This movement, though utterly insignificant in comparison with the vastly greater numbers which were moving from other Southern States into Kansas, seemed to be considered of very much more importance, in certain quarters, on account of its alleged political purposes and bearing. The theory upon which the investigation was asked was that the emigration into the State of Indiana was the result of a conspiracy on the part of Northern leaders of the Republican party to colonize that State with Negroes for political purposes. The utter absurdity of this theory should have been apparent to everybody, for if the Republican party, or its leaders, proposed to import Negroes into Indiana for political purposes, why take them from North Carolina? Why import them from a State where the Republicans hope and expect to carry the election, when there were thousands upon thousands ready and anxious to come from States certainly Democratic. Why transport them by rail at heavy expense half way across the continent when they could have taken them from Kentucky without any expense, or brought them up the Mississippi River by steamers at merely nominal cost? Why send twenty-five thousand to Kansas to swell her 40,000 Republican majority, and only seven or eight hundred to Indiana? These considerations brand with falsehood and folly the charge that the exodus was a political movement induced by Northern partisan leaders? And yet to prove this absurd proposition the committee devoted six months of hard and fruitless labor, during which they examined one hundred and fifty-nine witnesses, selected from all parts of the country, mainly with reference to their supposed readiness to prove said theory, expended over $30,000 and filled three large volumes of testimony. The undersigned feel themselves authorized to say that there is no evidence whatever even tending to sustain the charge that the Republican party, or any of its leaders, have been instrumental, either directly or indirectly, in aiding or encouraging these people to come from their homes in the South to any of the Northern States. A good deal of complaint was made that certain "aid societies" in the North had encouraged and aided this migration, and a futile attempt was made to prove that these societies were acting in the interest of the Republican party. Upon inquiry, however, it was ascertained that their purposes were purely charitable and had no connection whatever with any political motive or movement. They were composed almost wholly of colored people, and were brought into existence solely to afford temporary relief to the destitute and suffering emigrants who had already come into the Northern and Western States.