war was to be made upon the
President of the United States.

The character of Mr. Schurz's report at once disclosed the reason of
Mr. Sumner's anxiety to have it printed with the report of General
Grant. It was made after a somewhat prolonged investigation in the
States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the
Department of the Gulf. Mr. Schurz's conclusions were that the loyalty
of the masses and of most of the leaders in the South "consists of
submission to necessity." Except in individual instances, he found
"an entire absence of that national spirit which forms the basis of
true loyalty and patriotism." He found that "the emancipation of the
slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel-slavery in the old
form could not be kept up; and although the freeman is no longer
considered the property of the individual master he is considered the
slave of society, and all independent State legislation will share the
tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed
by the conventions under the pressure of circumstances, will not be
looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude."
"Practical attempts," Mr. Schurz continued, "on the part of the
Southern people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freedman may
result in bloody collision, and will certainly plunge Southern society
into resistless fluctuations and anarchical confusion."

These evils, in the opinion of Mr. Schurz, "can be prevented only by
continuing the control of the National Government in the States lately
in rebellion, until free labor is fully developed and firmly
established. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm
declaration on the part of the Government that national control in the
South will not cease until such results are secured." It was Mr.
Schurz's judgment that "it will hardly be possible to secure the
freedman against oppressive legislation and private persecution
unless he be endowed with a certain measure of political power." He
felt sure of the fact that the "extension of the franchise to the
colored people, upon the development of free labor and upon the
security of human rights in the South, being the principal object in
view, the objections raised upon the ground of the ignorance of the
freedmen become unimportant."

Mr. Schurz made an intelligent argument in favor of negro suffrage. He
was persuaded that the Southern people would never grant suffrage to
th