The close of the Rebellion opened to the negro a new era in his history. The chains of slavery had been severed; and although he had not been clothed with all the powers of the citizen, the black man was, nevertheless, sure of all his rights being granted, for revolutions seldom go backward. With the beginning of the work of reconstruction, the right of the negro to the ballot came legitimately before the country, and brought with it all the virus of negro hate that could be thought of. President Andrew Johnson threw the weight of his official influence into the scales against the newly-liberated people, which for a time cast a dark shadow over the cause of justice and freedom. Congress, however, by its Constitutional amendments, settled the question, and clothed the blacks with the powers of citizenship; and with their white fellow-citizens they entered the reconstruction conventions, and commenced the work of bringing their states back into the Union. This was a trying position for the recently enfranchised blacks; for slavery had bequeathed to them nothing but poverty, ignorance, and dependence upon their former owners for employment and the means of sustaining themselves and their families. The transition through which they passed during the war, had imparted to some a smattering of education; and this, with the natural aptitude of the negro for acquiring, made the colored men appear to advantage in whatever position they were called to take part. The speeches delivered by some of these men in the conventions and state legislatures exhibit a depth of thought, flights of eloquence, and civilized statesmanship, that throw their former masters far in the background. In the work of reconstruction, the colored men had the advantage of being honest and sincere in what they undertook, and labored industriously for the good of the country. The riots in various Southern states, following the enfranchising of the men of color, attest the deep-rooted prejudice existing with the men who once so misruled the rebellious states. In Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana, these outbursts of ill feeling caused the loss of many lives, and the destruction of much property. No true Union man, white or black, was safe. The Constitutional amendment, which gave the ballot to the black men of the North in common with their brethren of the South, aroused the old pro-slavery feeling in the free states, which made it scarcely safe for the newly enfranchised to venture to the polls on the day of election in some of the Northern cities. The cry that this was a “white man’s government,” was raised from one end of the country to the other by the Democratic press, and the Taney theory that “black men had no rights that white men were bound to respect,” was revived, with all its negro hate.