But there is another remedy proposed. These people are advised to make an exodus to the Pacific slope. With the best intentions they are told of the fertility of the soil and salubrity of the climate. If they should tell the same as existing in the moon, the simple question, How shall they get there? would knock the life out of it at once. Without money, without friends, without knowledge, and only gaining enough by daily toil to keep them above the starvation point, where they are, how can such a people rise and cross the continent? The measure on its face is no remedy at all. Besides, who does not know that should these people ever attempt such an exodus, that they would be met with shot-guns at every cross-road. Who does not know that the white landholders of the South would never consent to let that labor which alone gives value to their land march off without opposition? Who does not know that if the Federal Government is powerless to protect these people in staying that it would be equally powerless to protect them in going _en masse_? For one, I say away with such contrivances, such lame and impotent substitutes for the justice and protection due us. The first duty that the National Government owes to its citizens is protection. While, however, I hold now, as I held years ago, that the South is the natural home of the colored race, and that there must the destiny of that race be mainly worked out, I still believe that means can be and ought to be adopted to assist in the emigration of such of their number as may wish to change their residence to parts of the country where their civil and political rights are better protected than at present they can be at the South. I adopt the suggestion of the _National Republican_, of this city, that _diffusion_ is the true policy for the colored people of the South. All, of course, cannot leave that section, and ought not; but some can, and the condition of those who must remain will be better because of those who go. Men, like trees, may be too thickly planted to thrive. If the labor market of Mississippi were to-day not over-loaded and over supplied, the laborers would be more fully appreciated; but this work of diffusion and distribution cannot be carried on by the emancipated class alone. They need, and ought to have, the material aid of both white and colored people of the free states. A million of dollars devoted to this purpose would do more for the colored people of the South than the same amount expended in any other way. There is no degradation, no loss of self-respect, in asking this aid, considering the circumstances of these people. The white people of this nation owe them this help and a great deal more. The keynote of the future should not be concentration, but diffusion--distribution. This may not be a remedy for all evils now uncured, but it certainly will be a help in the right direction.