erred were of a low
character. This is the very point upon which the public has been
misinformed, misled and deceived. I do not hesitate to assert that the
Southern Reconstructed Governments were the best governments those
States ever had before or have ever had since, statements and
allegations made by Mr. Rhodes and some other historical writers to
the contrary notwithstanding. It is not claimed that they were
perfect, but they were a decided improvement on those they succeeded
and they were superior in every way to those which are representative
of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule.
They were the first and only governments in that section that were
based upon the consent of the governed. If Mr. Rhodes honestly
believed that what he wrote in condemnation and denunciation of those
governments was based upon authenticated facts, then the most
charitable view that can be taken in his case is that he, like
thousands of others, is simply an innocent victim of a gross
deception.

In the second place, whether or not I am influenced by racial ties or
partisan bias in what I have written and may hereafter write, I am
willing to allow the readers to decide. I am sure that they have not
failed to see from what I have thus far written, that the controlling
purpose with me is to give actual facts, free from racial partiality
or partisan bias. If some of the things I have written appear
otherwise, it is due to the fact that the misrepresentations I am
pointing out and correcting have been in the opposite direction. The
idea that I have endeavored to keep in mind is, that what the readers
and students of American history desire to know is the unbiased truth
about the important events of the period in question and not the
judgment and opinions of the person or persons by whom they are
recorded.

In the third place, the statement that the value of what I have
written is impaired because what is said about the important events of
the period in question is based in the main upon my own knowledge and
experience, must impress the intelligent reader as being strange and
unusual. He discredits what I say too because I do not make reference
to source materials. What this expert himself has to say is, like most
studies of Reconstruction, based on ex-parte evidence which is in
violation of all rules governing modern historical writing. No just
judge would rely altogether on the testimony of one's enemies to
de