That the Negroes led by the astute thieves, became at first tools and received some small share of the spoils is true.  But two considerations must be added:  much of the legislation which resulted in fraud was represented to the Negroes as good legislation, and thus their votes were secured by deliberate misrepresentation.  Take, for instance, the land frauds of South Carolina.  A wise Negro leader of that state, advocating the state purchase of farm lands, said, “One of the greatest of slavery bulwarks was the infernal plantation system, one man owning his thousand, another his twenty, another fifty thousand acres of land.  This is the only way by which we will break up that system, and I maintain that our freedom will be of no effect if we allow it to continue.  What is the main cause of the prosperity of the North?  It is because every man has his own farm and is free and independent.  Let the lands of the South be similarly divided."[104]

From such arguments the Negroes were induced to aid a scheme to buy land and distribute it.  Yet a large part of eight hundred thousand dollars appropriated was wasted and went to the white landholders’ pockets.

The most inexcusable cheating of the Negroes took place through the Freedmen’s Bank.  This bank was incorporated by Congress in 1865 and had in its list of incorporators some of the greatest names in America including Peter Cooper, William Cullen Bryan and John Jay.  Yet the bank was allowed to fail in 1874 owing the freedmen their first savings of over three millions of dollars.  They have never been reimbursed.

Many Negroes were undoubtedly venal, but more were ignorant and deceived.  The question is:  Did they show any signs of a disposition to learn to better things?  The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.  This is precisely what the Negro voters showed indubitable signs of doing.  First they strove for schools to abolish ignorance, and second, a large and growing number of them revolted against the extravagance and stealing that marred the beginning of Reconstruction, and joined with the best elements to institute reform.  The greatest stigma on the white South is not that it opposed Negro suffrage and resented theft and incompetence, but that, when it saw the reform movements growing and even in some cases triumphing, and a larger and larger number of black voters learning to vote for honesty and ability, it still preferred a Reign of Terror to a campaign of education and disfranchised Negroes instead of punishing rascals.