Since our "open letter to the freedmen of the South," dated Aug. 13,
1878, and published in the Boston "Traveller," a few days after,
announcing our plan of emigration, we have received letters of
endorsement from leading freedmen, which show the feeling in the South
in favor of this plan, and their opposition to the Liberia scheme of
emigration. One of them writes us: "I prefer going West, and many
hundreds here would join me. I am opposed to emigration to Liberia. We
cannot live in the South and enjoy our political rights. We need wealth
and education. These are what we cannot get in the South, where the
landed aristocrat refuses to sell and divide his land among the blacks.
He opposes our education, so as to be able to control our political
rights, and make us only "hewers of wood and drawers of water." I hope
the plan will be a success. The prayers of many freedmen will go with
you and the whole scheme."
This writer is endorsed by Hon. J. H. Rainey, M. C. from South
Carolina.
As we go to press with this pamphlet, we will give the key-note of the
newspaper press on the subject.
The "Washington Republican" urges upon the colored men of the South that
the best thing they can do is to go to the West. It says:--
"And the sooner they go the better for all concerned. Their exodus from
the South would leave the soil of that to them inhospitable section
without tillers. It would weaken the political strength of the
ex-Confederacy in the Union, and they would stand some chance of being
represented in the national councils, as well as being counted in the
basis of that representation. Besides, it would awaken a sentiment among
the better classes of the South in favor of law and order, for the
purpose of persuading them to remain 'at home'; and this would result in
a determined effort to overcome Ku-Kluxism and bull-dozing in all their
varied forms."
To be "counted in the basis of that representation," and be forced to
submit to have bull-dozing representatives sent to Congress by the
Ku-Klux, is an unparalleled monstrosity.