ders with the question, "But what better course can you suggest,
even now?" And the immense difficulty of the problem, even as calmly
viewed to-day by the closet student, may well make us charitable toward
the men who, for the most part, did the best they knew under the
immediate besetment of measureless perplexities and contradictions. But
while we may approve of their work in the rest of the Fourteenth
Amendment, with equal emphasis we may say: The mistake was great, in the
amendment and later, of shutting out the very men who should have been
included. Better by far would it have been to take their counsel and
co-operation even beforehand in planning the work of reconstruction.
Even as to that crucial point, the legislation oppressive to the
freedmen, and the deeper difficulty underlying it, the ingrained
Southern attitude toward the negro as an inferior being,--even as to
this, something might have been accomplished had the Southern men, who
went to Washington in the vain hope of immediate admission to Congress,
been met by a President of Lincoln's or Andrew's calibre. Even as it
was, there were signs of promise in Georgia,--so says Rhodes in his
excellent _History of the United States_. The newly elected Governor,
Judge Jenkins, a man of "universally acknowledged probity and
uprightness of character" made in his inaugural address (December 14,
1865) a strong plea for the negroes who had so faithfully cared for the
lands and homes and families of the soldiers in the field: "As the
governing class individually and collectively we owe them unbounded
kindness and thorough protection.... Their rights of person and
property should be made perfectly secure." To like effect spoke
Alexander H. Stephens, revered by all Georgians, February 22, 1866;
recalling the fidelity of the slaves during the war and the debt of
gratitude it created; the obligation of honor to the poor, untutored,
uninformed; asking for the negroes ample and full protection, with
equality before the law as to all rights of person, liberty and
property. And such equality the Georgia Legislature speedily ordained.
Tennessee did the like. Rhodes expresses confidence that by gentle
pressure from the President and Congress, Virginia, North Carolina and
Alabama could have been persuaded to similar legislation within a twelve
month, and the other States would have followed.

The excluding article in the amendment was probably made as a concession
by the moderate