There was further general agreement that in economic relations both races must be protected, each from the other; but it is plain that the leaders believed that the Negro had less at stake than the white. The Negro was disposed to be indolent; he knew little of the obligations of contracts; he was not honest; and he would leave his job at will. Consequently Memminger recommended apprenticeship for all Negroes; Governor Marvin suggested it for children alone; and others wished it provided for orphans only. Further, the laws enacted must force the Negroes to settle down, to work, and to hold to contracts. Memminger showed that, without legislation to enforce contracts and to secure eviction of those who refused to work, the white planter in the South was wholly at the mercy of the Negro. The plantations were scattered, the laborers' houses were already occupied, and there was no labor market to which a planter could go if the laborers deserted his fields.

What would the Negro become if these leaders of reconstruction were to have their way? Something better than a serf, something less than a citizen--a second degree citizen, perhaps, with legal rights about equal to those of white women and children. Governor Marvin hoped to make of the race a good agricultural peasantry; his successor was anxious that the blacks should be preferred to European immigrants; others agreed with Memminger that after training and education he might be advanced to full citizenship.