Emancipation and Emigration: A Plan to Transfer the Freedmen of the South to the Government Lands of the West by The Principia ClubAnonymous
History
Emancipation and Emigration: A Plan to Transfer the Freedmen of the South to the Government Lands of the West by The Principia Club
Anonymous
African Americans -- History -- 1877-1964 -- Sources
It has been known in Washington for some time, that "The Principia Club
Papers, No. 9," soon to be issued, will contain a plan of emigration for
the freedmen and their families of the Southern States, and their
settlement upon the government lands of the Northern and Western States
and Territories, where they can cultivate their own farms and sit under
their own vine and fig-tree. The club will appoint a board of trustees
in whom the public can have the utmost confidence, whose duty it shall
be to assist the freedmen in the selection, purchase, and payment of
their farms, and the removal of their families and outfits.
More full explanations and descriptions will be given in the pamphlet,
which will contain also specific directions to individuals or colonies
how to proceed in the matter. While arrangements are being made with the
government, the club will be glad to receive any suggestions from any
one interested in the movement, and especially the leading colored men
in the country.
Concerning this movement, any information desired may be had by
addressing the president of the club,
J. W. ALDEN,
No. 9 Hanson Street, Boston, Mass.
EMANCIPATION AND EMIGRATION.
When emancipation took place, in 1863, it was not thought, by the noble
army of philanthropists who had labored more than a quarter of a century
for its accomplishment, that it would ever be necessary for the freedmen
to flee their native States, in order to enjoy their civil and political
rights and privileges under the Constitution.
Nor was it ever dreamed by the voting Republicans of 1876, that the
administration they were putting into power could ever become so stupid
as to surrender the national power into the hands of the rebel States,
under so thin a guise as the old exploded humbug of South Carolina
nullification--State rights, home-rule doctrine; and then stand by with
folded arms and see the freedmen deliberately turned over to the tender
mercies of the political trinity of despotism, to be stripped of their
civil and political rights under the Constitution, and to be refused
protection by the national government. It made no difference that the
robbers were _rebels_ and the robbed _loyal_ citizens. The hollow
promises of the rebels who had fought four years to destroy the
government, it seems, were better currency at Washington than the
protests of the loyal people who had saved it.
But the fifteen years that have elapsed since emancipation, have
demonstrated the fact that these loyal people who fought for and
saved the government, and who voted for and elected the present
administration, must be returned to practical slavery, submit to
serfdom, or emigrate to more civilized States, where their civil and
political rights will be cheerfully accorded to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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