.

THE WARDS OF THE NATION.
The Negroes at the close of the war were not slaves or serfs, nor were they citizens.

What was to be done with them and for them?
The Southern answer to this question may be found in the so-called "Black Laws," which were enacted by the state governments set up by President Johnson.

The views of the dominant North may be discerned in part in the organization and administration of the Freedmen's Bureau.

The two sections saw the same problem from different angles, and their proposed solutions were of necessity opposed in principle and in practice.
The South desired to fit the emancipated Negro race into the new social order by frankly recognizing his inferiority to the whites.