Carl Schurz Report on the Condition of the South (1865)
Report from presidential emissary Carl Schurz to Congress' Joint Committee on Reconstruction (1865).
Print shows Carl Schurz, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right, in medallion. (Library of Congress.)
In 1865 President Andrew Johnson commissioned Carl Schurz, a German national and politician to travel to the South, to review conditions with an eye towards the creatio of a report on the preparation of former Confederates to rejoin the Union, and on the nature of the treatment of formerly enslaved Black people. Schurz’s report offered a troubling account of ongoing mistreatment and subordination of the Black population, exploitation and violence against the formerly enslaved, and an ongoing and unabated spirit of insurection among former Confederates. Schurz offers a detailed assessement of the categories of white southerners and their attitudes toward rejoining the Union.
