[ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, “a
few days” after August 9, 1865]
We cannot keep the South out long, and it is a physical
impossibility for us to guard the entire South by armies; nor can we change
opinions by force; nor can the President pass on the merits of all pardons, but
must delegate it, when the power will be corrupted or gradually embrace all
exempts, for the class exempted is the vital part of the South. I would have
used it and had it subservient to the uses of Government. The poor whites and
negroes of the South have not the intelligence to fill the offices of
governors, clerks, judges, etc., etc., and for some time the marching of state
Governments must be controlled by the same class of whites as went into the
Rebellion against us. . . .
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 254
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