h new social burdens. In other words, states with smaller resources
were asked not only to do a work of restoration, but a larger social
work. The property holders were aghast. They not only demurred, but,
predicting ruin and revolution, they appealed to secret societies, to
intimidation, force, and murder. They refused to believe that these
novices in government and their friends were aught but scamps and fools.
Under the circumstances occurring directly after the war, the wisest
statesman would have been compelled to resort to increased taxation and
would have, in turn, been execrated as extravagant, dishonest, and
incompetent. It is easy, therefore, to see what flaming and incredible
stories of Reconstruction governments could gain wide currency and belief.
In fact the extravagance, although great, was not universal, and much of
it was due to the extravagant spirit pervading the whole country in a day
of inflated currency and speculation.

That the Negroes led by the astute thieves, became at first tools and
received some small share of the spoils is true. But two considerations
must be added: much of the legislation which resulted in fraud was
represented to the Negroes as good legislation, and thus their votes were
secured by deliberate misrepresentation. Take, for instance, the land
frauds of South Carolina. A wise Negro leader of that state, advocating
the state purchase of farm lands, said, "One of the greatest of slavery
bulwarks was the infernal plantation system, one man owning his thousand,
another his twenty, another fifty thousand acres of land. This is the only
way by which we will break up that system, and I maintain that our freedom
will be of no effect if we allow it to continue. What is the main cause of
the prosperity of the North? It is because every man has his own farm and
is free and independent. Let the lands of the South be similarly
divided."[104]

From such arguments the Negroes were induced to aid a scheme to buy land
and distribute it. Yet a large part of eight hundred thousand dollars
appropriated was wasted and went to the white landholders' pockets.

The most inexcusable cheating of the Negroes took place through the
Freedmen's Bank. This bank was incorporated by Congress in 1865 and had in
its list of incorporators some of the greatest names in America including
Peter Cooper, William Cullen Bryan and John Jay. Yet the bank was allowed
to fail in 1874 owing the freedmen their first savi