ton and
General Hampton. Before 1865 the discipline of slavery, the influence of
the master's family, and of the Southern church had sufficed to control
the blacks. But after emancipation they looked to the Federal soldiers
and Union officials as the givers of freedom and the guardians of the
future.

From the Union soldiers, especially the Negro troops, from the Northern
teachers, the missionaries and the organizers of Negro churches, from
the Northern officials and traveling politicians, the Negroes learned
that their interests were not those of the whites. The attitude of the
average white in the South often confirmed this growing estrangement. It
was difficult even for the white leaders to explain the riots at Memphis
and New Orleans. And those who sincerely wished well for the Negro and
who desired to control him for the good of both races could not possibly
assure him that he was fit for the suffrage. For even Patton and Hampton
must tell him that they knew better than he and that he should follow
their advice.

The appeal made to freedmen by the Northern leaders was in every way
more forceful, because it bad behind it the prestige of victory in war
and for the future it could promise anything. Until 1867, the principal
agency in bringing about the separation of the races had been the
Freedmen's Bureau which, with its authority, its courts, its rations,
clothes, and its "forty acres and a mule," did effective work in
breaking down the influence of the master. But to understand fully the
almost absolute control exercised over the blacks in 1867-68 by alien
adventurers, one must examine the workings of an oath-bound society
known as the Union or Loyal League. It was this order, dominated by a
few radical whites, which organized, disciplined, and controlled the
ignorant Negro masses and paralyzed the influence of the conservative
whites.

The Union League of America had its origin in Ohio in the fall of 1862,
when the outlook for the Union cause was gloomy. The moderate policies
of the Lincoln Administration had alienated those in favor of extreme
measures; the Confederates had won military successes in the field; the
Democrats had made some gains in the elections; the Copperheads* were
actively opposed to the Washington Government; the Knights of the Golden
Circle were organizing to resist the continuance of the war; and the
Emancipation Proclamation had chilled the loyalty of many Union men,
which was everywher