"Shouting" the candidates went into the water and "shouting" they came out.

One old woman came up screaming, "Freed from slavery! freed from sin! Bless God and General Grant!" In the effort to realize their new-found freedom, the Negroes were heavily handicapped by their extreme poverty and their ignorance.

The total value of free Negro property ran up into the millions in 1860, but the majority of the Negroes had nothing.

There were a few educated Negroes in the South, and more in the North and in Canada, but the mass of the race was too densely ignorant to furnish its own leadership.

The case, however, was not hopeless; the Negro was able to work and in large territories had little competition; wages were high, even though paid in shares of the crop; the cost of living was low; and land was cheap.
Thousands seemed thirsty for an education and crowded the schools which were available.