But it was defeated by the timidity, or mistaken notions of economy, of Northern statesmen.

In my opinion this defeat accounts for the failure of the policy of reconstruction so far as it has failed.

I do not believe that self-government with universal suffrage could be maintained long in any Northern State, or in any country in the world, without ample provision for public education.
It has been claimed with great sincerity and not without plausible reason that a great hardship and wrong was inflicted by the victorious North on their fellow citizens when the political power in their States was given over to their former slaves.

This consideration had great force in the minds of many influential Republicans in the North.

Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, Governor Morton of Indiana, afterward Senator, men whose influence was probably unsurpassed by any other two men in the country, save Grant and Sumner alone, were of that way of thinking.