Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1859-03-03
THE FREE NEGRO QUESTION.

laE fhEE NEGRO QUESlION.
Our readers will remember that the letter of
Col. Jacobs recently copied into our paper, in
sists that the only remedy to cure the evil of
Free-negroism is Punishment, or an utter sub
lection of the free negroes to the power of the
dominent and superior race In reviewing the
letter of Col. Jacobs, the editor of the Maryland
Union says:
While we agree with COL Jacobs in his main
proposition, we are not prepared to g. with him
to the results, which he appears to consider as
the logical consequences Of them.
The Punishment Of the free negro would, we
think, be productive of great evils. 1t would
create vacuum of labor which would speedily
be filled up by free laborers from the North, and
the State would then in few years be aboll-
tionized. Instead of 10000 free negroes we
should have 10000 free whites, who would con-
troll elections, and drive out slavery without any
difficulty.
On the other hand we are confident that mea-
sures may be devised, to retain the free negroes,
and to make them acork. That is the great pro-
blem, and we believe it may be solved.
In the first place the great difficulty of en-
forcing any law lies in the under current Of
public opinion which runs against it. AS long
as sick men and weak minded women are allow
led to compromise with their consciences, by e.
mancipatng their servants by will, or after they
have gotten their greatest value out of them,
Just SO long will public opinion be unsound on
slavery. If the State allows man to REGARD a
servant by emancipatng him, just so long does
the State assert that emancipation is an aou0n-
tage to the servant. 1t is REGARD to him.
Public opinion therefore must be corrected and
) reformed by shaping it at its source The State
must forbid emancipation, and thus say to its
citizens that it believes emancipation is in
Jury to the negro and the white man.
This being accomplished we have yet to
see person who is not in favor Of it,-emanci-
patton being cut up by the roots and the milk
an water philanthropy of Wherefore repudiat-
ed, we can take a start in the right direction.
The free negro population of this State is over
10000. Of that number, one half do not earn
their bread, and the tax imposed upon counties,
by costs of criminal prosecutions Of them, and
municipalities by assessments for their support,
and the agricultural community for their living,
surpasses even the large estimation commonly
put upon it, They are daily sinking into great
depths of degradation and immortality, and the
; exceptions which are seen to the general rule,
will almost always be found to be those negroes
who have been set free from pious and indus
trious families, or the children of such. Self
sustaining virtue and energy does not descend to
the third generation, IN one case out Of a hun
dred. And yet every one of these free negroes
has descended from industrious and useful pro-
genitors. 1t ought to be our aim to restore them
to their original position. To Danish them,
would be to exterminate them, for the census
shows that the negro cannot live in the North,
and to the North they would have to 60.
We ought not to Danish them, and on the
other hand, we cannot at once reduce them to
no cfo4o RI no Will tbo
man from which they have emerged. Such
revolution must be gradual. Public opinion
, must be prepared for it, and public sentiment
ripened, legislation, discussion, thought must be
n Tsf VII Win THIS IS 1hcabds Of ffee ne
groism removed and restored to her position
among the Federal States, her social organiza-
ton matured, and her domestic relations estab-
' lished on sure and sound basis:
) From the best reflection we have been able to
give the subject we suggest that the following
measures be discussed before the Convention that
I is to meet in Baltimore in June next.
That trial in the Circuit Courts for all offences
not involving life, for free negroes, be abolished,
and that all offences not capital, perpetrated by
negroes be cognizable before Justices of the
Peace, and that the punishment therefor be a
, term of servitude according to the magnitude of
the offence. That all children born during any
term of servitude created by law, belong to the
owner of the term.
That all owners of slaves or servants allow
ing them to 60 at large be answerable for neces-
saries furnished to such slaves servants, suf-
fcient for their support. That poll tax be
levied on each free negro according to a census
to be made, and that the Sheriffs be made re-
sponsible for it's collection to be enforced by sale
Of the negroes on whom it is levied. And that
each negro be obliged to procure some white
person, who shall give bond to be responsible
for his support, and to have the sole right to
hire out said negro, and to appropriate the pro-
ceels of such hiring to the support of such ne
gro or his family; the bond to be responsible to
all who furnish the negro with necessaries to a
certain amount and to the negro for the proper
application Of the proceeds Of his hiring.
l That in case any free negro fails to give such
bond and that it shall be the duty of the Sheriff
to see that every one does So the official bond of
the Sheriff shall be liable as the guardian of said
| negro, but that the Sheriff may relieve himself
l from such responsibility by hiring out any ne
: gro for any term that may be necessary.
Or that instead of these obligations being i'm
posed On the Sheriff as to the collection Of the
l tax, and the giving of Bonds, that the Governor
appoint one guardian Of free negroes for each
e county, who shall give bond, and enforce the
law.
The propositions above suggested may be
: somewhat difficult to arrange in detail, but we
submit them with the decided inclination in our
2 minds that they point out the proper policy
2 and embody in the main the appropriate rene
t dy.
PRINCE GEORGES AND ALExANDRIA.-A cor
respondent of the Alexandria Gazette takes a
new view of the railroad question" by which
that city has been lately so much exercised
], He does not see why all the connections north
S ward, should, necessarily pass through Wash