Such policies showed that the bureau — and Congress —nbelieved that the freedmen were incapable of making it onntheir own. This enforced dependence required perpetualnfunding, which meant a continued federal presence.nIn an annual report Alvord showed the degree of controlnthe bureau had over freedmen’s lives. In addition to teachingn”sewing, straw-braiding, repairing, cutting, making garments,”nhis idea of education meant “the improvement ofnhome life and family condition, the encouragement ofnintelligent industry, thrift and the accumulation of property,nthe establishment of families in homesteads,” and chastitynand marital fidelity. Alvord hoped to take girls from theirnhomes and establish seminaries where refined virtue couldnbe taught to them.nGeneral Armstrong, who founded the Hampton Institutenvia a bureau subsidy, was a paternalist in the most literalnsense. He regarded freedmen as children who wouldnimprove their socioeconomic status only if they allowednbenevolent whites to assist them. Henry Turner, whonheaded a private aid group, said: “Colored children arenbeing taught to remember ‘you are Negroes. Your place isnbehind.'” When Turner asked a bureau teacher aboutnhigher learning, the answer was: “Oh, the colored childrennare not prepared for these studies yet. They are too ignorant.nIt will take time enough to talk about that, years from thisntime.”nJune 1868. The Freedmen’s Bureau’s “education” effortsnpaid off. Seven Southern states were readmitted tonCongress. Twelve of the 14 senators were Republicans.nThirty-two of the 34 representatives were Republicans.nNovember 1868: Ulysses S. Grant won the nationalnelection by the narrowest margin: 309,000 votes. But henreceived 450,000 Negro votes. The bureau had kept thenRadicals in power.nAs a result, even a Northern Republican, Eber Ward,nshuddered. “The Freedmen’s Bureau, that was designed asna most beneficent engine of good, has been so pervertednfrom its original object that it ought to be abolished at once.”nThe Bureau of Education and the Census of 1870n1869. Freedmen’s Bureau funding was withering asnrelations between North and South inched toward normalization.nThe only money remaining was to keep “commonnschools in country places and to cooperate with publicnschool oflGcers in rendering effective the public schoolnsystem of the states.” So, even as it sank, the bureau’s rolenexpanded into the Southern civil apparatus.nAs he resigned in October 1870, John Alvord said thatn”educational initiatives must be continued. The masses ofnthe freedmen are ignorant.” Congress obliged. A low-profilenBureau of Education was created within the Interior Department.nIts mandate seemed harmless. “Collecting suchnstatistics and facts as to show the condition and progress ofneducation in the several states.” But it did have a clearnobjective—to focus its statistics on the South, to guarantee anfederal presence there. Its second commissioner was JohnnEaton, a famed carpetbagger, long associated with thenexcesses of the Freedmen’s Bureau.nEaton soft-pedaled the Bureau of Education’s role, sayingnit should do nothing “calculated to decrease local ornindividual effort for education.” Yet he also pointedly saidn22/CHRONICLESnnnthat the bureau was designed to be “an essential andnpermanent part of reconstruction,” as if it would go onnforever. Moreover, the statistics collected would be used tonprove whether the Morrill land-grant money had beenn”spent wisely.” If not, “the government may take suchnexceptional action as exceptional circumstances may requiren… for the assurance of a republican form of government.”nSo the statistics could be generated to provoke suchnexceptional action by proving that the South was notneducating its young.n1870. The once-a-decade census was underway. ThenBureau of Education “worked with” the census field peoplento get the correct numbers. One contemporary source saidnthat “data primarily from the 1870 and 1880 census cannotnbe considered as accurate, in view of the inadequate censusntechniques and unreliable appraisals of property values.”nThe techniques were inadequate because wide areas ofnthe South were still under martial law and census-takersncould not canvas door-to-door unless accompanied bynUnion troops, whose presence insured the “correct” numbers.nProperty appraisals were unreliable since enormousntracts had been confiscated by the Freedmen’s Bureau andnsold at auction to speculators or friends or freedmen at anfraction of their true worth. Land valuation was critical toneducation. It related to taxation for school construction.nAs a result of this collusion, the numbers looked like this:nNorthern and Western states spent $2,225 per child inntaxable wealth; the South, $851. Further, illiteracy wasndefined by the bureaus of Education and the Census asn”cannot write.”nBy this definition the North had 7.7 percent illiteracy; thenPacific area, 15 percent. The South, 42 percent. But ansecond question, “cannot read,” was discarded. This questionnmade the numbers much closer.nThese statistics caused a national sensation. Congressmen,nparticularly Radical Republicans, clamored for legislationnto pour massive federal dollars into the South to correctnthe deficiency. Yet, in the heated Congressional debates thatnfollowed, even the detractors of federal aid didn’t see thenfraud behind the numbers.nFirst, the census questions could only be answered by anhead of household or someone 21 years or older. Thesenpeople were the illiterates. Since most children finishednschool at 15 in that era, the questions (particularly whennfused with “illiteracy by voters”) had been skewed to thatngroup who would never benefit by aid. Yet it was this groupnthat was paraded as a conclusive argument for federalnsupport.nPresident Ulysses S. Grant referred to the census data in anmessage to Congress. “I recommend a Constitutionalnamendment . . . making it the duty of the several states tonestablish and forever maintain free public schools . . . [and]nmake education compulsory so far as to deprive all personsnwho cannot read and write from being voters after the yearn1890.”nIn one move Grant could force Radical views down thenthroats of the South and disqualify half his political opposition.nThe census statistics present a barbaric, indifferent South.nBut that is implausible. Several prewar Southern states hadnthe finest locally funded school systems in the country.n