o the
Joint Committee on Reconstruction: "If you compel us to carry through
universal suffrage of colored, men... it will prove quite an *incubus
upon us in the organization of a national union party of white men;
it will furnish our opponents with a very effective weapon of offense
against us."

There were, however, some Southern leaders of ability and standing who,
by 1866, were willing to consider Negro suffrage. These men, among them
General Wade Hampton of South Carolina and Governor Robert Patton of
Alabama, were of the slaveholding class, and they fully counted on being
able to control the Negro's vote by methods similar to those actually
put in force a quarter of a century later. The Negroes were not as yet
politically organized were not even interested in politics, and the
master class might reasonably hope to regain control of them. Whitelaw
Reid published an interview with one of the Hamptons which describes the
situation exactly:

"A brother of General Wade Hampton, the South Carolina Hotspur, was on
board. He saw no great objection to Negro suffrage, so far as the whites
were concerned; and for himself, South Carolinian and secessionist
though he was, he was quite willing to accept it. He only dreaded its
effect on the blacks themselves. Hitherto they had in the main, been
modest and respectful, and mere freedom was not likely to spoil them.
But the deference to them likely to be shown by partisans eager for
their votes would have a tendency to uplift them and unbalance them.
Beyond this, no harm would be done the South by Negro suffrage. The old
owners would cast the votes of their people almost as absolutely and
securely as they cast their own. If Northern men expected in this way to
build up a northern party in the South, they were gravely mistaken. They
would only be multiplying the power of the old and natural leaders of
Southern politics by giving every vote to a former slave. Heretofore
such men had served their masters only in the fields; now they would do
no less faithful service at the polls. If the North could stand it, the
South could. For himself, he should make no special objection to Negro
suffrage as one of the terms of reorganization, and if it came, he did
not think the South would have much cause to regret it."

To sum up the situation at this time: the Negro population at the close
of the war constituted a tremendous problem for those in authority. The
race was free, but without statu