The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-03-17
The Practical Results Of Negro Eman-
cipatiOn.


cipation.
The sorrows entailed by o single sin
were never more strikingly displayed than
ton, which should be final expression Of
repentance and the closing act of redress,
is only the first link in chain of increas-
ing difficulties. The Americansare already
finding this out, and it must be poor en-
couragement to them 20 observe the actual
condition to which thirty years of similar
trial have brought Jamaica. The abolition
OF slavery in any country opens new
question. which, we may say without exas-
geration, has never yet been solved at ali.
No experience has shown us how to con-
duct u population of liberated blacks to
good social or political position In Hayti,
we see the end of negro independence; in
Jamaica, of negro liberty. the natural
desire OF all Abolitionists is to convert the
slave into free laborer-the equal, in that
respect, of white man. But the emanci-
patcd slave, partly from naural revul-
sion OF feeling, and partly fronth ineradi-
cable instincts OF race, has MT disposition
to become q laborer at all. Ee is incapa-
BILE of appreciating q condition Of freedom
which leaves him under as much necessity
to work as before. The question has uni
formly been argued upon tho assumption
that as free labor cheerfully given is more
of the blacks, in their new caplcity of free
dom, would actually be more valuable than
before, so that no arrangement Of indus
trial interests could follow upon emancipa-
ton. This would be truo enough if the ne
gro resembled the European in his wants
or his disposition; but there is no such
analogy between the two. Ore volunteer
is worth two pressed men, nc doubt; but
the black, when he ceases to be q pressed
man, does not become volunteer. He
will work for nothing but the necessary
satisfaction of his bodily wants, and as
these wants are on the smallest possible
scale, it follows that of his own free will he
Will hardly work at all. We have seen the
problem brought to its practical end in
Jamaica step by step. When the slaves
were first emancipated provisions were
enacted for substituting certain orsaniza-
lions OF labor in the place Of slavery; but
the negroes rebelled against this species eff
compulsion; their whitepatrons applauded
their conduct, and apprenticeship, in all
its successive forms, was ultimately abo-
lished also, as mere slavery in disguise" ="
With the exception of a few plantations on
the sea-shore, the estates went out of cul-
tivation altogether. A result which in our
economical discussions at home is only
sreculativcly contemplated, as the effect of
final rupture between capital and labor
did in LsSuaica, act1xlly occur. Agricul-
ture was given up altogether. The owners
or occupiers of estates actually found that
a most productive soil in one of the finest
climates in the world, would not repay the
cost Of farming on The terms of black labor
and they showed the reality Of their conclu-
sions in a most practical way. They let
their land go to waste, and the property
and produce of the soil were lost together.
jamaica at this minute, imports food for
it's population, though it is rich enough
and fertile enough to support five times
that population from its own products.
in America we seem to see the first step
misfortune. Emancipation has come, and
is a reality. Nobody, even in New Eng
land, has any suspicion that the people of
the South so much as dream Of the re-
establishment of personal slavery. But
the people of the North are not content
with this. An active party among them is
already clamoring for additional securities
on the negro's behalf. They are provid
ing, by anticipation, against slavery in
Disguise though they cannot tell how to
set about the work. On the other hand,
the officers on the spot, who have got the
blacks under their personal observation,
and can discern the nature of the emer-
gency, are proceeding very much in the
fashion of the Jamaica Legislature in times
past. The Freedmen's Bureau-that is to
say, the board charged especially with the
protection of the negro-has issued orders,
in the case of Georgia, that the negroes,
when sufficient wages are offered, shall
make contracts for labor, and it under
takes TO insure the execution Of these con-
tracts, when duly made, by compelling the
blacks, if necessary, TO perform their work
This is the apprentice system, or, rather,
it is something far more like actual
c1oNy nr|o ,,ol, - I.
adopted in all the States Of the South, are
correctly described, the American negro,
though he can no longer be bought and
sold outright, will still be held to ssinvol-
untary servitude." If any Southern plan
ter by virtue Of rendering what in the eyes
of magistrate may appear a sufficient
sum OF money Is to be enabled to carry off
any number of blacks to his estate, there
to work whether they will or not, the ssdis-
guise" Of slavery will be very thin indeed.
In Jamaica our colonists were not even
permitted to make contracts for labor with
black volunteers, or to bind a negro to con-
tinuous work by the terms of an ordinary
apprenticeship. The patrons of the blacks
prescribed every element of coercion, ex-
cept that arising from the wants of the
body-a stimulus which, in the case before
them, had no existence at ali.
We may expect with some confidence
that the New Englanders will protest
against this official decree, but what is to
be the alternative? Without coercion in
some form or other, the negro will do no
regular work. If he can but squat and
sleep, and still keep body and soul toge-
ther, that will be his course. At present,
he cannot quite do so, but he is assisted
for the moment by daily rations of food
doled out to him by the State This, how
ever, cannot last, nor is it very probable
that the blacks will be allowed in America
the peculiar advantage which fell to their
lot IN Jamaica. In that island, the en-
franchised negro got direct benefit from
his own incidence. When the cultivation