The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1862-12-10

increases faster than unpaid interest
accumulates on its debt. This fact would
be no excuse for delaying the payment of
what is justly due, but it shows the great
Importance of time in this connection,
the great advantage of policy by which
we shall not have to pay until we number
hundred millions, what by different
policy we should have to pay now, when
the number is but 31,000,000. In a
word, it shows that dollar will be much
harder to pay for the war than will be a
dollar for emancipation on the proposed
plan-and then the latter will cost no
blood no precious life. It will be a
saving of both.
As to the second article, I think it
would be impracticable to return to
bondage the class of persons therein
contemplated. Some of them doubtless,
In the property sense, belong to loyal
owners, and hence provision is made in
this article for compensating such.
The third article relates to the future
of the freed people. It does not oblige,
but merely authorizes, Congress to aid in
colonizing such as may consent. This
ought not to be regarded as Objectionable
on the one hand or on the other, insomuch
as it comes to nothing unless by mutual
consent of the people to be deported and
the American voters, throug their repre-.
sentatives in Congress.
I cannot make it better known than it
already is that 1 strongly favor colonial
ton, and yet | wish to say there is an
objection urged against the colored
persons remaining in the country which
is largely imaginary, if not sometimes
malicious. It is insisted that their
presence would injure and displace white
labor and white laborers. If there ever
could be a proper time for mere argu-
ments, that time surely is not now. In
times like the present, men should utter
nothing for which they would not will
lingly be responsible through time and
eternity.
Is it true, then, that celored people can
displace any more white labor by being
free than remaining slavesH Ifthey stay
in their old places, they jostle no white
labores. If they leave their old places,
they leave them open to white labors.-
Logically, there is neither more nor less
of it. Emancipation, even without de-
portation, would probably enhance the
wages of white labor, and very surely
would not reduce them. Thus the Gus
tomary amount of labor would still have
to be performed. The freed people would
surely not do more than their old proper
tion of it, and very propably for time
would do loss, leaving an increased part
to white laborers, bringing their labor into
greater demand, and consequently en-
hancing the wages oft. With deportation,
even to limited extent, enhancing wages
to white labor is automatically certain.
Labor IS like any other commodity in the
market increase the demand for it, and
you increase the price of it. Reduce the
supply of black labor by colonizing the
black laborers out of the country, and by
precisely so much hyouincrease the. demand
for and wages of white labor. But it is
dreaded that the freed people will swarm
. forth and cover the whole land. Are
they not already in the land? Will
liberation make them any more numerous?
Equally distributed among the whites of
the whole country, there would be but
one colored to seven whites. Could the
one in any way greatly disturb the seven?
There are many communities now
having more than one free colored person
to seven whites, and this without any
apparent consciousness of evil from it.
The District of Columbia, and the States
of Maryland and Delaware are all in this
condition. The District has more than
one free colored person to six whites ; and
yet in its frequent petitions to Congress,
I believe it has never presented the
presence of free colored persons as one of
its grievances.
But why should Emancipation South
send the freed people North? People of
any color seldom run unless there be
something to run from. Heretofore,
colerod people to some extent have fed
North from bondage, and now perhaps
from both bondage and destituton !; but
if Gradual Emancipation or deportation
be adopted, they will have neither to fee
from. Their old masters will give them
wages, at least until new laborers can be
procured and the freed men will gladly
give their labor for the wages till new
homes can be found for them in congenial
climes and with people of their own
} blood and race.
This proposition can be trusted to the mu-
tual interests involved, and in any event, can
not the North decide for itself whether to re-
ceive them? Again, as practice proves more
, than theory in any case, has there been any
irruption of colored people northwiard be-
cause of the abolishment of Slavery in this
District last Spring.
, What have said of the proportion of free