The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864Various
Religion
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Let us now try to draw nearer to the mark at which we principally aimed
in projecting this article. We said that the 'let-them-alone' system,
concerning the nation's 'freedmen,' is not the system of sound
statesmanship. Why not? Because they are a people in a state of
infantile weakness and inexperience; whom, from the irrepressible laws
and conditions of the human mind, we _must_ govern and control, either
wisely and beneficently or otherwise. To unloose the chains that have
bound them, and set them adrift to contend and compete under our
methods of individualism or isolated interests, is to doom them to
conditions hardly to be preferred to those from which they are about to
escape. This is certainly true with respect to a large majority. Witness
the state of our weakest white laborers, particularly in all our large
cities, and some few years back. See them by thousands and tens of
thousands imploring for employment, and only too happy if they may find
it at the most repulsive and unwholesome labor, sufficient to stay their
famished frames and adjourn for a time the pangs of hunger and frosts.
Driven in despairing hordes to beggary, prostitution, and crimes of
every kind, how fearfully threatening are the neglected duties and
obligations that confront us in their behalf! What, then, shall we say
to those who propose to swell the frightful tide by turning loose
millions more, weaker and more incompetent, it may be, besides being
subject to the evils of the reigning prejudices against color? No, no;
it must not be done. The Government must become the visible providence
of these weak children. It must organize and direct their efforts and
interests. It must, at least, organize them into industrial legions, and
carefully direct all their educational interests. This work, too, must
assume paternal form. Government is rightfully the foster parent of all
its tender, weak, or by any means incompetent children; and unless it
acknowledge and fulfil its functions as such, it is not Divinely
administered, and stands accountable before Supreme Wisdom for all
remissness. To meet all the demands, an especial commission must be
established, and organized with a completeness that will meet all the
educational and industrial needs of these dependent children. This
commission must have a wise head and _tender heart_. It must be fully
alive to the great issues involved, and must be healthy and vigorous in
its extremities, where will come the immediate points of contact with,
the great power it is to operate--the organized freedmen. The expense of
this commission must not be a tax upon the Government, nor must
Government derive any profit therefrom. Such an organized directory,
with extremities all complete, may be amply paid from the freedmen's
labors; at the same time, those labors being doubly remunerative to
themselves, in consequence of the wise adjustment of the organized
machinery of such a commission. For the weak and uneducated to be in
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