jewel of our Constitution shows how idealistic were the officeholders of the
Republican Party, particularly when we consider that similar legislation on
behalf of women cannot be passed today.^68
During Reconstruction a surprising variety of people went to the new
civilian “front lines” and worked among the newly freed African Americans in
the South. Many were black Northerners, including several graduates of
Oberlin College. This passage from a letter by Edmonia Highgate, a black
woman who went south to teach school, describes her life in Lafayette Parish,
Louisiana.
The majority of my pupils come from plantations, three, four
and even eight miles distant. So anxious are they to learn that
they walk these distances so early in the morning as never to be
tardy.
There has been much opposition to the School. Twice I have
been shot at in my room. My night school scholars have been
shot but none killed. A week ago an aged freedman just across
the way was shot so badly as to break his arm and leg. The
rebels here threatened to burn down the school and house in
which I board yet they have not materially harmed us. The
nearest military protection is 200 miles distant at New
Orleans.^69
Some Union soldiers stayed in the South when they were demobilized. Some
Northern Republican would-be politicians moved south to organize their party
in a region where it had not been a factor before the war. Some went hoping to
win office by election or appointment. Many abolitionists continued their
commitment by working in the Freedman’s Bureau and private organizations to
help blacks obtain full civil and political rights. In terms of party affiliation,
almost all of these persons were Republicans; otherwise, they were a diverse
group. Still, all but one of the eighteen textbooks routinely use the disgraceful
old tag carpetbaggers, without quotation marks and often without noting its
bias, to describe Northern white Republicans who lived in the South during
Reconstruction.^70