The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1862-11-07
FOUR MILLION FREED NEGROES
From the New York Times, Oct. "a. d..


From the New York Times Oct. o. r
THE PROBLEM SOLVED.
In our article yesterday we brought the
reader to the threshold of the mighty pro-
blem before the countrywide to do with
the four million slaves IN the South who
will shortly be enfranchised through the
Presidents proclamation. We have shown
that they will be AFFECT paupers, all with
out land, money, clothing, food, friends or
home. Was ever race OF people, in all
worlds history, found SO utterly poor, help
less, and hapless as they? How will they
live a month, week, or a day? By char
ity? BY whose charity? The southern
whites will have neither means nor charity
for them. The government, if it had both
means and charity, could not reach to help
one destitute in thousand. Shall they
subsist by thieving and plumber? God for
bid! For, although an ingenious casuistry
might argue such conduct no crime, as the
slaves labor had produced what he now
took to supply his necessities, the practical
effect on the slave of such licensed brigan-
dage would be fearfully demoralizing and
disastrous.
Besides, only the strong could steal and
take-while the young, the aged, the weak
the women, the children, the sick-hav-
ing no responsible husbands, fathers or
heads, would be left to perish without an
effort in their behalf! Where is the
statesman that can comprehend the terri
BILE impending revolution, and propose the
scheme that shall preserve the State, give
ordained liberty to man, and save four
millions OfOutcasts from perishing Where
is the Congress, with courage, capacity
and strength to accept the four million of
foundlings, babtize them in the nations
name, and rear them to usefulness without
ruin to society and government from the
drain +?
The time to organize is uO,c-for in sew
enty days the burden will be upon the
world and shall Europe, to the shame of
America, have to step in to save these
people from perishing? Just at this time
few simple dreamers, or selfish spectators,
come forward and propose, if they are
given few hundred dollars from the Treas
ury, to put few hundred liberated slaves
on shipboard, and sail to a foreign shore in
search of relief! And this scheme has
countenance, as if it were graphing with
the nations burden and loosing of its per-
plexity. -Four millions to be fed; and say
four hundred in this way provided for!
-Four millions landless and homeless, and a
few hundreds drifting away with political
adventures, on unknown seas, in search of
a home! Millions of dollars wanted to
keep life, labor and virtue in millions of
perishing people, and the national treasury
absorbed in the attempt to plant meagre
colony of hundreds!
The white population of the United
States cannot consent to these eXtravagant
and criminal experiments with the blacks
of the South. War for them-losses for
,hem-freedom for them-deportation for
them-fOOd for them-Central American
homes bought for them-agricultura i'm
plements and clothing for year for them
and all that they may become aliens for
ever from the land that has redeemed
them with price'-and that their labor
may build up the commerce and wealth of
any other nation under the sun than the
one which has lavished it's wealth and it's
priceless sons in the cause that has given
them the right to live and labor.
No, Mr.. POmeroy. No, Mr.. President.
The enfranchised blacks must find homes,
without circumnavigating the seas at the
national expense They must earn their
own bread, for the exhausted whites will
have nothing to spare They must find
their living at once, and in the United
States, or present soon picture of demon
aliZatiOn, destitutiOn and death that the
world has seldom seen. This manifest fact
seems to solve the problem we have been
turning before the public for its consid-
Grafton. Florida and Texas are at hand,
and million free homes may be had in
them for free blacks. They may be had
now, on the instant, without a dollar of
further expenditure from the national treas
ury. And million colored colonists can
go to them, without the purchase or char
ter of single transport ship. From the
beginning, every stroke of labor perform
ed by the free blacks in their Florida and
Texas homes will reduce to the benefit
and advancement of the United States.
Every seed they plant will swell American
commerce. Every thread they wear will
encourage American industry. In view
OF these considerations, can any wise man,
statesman, or patriot, hesitate as to the
duty of the government? Are the Amer
lean people to deport their labor and
leave their southern domains the wilder
nesses they have ever been Ask
them to make themselves poor in order
to send away labor, the prime element of
wealth, to enrich other lands? The thought
is unspeakably absurd. 1t is to ask them
to burn their harvest, to bury their treas
ures, to SOW their fertile fields with salt,
and yield up all claim to exist as nation
able to provide for the government and
welfare of the least part of the human race.
The New York Express processes to
to have reliable information from some Of