The Freedmen [pp. 489-493]

THE FREEDMEN.
before the war, although cotton sells for almost three times as much
now as then. If the negroes behave well, the profits to the land owner cannot be less than double the profits made from hired labor
before the war. If so, lands in the Cotton States will, in time, be
worth double as much ats before the war, and will continue at that value
so long as negroes hire as low as now, and cotton commands its pres ent price. Indeed, we learned from a gentleman firom Red River that
lands have rented there as high as fitteen to twenty dollars per acre.
With negro hire at fifteen dollars per month, and cotton at thirty
cents a pound, good land there should rent for more than that amount.
In England they fully understand the value of workingmen, and
undertook at once to give a liberal support to some half million of
them, thrown out of employment by the American war, and consequent dearth of cotton. Emigration to America and Australia is
rendering labor scarce and high in England, and emigration to the
North-wiest is having the same effect at the North-east. Negroes
have, few of them, means or intelligence sufficient to enable them
to emig,rate, but contractors and othtr employers are carrying off
large numbers of them to New York and other Northern States.
They are fatr more reliable, tractable, docile, and efficient laborers
on canails and railroads, in coal and iron lnines, and for all coarse
common labor than whites, and may readily be hired fo)r a third
less than whites. If we do not speedily enact such laws and
make such other provisions as shill satisfy the Fi-recedinen that
after the withdrawal of the Federal forces they will be safe, se.
cure, and well treated here, there will be a panic and stamtpede
among them, and they will go off to the North with the Federal
troops. Northern capitalists will readily pay their passage. They
want cheap, obedient, tractable labor; and, we have no doubt, will
extend to them the (nominal) right of suffrage, in order to allure
them northwards. Like all laborers, they will have to vo)te as
their bosses and landlords require. They stand the climate of the
North quite as well as white men. Man is an ubiquitous animal.
Indians, Mongolian.;, Whites, and Negroes are equally healthy under
the Equator and within the Arctic circle. The Yankees set our negroes tree, and are now stealing them. We must look to this and
guard against it.
We know from frequent conversations with many of the Freedmen that they are in great dread of cruel persecution, and even of
massacre from the whites, so soon as the Federal forces are removed. They know many are angry with them merely on account of their emancipation; many more, because hundreds of
thousands of them bore arms against their masters; and still more,
because of the insolence of many of the Freedmen since our country has been occupied by the Federals. They know that they
have given imany and heavy causes of offence, and tremble at the
thought of a terrible retribution. As Christians, as civilized and
humane men, as chivalrous and magnanimous Southrons, let us
freely and cordially forgive the poor ignorant creatures for all the
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