Even those who mocked and sneered at Negro legislators brought now and then words of praise: “But beneath all this shocking burlesque upon Legislative proceedings we must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and untutored multitude. It is not all shame, not all burlesque. They have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly which we are bound to recognize and respect.... They have an earnest purpose, born of conviction that their conditions are not fully assured, which lends a sort of dignity to their proceedings. The barbarous, animated jargon in which they so often indulge is on occasion seen to be so transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants disgust. The whole thing is a wonderful novelty to them as well as to observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. Today they are raising points of order and questions of privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It is easier and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result. It means escape and defence from old oppressors. It means liberty. It means the destruction of prison walls only too real to them. It is the sunshine of their lives. It is their day of jubilee. It is their long promised vision of the Lord God Almighty.”[175] But with the memory of the Freedmen’s Bank before it, America should utter no sound as to Negro dishonesty during reconstruction. Here from the entrenched philanthropy of America with some of the greatest names of the day like Peter Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, Simon P. Chase, A. A. Low, Gerritt Smith, John Jay, A. S. Barnes, S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Edward Atkinson, Levi Coffin and others, a splendid scheme was launched to help the Freedmen save their pittance and encourage thrift and hope. On the covers of the pass books is said: “This is a benevolent institution and profits go to the depositors or to educational purposes for the Freedmen and their descendants. The whole institution is under the charter of Congress and receives the commendation of the President, Abraham Lincoln.” With blare of trumpet it was chartered March 3rd, 1865; it collapsed in hopeless bankruptcy in 1873. It had received fifty-six millions of dollars in deposits and failed owing over three millions most of which was never repaid. A committee of Congress composed of both Democrats and Republicans said in 1876: