Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 64

14. The Coming Man! Our African Fellow-Citizen! Shall He Vote? Is He Fit? Is He Capable? (N.p., [1866?]). (16 p.)

Pamphlet attacking federal policies for Reconstruction, particularly those that attempt to extend the suffrage to freedmen. The Freedmen’s Bureau comes in for particular criticism. Incidents of racial violence in the South are highlighted, including a race riot in Memphis on May 9, 1866, but not the race riot in New Orleans on July 30, 1866, suggesting that the pamphlet was printed during the summer of 1866. Freedmen are blamed for instigating these conflicts. The pamphlet notes with some alarm that, at the time of its printing, there were more black troops than white troops in the United States army. Furthermore, “they [black troops] are officered by fanatics who provoke breaches of the peace by their unnecessary interference with the local affairs of the people among whom they are stationed, and then support and uphold the negro troops in any excesses they may commit, under pretense of enforcing some order from the military headquarters of the department. More than this, the presence of negro troops has a bad influence upon the freedmen of the Southern States.”