedmen's Bureau are to the
same effect. A Bureau agent in Tennessee testified: "An old citizen, a Union
man, said to me, said he, 'I tell you what, if you take away the military from
Tennessee, the buzzards can't eat up the niggers as fast as we'll kill them.'"

The lawlessness of the Negroes in parts of the Black Belt and the disturbing
influences of the black troops, of some officials of the Bureau, and of some
of the missionary teachers and preachers, caused the whites to fear
insurrections and to take measures for protection. Secret semi-military
organizations were formed which later developed into the Ku Klux orders. When,
however, New Year's Day 1866 passed without the hoped-for distribution of
Property, the Negroes began to settle down.

At the beginning of the period of reconstruction, it seemed possible that the
Negro race might speedily fall into distinct economic groups, for there were
some who had property and many others who had the ability and the opportunity
to acquire it; but the later drawing of race lines and the political
disturbances of reconstruction checked this tendency. It was expected also
that the Northern planters who came South in large numbers in 1865-66 might,
by controlling the Negro labor and by the use of more efficient methods, aid
in the economic upbuilding of the country. But they were ignorant of
agricultural matters and incapable of wisely controlling the blacks; and they
failed because at one time they placed too much trust in the Negroes and at
another treated them too harshly and expected too much of them.

The question of Negro suffrage was not a live issue in the South until the