driven out the white, and had perpetrated crimes and election frauds
to the end that the political control of the State might be
recommitted to the hands of reactionaries. Concerning the frauds
committed in the election held prior to the Forty-fourth Congress,
facts and figures were presented in great detail to verify his
contentions.

During his discussion of the proposal to investigate the frauds in the
late election in Mississippi, B. K. Bruce, a senator from that State,
came fearlessly to the defense of his State government. On this
occasion, also, he put into the record valuable statistics showing the
progress of the freedmen in Mississippi. The Negroes, he believed, had
suffered on account of leadership, but they had, at that time, better
leaders who, though not all educated, yet understood the duties of
citizenship. Senator Bruce[77] believed that the thing needed was
peace and good order at the South, but it could come only by the
fullest recognition of the rights of all classes. The opposition would
have to concede the necessity of change, not only in the temper, but
in the philosophy of their party organization and management. The
sober American judgment would have to obtain in the South, as
elsewhere in the Republic, since the only distinctions upon which
parties can be safely organized in harmony with our institutions, are
differences of opinion relative to principles and policy of
government; because differences of religion, nationality, race, can
neither with safety nor propriety be permitted to enter into the party
contests. The unanimity with which the Negro voters acted with a party
was not referable to any race prejudice. On the contrary, the Negroes
invited the political cooperation of their white brethren, and voted
as a unit because proscribed as such. They deprecated the
establishment of the color line by the opposition, not only because
the act was unwise and wrong in principle, but because it isolated
them from the white man of the South and forced them in sheer
self-protection and against their inclination to act seemingly upon
the basis of race prejudice which they neither respected nor
entertained. As a class he believed they were free from prejudices and
had no uncharitable suspicions against their white fellow citizens,
whether native born or settlers from the Northern States. "When
Negroes," continued he, "can entertain opinions and select party
affiliations without proscription, and cast