George Clemenceau
In
the following excerpt George Clemenceau, a journalist from France,
discusses the Radical Republicans and their policy of reconstruction.
He argues that is it vital that freedmen have access to land and land
ownership:The
real misfortune of the negro race is in owning no land of his
[sic] own. There cannot be real emancipation for men who do
not possess at least a small portion of the soil. We have had an
example in Russia. In spite of the war, and the confiscation bills,
which remain dead letters, every inch of land in the Southern states
belongs to the former rebels. The population of free negroes has
become a nomad population, congregated in the towns and suffering
wretchedly there, destined to be driven back eventually by poverty
into the country, where they will be forced to submit to the harshest
terms imposed by their former masters. It would be too much to expect
those masters of their own accord to conciliate the negroes by
conceding them a little land in order to secure their cooperation.
They are still too blinded by passion to see their own best
interests.