Freed persons; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Southern States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950
The general government, earnestly desiring to restore the State to its
former position, has appointed a provisional governor, with power to call
a convention for the accomplishment of that purpose. Upon the military
forces devolve the duties of preserving order, and of executing the laws
of Congress and the orders of the War Department. The orders defining the
rights and privileges to be secured to freedmen meet with opposition in
many parts of the State, and the duties devolving upon military officers,
in the execution of these orders, are often of a delicate nature. It has
certainly been the desire of the department commander, and, so far as he
has observed, of all officers on duty in the State, to execute these
orders in a spirit of conciliation and forbearance, and, while obeying
implicitly all instructions of the President and the War Department, to
make military rule as little odious as possible to the people. While the
military authorities have acted in this spirit, and have been as
successful as could have been anticipated, the provisional governor has
thought proper, without consultation with the department commander or with
any other officer of the United States on duty here, to organize and arm a
force in every county, urging the "young men of the State who have so
distinguished themselves for gallantry" to respond promptly to his call,
meaning, thereby, that class of men who have as yet scarcely laid down the
arms with which they have been opposing our government. Such force, if
organized as proposed, is to be independent of the military authority now
present, and superior in strength to the United States forces on duty in
the State. To permit the young men, who have so distinguished themselves,
to be armed and organized independently of United States military officers
on duty here, and to allow them to operate in counties now garrisoned by
colored troops, filled, as many of these men are, not only with prejudice
against those troops and against the execution of the orders relative to
freedmen, but even against our government itself, would bring about a
collision at once, and increase in a ten-fold degree the difficulties that
now beset the people. It is to be hoped that the day will soon come when
the young men called upon by Governor Sharkey and the colored men now
serving the United States will zealously co-operate for the preservation
of order and the promotion of the interests of the State and nation. It
will be gratifying to the friends of the colored race to have the
assurance in an official proclamation from the provisional governor, that
the day has already arrived when the experiment can be safely attempted.
But as the questions on which these two classes will be called to
co-operate are those with regard to which there would undoubtedly be some
difference of opinion, particularly as to the construction of certain laws
relative to freedmen, the commanding general prefers to postpone the trial
for the present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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