It was difficult even for the white leaders to explain the riots at Memphis and New Orleans.

And those who sincerely wished well for the Negro and who desired to control him for the good of both races could not possibly assure him that he was fit for the suffrage.

For even Patton and Hampton must tell him that they knew better than he and that he should follow their advice.
The appeal made to freedmen by the Northern leaders was in every way more forceful, because it bad behind it the prestige of victory in war and for the future it could promise anything.

Until 1867, the principal agency in bringing about the separation of the races had been the Freedmen's Bureau which, with its authority, its courts, its rations, clothes, and its "forty acres and a mule," did effective work in breaking down the influence of the master.

But to understand fully the almost absolute control exercised over the blacks in 1867-68 by alien adventurers, one must examine the workings of an oath-bound society known as the Union or Loyal League.