We have thus spread out the present condition of the freedmen, before
the American people. It is a plain case for the former, and not a hard
one for the latter.
The whole question of emigration, as it now stands, lies in three
propositions, one of which every freedman _must_ choose.
1. He must remain, as he is, under the political trinity of despotism;
be denied the free ballot, conferred upon him by the amendments to the
United States Constitution; be forced to vote for the despotism that
crushes him, already deserted by the government he fought to save, and
which is constitutionally bound to protect him in his political rights
and Christian privileges; or,
2. He must, _vi et armis_, maintain those rights against rebel
despotism, with the "Federal bayonets" in rebel hands, and the power to
send the army to the Indians or the devil; or,
3. He must, _quietly_, if he can, _forcibly_, if he must, emigrate to
the public lands in the West, pre-empt a farm, and enjoy the rights of
citizenship under a republican form of government, of which he is an
integral part, and be represented in Congress by one elected by a
majority of legal voters, and not by a minority of rebels, as is now
the case in large Republican districts in the Southern States.
For obvious reasons, we pray the freedmen, in Christ's stead, to be
reconciled to the last proposition, and in every county and town where
their political rights are ignored by a rebel Democracy, let them form
colonies under a chosen leader and emigrate West. If they cannot go
without assistance, let that fact be communicated to us, and we will
appeal to the people of the North to furnish them the means to do so.
It will be readily perceived that the converse of all this will be, that
the landed aristocracy of the South must pay their laborers honest
wages, recognize their constitutional rights as citizens of this
Republic, acknowledge the ownership of their capital, which means the
fruits of their labor (land and labor being co-operative capital,
neither being available or profitable without the other), or, otherwise,
the land-owners must submit to the loss of their laborers by emigration,
perform their own labor, or employ foreign emigrants.