The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1844-08-09


p, on; those are now living who will sec
: the last of negro slavery in the United
B. States.
: But when this time shall have come,
what is 10 be the lot Of the negroes In
d 1887, when their value has become ques.
nonable, hey will number eight and q
5 half millions: by the year 1896, the pc.
ROD before which the emancipation mus,
take place, they will equal twenty -four
: millions of souls. What is To be done in
the next forly-ihree years with these
eight millions and half of unproductive
1 laborers; what in the next eighty-two,
, with these twen,y.lour millions of pau
, pers
, Here arithmetic fails. Shall they be
; emanclpated on the soil that bred them !
lhey will cover II with pauperism, with
rapne and desoation. Their masters,
impoverished by the depreciation and u-
'lnate destruction of their property, with
plantations encountered and incapable of
profitable culture,--how are they to sup
port in the poor house or by parochial re-
lief those who before constituted their
wealth
Shall they be retained in bondage
The slaves of bankrupt masters, value
less themselves 1t is only to levy in a
different form an insupportable tax for
pauperlsm on those who themselves are
paupers.
Shall they be invited to migrate 10 the
north and west? Ohio has already closed
her door against them by laws making it
penal to introduce free negro without
indemniiying the state against the risk
OF his becoming pauper. Pennsylvania
has amended her constitution so as to pre-.
clude the possibility Of any but white
man becoming citizen. In the eastern
and more northern states, and in Canada,
where this philanthropy is most rife, the
negro cannot live; the climate destroys
him. In Massachusetts, though the ne
gro and the white man are equally free
men and citizens there, of three quarters
OF million OF inhabitants but eight thou
sand are negroes.
What, then, is to be the raio nf the nc.
gro of our southern states! Remain as
he is, he cannot. His condition must
change-but what is the change to be
Where Is he TO go-whal to be his con-
dilIon Three-lourlhs of century, and
the question will have been decided, for
good or for evil. Nor can we blind our
selves to lis consequences, either to our
southern brethren or to the Union, TO
the white man or to the negro.
but Is there no escape from the evils
that lmpend upon the emancipation of the
southern slaves Is this great moral
good to be purchased only by horrors at
which humanity sickens Let him that
believes in the watchluness of Provl-
dence. or lis wisdom, or its power, trem-
bic in view Of the calamlties that are be-
fore us; community ruined and hope
less,-a seville war, with its bloody |
hearihstones and dcsccraled alters,-a
desoIated empire. Blu, to those who |
have faithfully marked the dispensations
Of The Most High, no crisis, present or
prospective, can bring despair.
The Republic of Texas, that now sues
for admission into the American Union, !
skirts on the one side the southern line of
the Emitted States, and on the other
stretches along the expanded frontier of
Mexico. The climate Of this last named
country is the most favorable Of the whole
globe for the development of the negro
race more uniformly mild than the north
or west, more salubrIous than Africa, and
with sol! spontaneously productive.
There, and in Central America, and in
the vast regions still further south, the ne
gro is already a freeman, socially as
well as politically. the equal Of the white.
Nine.tenihs of the population there is
made up Of the colored races the gene
rails, the congressman, the presidents, are
men Of mixed blood.
Let the omancipatcd negro find himself
on the borders of Mexico and the states
beyond, and his fate is no longer doubt
ful or gloomy. lie is near the land Of
his fellows, where equal rights aud equal
hopes await him and his offspring.
Nor does it require the mysterious
foresight of prophet 10 mark out the We.
ry steps by which he is to arrive there.
The negro is less valuable as Il laborcr in
the north than in the south he exuis in
the sunshine of the tropics, and shrnks
before The bracing winter of more tenn
perate latitude. The slave, too is less va
liable as he approaches the confines of d
free state. Exaggera,ing the happiness
Of that Incidence which he regards as the
of liberty, and aware of the
possibility of escape into country where