Report on the Condition of the South | Page 5

but whose prejudices and impulses
are strong, and who are apt to be carried along by those who know how
to appeal to the latter.
Much depends upon the relative strength and influence of these classes.
In the course of this report you will find statements of facts which may
furnish a basis for an estimate. But whatever their differences may be,
on one point they are agreed: further resistance to the power of the
national government is useless, and submission to its authority a matter

of necessity. It is true, the right of secession in theory is still believed in
by most of those who formerly believed in it; some are still entertaining
a vague hope of seeing it realized at some future time, but all give it up
as a practical impossibility for the present. All movements in favor of
separation from the Union have, therefore, been practically abandoned,
and resistance to our military forces, on that score, has ceased. The
demonstrations of hostility to the troops and other agents of the
government, which are still occurring in some localities, and of which I
shall speak hereafter, spring from another class of motives. This kind of
loyalty, however, which is produced by the irresistible pressure of force,
and consists merely in the non-commission of acts of rebellion, is of a
negative character, and might, as such, hardly be considered
independent of circumstances and contingencies.
OATH-TAKING.
A demonstration of "returning loyalty" of a more positive character is
the taking of the oaths of allegiance and amnesty prescribed by the
general government. At first the number of persons who availed
themselves of the opportunities offered for abjuring their adhesion to
the cause of the rebellion was not very large, but it increased
considerably when the obtaining of a pardon and the right of voting
were made dependent upon the previous performance of that act.
Persons falling under any of the exceptions of the amnesty
proclamation made haste to avert the impending danger; and politicians
used every means of persuasion to induce people to swell the number
of voters by clearing themselves of all disabilities. The great argument
that this was necessary to the end of reconstructing their State
governments, and of regaining the control of their home affairs and
their influence in the Union, was copiously enlarged upon in the letters
and speeches of prominent individuals, which are before the country
and need no further comment. In some cases the taking of the oath was
publicly recommended in newspapers and addresses with sneering
remarks, and I have listened to many private conversations in which it
was treated with contempt and ridicule. While it was not generally
looked upon in the State I visited as a very serious matter, except as to
the benefits and privileges it confers, I have no doubt that a great many

persons took it fully conscious of the obligations it imposes, and
honestly intending to fulfil them.
The aggregate number of those who thus had qualified themselves for
voting previous to the election for the State conventions was not as
large as might have been expected. The vote obtained at these elections
was generally reported as very light--in some localities surprisingly so.
It would, perhaps, be worth while for the government to order up
reports about the number of oaths administered by the officers
authorized to do so, previous to the elections for the State conventions;
such reports would serve to indicate how large a proportion of the
people participated in the reconstruction movement at that time, and to
what extent the masses were represented in the conventions.
Of those who have not yet taken the oath of allegiance, most belong to
the class of indifferent people who "do not care one way or the other."
There are still some individuals who find the oath to be a confession of
defeat and a declaration of submission too humiliating and too
repugnant to their feelings. It is to be expected that the former will
gradually overcome their apathy, and the latter their sensitiveness, and
that, at a not remote day, all will have qualified themselves, in point of
form, to resume the right of citizenship. On the whole, it may be said
that the value of the oaths taken in the southern States is neither above
nor below the value of the political oaths taken in other countries. A
historical examination of the subject of political oaths will lead to the
conclusion that they can be very serviceable in certain emergencies and
for certain objects, but that they have never insured the stability of a
government, and never improved the morals of a people.
FEELING TOWARDS THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE OF
THE NORTH.
A more substantial evidence of "returning loyalty" would be a
favorable change of feeling with