Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-02-04
THE CONDITION OF THE FREEDMEN.


ordinations. Itseemcd to US that those who favor
and those who may regret the policy Of immsdi-
ate emancipation were alike bound by the most
elementary considerations of humanity to mitigate
ss far as possible, the suerngs of this laboring
land!ess, and homeless GLASS;" As the President
calls them. II appears, however, that we we're
mistaken in our calculations as far as regards those
who are foremost in asserting the advantages of
the policy which looks to the immediate liberation
of the slaves The journals which advocate that
policy, as not only military necessity but civil
blessing, have, in most cases, far as was practi
cable, ignored all aocounts Of the nsufferings said
to be endured by the "loyal Blacks" as though,
forsooth, those saferings could be relieved by
closing the eye Of philanthropy" to their OBJ
servation. And this benevolent insoucsaace is
defended by the following economic consideration,
AS we find it stated in recent number Of the
New York Evening Post, when referring to leo
ture delivered in Brooklyn few days ago by the
Rev. DR.. HITcHoooK Under the head of "a
Question Answered the Post says:
Rev. DR.. Hitchcock, in lecture on DUTY and Des
tiny, delivered in Brooklyn before the Long Island His
torca Society met the question of What shall be done
with four millions OF emancpated slavesf by asking
What shall be done with all the red -whiskered men, ali
the bueeyed men, all the white-haired menf This aues
on no added sensible the other and both were
the same kind OF seDse-which was nonsense. He con
ceved that there was no difficulty in answering either
query; the freed blacks like the free whites would do
honest work for honest pay. SO that problem would
solve itself The issue Of this war he said, t. be
chaos COSMOS and he thought would be COSMOS The
lecture abounded in telling hits and very general desire
was expressed for it's repetition"
We have no doubt, from recent indications, that
it is the disposition and the purpose Of those for
whom the Post speaks to let !" the problem solve
ITSELF" And how the problem is solving itself we
daily read in the pathetic accounts furnished BY
army chaplans, and. by the agents Of the Sanitary
and Christian Commissions, imploring the people
of the Loyal States to do something for the relief
Of the suffering blacks 1t is truly said by one of
our contemporaries (Which has not yet learned to
steel its heart against the cry Of want while per-
petually uttering great swelling words Of phian-
thropy) that no humane man can read of the
condition of the feed Africans scattered along the
Mississippi from Cairo to Natchez without shud-
der Nothing in the bArracoons Of the African
coast; nothing in descriptions Of the horrors of
the middle passage; nothing in the worst cases of
cruel treatment Of field slaves by inhuman over
seeis, can surpass this awful record of hunger,
starvation, and death. The system of slave labor
was an evil most grievous to be borne, but the
tender mercies of military emancipation, when
combined with the conscription of the able-bodied
blacks and the evils of the lessee system of labor,
are cruel as compared with the hardships of
slavery. And, just in proportion to mems abhor-
renee of slavery for its Affections and its woes,
would be, we might suppose, their desire to avoid
q solution Of the problem" which, as now left
to itself, causes the negro to pine for the flesh
pots" of servitude.
Mr.. YEATMAN, the President of the Western
Sanitary Commission, well known to us for the
sobriety of his Words reports that there are 25 900
freed Africans gathered in camps and towns along
the Mississippi river; that in Memphis the treat
ment which the negro receives from Government
agents. contractors, and plantation lessees is such
that /" he feels that he has exchanged one master
for many masters, and he sghs to return to his
former home and master" that in Northeastern
Louisiana the negroes complain that they are
hired out to men who treat them, so far as pro-
viding for them is concerned, far worse than their
secesh masters did !" that majority of the
plantation lessees are "adventurers, camp follow
ers, and army sharks !" that at Young's Point
there are more squad poverty and destitution than
in any place visited with "sickness and death
frightful )" that at De Soto the Government had
furnished no rations to the starving negroes for
more than two weeks; that at Natchez many Of
the negroes bad returned to their masters on ac-
count of suffering in the Government camps, which
had by deaths been reduced from 1000 to 2, 100.
Mr.. YEATMAN concludes his report as follows:
There are doubtless some points and camps which
have overlooked. endeavored to procure all the infor
nation could and in the progress of my Investigations
destitute great and important it s s secondary to
some other things, and the injustice with which the freed
are treated, the continuing them in state Of invo
untary servitude than that from rkich then hare
escaped made desrous Of returning presenting the
subjrc TO the commission.
III the freedmen wsh to contract their labor let them
do il Themselves and mot be hired against their sois
persons for phom they riiiug TO ,oork These
people should be educated up and made to real 10 their
condition Their masters sold them or hired them
out fed them and clothed them let them now hire them
selves out and with their wages buy their food and
clothing and supply all their other wants. If they are
hired against their Wills and fed and clothed
before they do not realize that they free men II
only appears to them change of masers and that for
the worse for before the masters interest prompted him
to feed and cothe them WELL to supply physician and
medicines, and 10 take care of them when sick"
And it ia In the face of such representations that