Freed persons; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Southern States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950
I have to notice one pretended remedy for the disorders now agitating the
south, which seems to have become the favorite plan of some prominent
public men. It is that the whole colored population of the south should be
transported to some place where they could live completely separated from
the whites. It is hardly necessary to discuss, not only the question of
right and justice, but the difficulties and expense necessarily attending
the deportation of nearly four millions of people. But it may be asked,
what would become of the industry of the south for many years, if the bulk
of its laboring population were taken away? The south stands in need of an
increase and not of a diminution of its laboring force to repair the
losses and disasters of the last four years. Much is said of importing
European laborers and northern men; this is the favorite idea of many
planters who want such immigrants to work on their plantations. But they
forget that European and northern men will not come to the south to serve
as hired hands on the plantations, but to acquire property for themselves,
and that even if the whole European immigration at the rate of 200,000 a
year were turned into the south, leaving not a single man for the north
and west, it would require between fifteen and twenty years to fill the
vacuum caused by the deportation of the freedmen. Aside from this, the
influx of northern men or Europeans will not diminish the demand for hired
negro labor; it will, on the contrary, increase it. As Europeans and
northern people come in, not only vast quantities of land will pass from
the hands of their former owners into those of the immigrants, but a large
area of new land will be brought under cultivation; and as the area of
cultivation expands, hired labor, such as furnished by the colored people,
will be demanded in large quantities. The deportation of the labor so
demanded would, therefore, be a very serious injury to the economical
interests of the south, and if an attempt were made, this effect would
soon be felt.
It is, however, a question worthy of consideration whether it would not be
wise to offer attractive inducements and facilities for the voluntary
migration of freedmen to some suitable district on the line of the Pacific
railroad. It would answer a double object: 1. It would aid in the
construction of that road, and 2. If this migration be effected on a large
scale it would cause a drain upon the laboring force of the south; it
would make the people affected by that drain feel the value of the
freedmen's labor, and show them the necessity of keeping that labor at
home by treating the laborer well, and by offering him inducements as fair
as can be offered elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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