How the Negroes will Vote

Previous thoughts of how African Americans would vote have been invalid and not in accordance with information. Basically African Americans are being influence by loyalists and Northerners to vote against Johnson, and most of their vote is under control of ultra-Radicalists.

The statements so confidently made in some quarters that the votes of the freed men in the South will be cast for the so-called rebel ticket are not in accordance with the information received here. The fact is, that ever since the close of the war the freedmen have been organized in Loyal Union Leagues, through the influence of the preachers in their churches, the northern teachers in their schools, and the officers of the Freedmen's Bureau. Recently, since the white loyalists of the South have adopted the negro-suffrage plan of reconstruction, the freedmen's leagues have received considerable accessions of members from that class, and are in many cases controlled by them. In Georgia, nearly every county has a thoroughly organized Radical political society, the object of which is to see that the freedmen vote against the Johnson party, as it is called ; and throughout the whole South they are under the sway of the most ultra Radicals, and every preparation has been made by them to proceed at once to assume control of the organization of new governments, when the registration of the supplementary reconstruction bill shall become a law.

“How the Negroes will Vote,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/547.