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the freedmen on staple doctrine political The ignoramuses in the convention have done us incalculable injury and it is hard to say who is most to blame the Hodges &c or the Hunnicutts, Bowdens &c who hope to "tool" the colored voters to run their individual gn. corts into Governorships &c We must put the brains of the party in the lead or we shall upset all. I fear I am positive on these few points. I want to "make the traitors take back seats in the work of reconstruction" (vide A. Johnson) I want intelligence & integrity as well as loyalty in office. I want the fullest equality for all men before the law but am opposed to attempting to mix oil and water, black and white in one homogeneous social mass because it cannot be done and I want education so general and placed on such a solid foundation that even revolution cannot overthrow it for depend upon it an ignorant constituency is almost always a venal constituency and colored suffrage may prove a dangerous privilege when it is subjected to the