But in fact there was at no time any attempt to go further with National election laws than to provide for punishment of fraudulent or violent interference with elections or for a sufficient provision to ascertain that they were properly conducted, or to protect them against violence or fraud.
Beside this it was the desire of many Republican leaders, especially of Mr.Sumner and General Grant, that there should be a provision at the National charge for the education of all the citizens in the Southern States, black and white, so far as the States were unable or unwilling to afford it, such as had been provided for in the States of the North for all their citizens.

It was never contemplated by them to give the right to vote to a large number of illiterate citizens, without ample provision for their education at the public charge.

General Grant accompanied his official announcement to Congress of the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment with an earnest recommendation of such a provision.

Earnest efforts were made to accomplish this result by liberal grants from the National treasury.

Many liberal and patriotic Southern Democrats supported it.