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THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA.
The elections of 1867-68 showed that the Negroes were well organized under the control of the radical Republican leaders and that their former masters had none of the influence over the blacks in political matters which had been feared by some Northern friends of the Negro and had been hoped for by such Southern leaders as Governor Patton and General Hampton.

Before 1865 the discipline of slavery, the influence of the master's family, and of the Southern church had sufficed to control the blacks.

But after emancipation they looked to the Federal soldiers and Union officials as the givers of freedom and the guardians of the future.
From the Union soldiers, especially the Negro troops, from the Northern teachers, the missionaries and the organizers of Negro churches, from the Northern officials and traveling politicians, the Negroes learned that their interests were not those of the whites.

The attitude of the average white in the South often confirmed this growing estrangement.