Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]

One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude.

While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment