Thoroughly insane. It's not PC to say it, but the fact was a population of recently freed plantation slaves was not prepared for political and economic management, nor were the lower classes of whites. The entire idea of the RR's was to tear down the South's organic elite and give it's influence and responsibilities to corrupt carpetbaggers and an incapable proletariat, which inevitably would have meant the former's hegemony due to their superior competence whilst the collaborator populations focused on extracting whatever they could. In essence they were imperialist socialists, a bizarre and absurd combination if their ever was one.
The only thing that the South's "organic elite" deserved after the war was the bayonet. It's rather unfortunate that they did not meet it
en masse.
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