The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-05
Toe Freedmen and the Right to Own Land.

2 &c Freedmen and the Right to Own Land.
Iynst he TINES.
ltis reported on good authority that some of
tle Legislatures of the lately insurgent States
have pass cd laws to prevent the freed blacks
ilom holCing real estate. We cannot well con
celye a measure more disastrous to the future
productive interests of those States, or more
unjust in ITSELF All economists agree that the
holding OF land has a remarkable moral and,
therefore, industrial effect on the peasantry OF a
country especially if the land be not too much
subdivided, so that each person can secure O fair
/ livelihood Il m his little plot.
The hope possessing land is one of the most
powerful motives acting on the human mind.
It IS often 4 hope and desire which bring over
such crowd emigTants from Europe. They
push on to rds the West, with the prospect
Ca ch OF sat,sf lg his passion for owning some
portion OF T. mother-earth. Our Government
have wisely J. we'd upon this motive in the free
homestead J. which has undoubtedly been
the creates e: engagement to immigration ever
devi, ed in hi )untry. The possession of sufi
CIeDt land les and dign6es a peasantry
Let any one g. Jare the Irish tenant, or even
the small In ltter, at home with the Irish
farmer in Z "a. He is another man here.
He owns Ian, / enough to support him and
give him tion. In Ireland he is poor,
thriitless de- ID and without hope. Here
he is comfo saving full of energy and
ambitious to l.s Or compare the French pea
SAINT who has Ii tile holding, on which he can
live, with tue spending English peasant or
Irish cOtter. producing and owned by
himself has /, him Tar above his neiehbors
across the Cha This motive and its gratif-
cation act pt, .ly on q low and barbarous
race. The bI ave found its use, especially
in the admin on OF India. They raised
ow race at onC securing them in the owner
ship of land.
The negro liarly affected by it. He is
especially L. lg producer. He sticks to
ais around. be held on bad tenure, If
2e is liable at o. time to be turned out, and
especially il he 5 / permitted to hope tor or to
own real es,a - ... naturally loses his greatest
impulse to | Governor Hincks, of Barba-
dos, IN a aml.. lie despatch, once said:-"l
have long be ne opinion that the abandon
ment OF the S.. states by the Creole laborers
in many OF tn 1t India colonies is mainly to
be attributed he unsound tenure of the
estates at the ID of emancipation, under the
mistaken idea , eeping the aborers IN a state
of dependency the proprietors.n And again,
~ believe thai at the period of emancipation,
the small allO ITS had been granted in free
hold to labor T. - even sold to them at prices
a low as the, c Id get land elsewhere, and ii,
at the same tih. encouragement had been given
to tlem, tneIe Ould have been little, if any,
i,bC donment Of the estates"
CLe OF the .reatest causes of the distress
a.; aoug the ia. aica blacks and of the late riot
T. the tenure OF land.
)lt o. a population of some 450000 only some
j ers ons elected the torty-seven members of
t legislature; that is, the 10000 whites gov
{ e. absolutely the hundreds Of thousands OF
l. / !, and naturally they passed their own land
g, and made it very difficult for negro TO
and or t. hold it on long lease. AS a
{, ruueace, he had not the same motive to
Z ss his cuuntrymen had in the Barbados
- lie 4eward and WINDY ward Islands. He
re, qUatting" to the chances of being
Oh On his little farm every SIX months;
,-TcoLt d the large estates i'll distrust; he
t.l Less nrufitnhp nrO0uciiOuS and n
without hope; he and his employer
are indissolubly connected together)
er each year, until the richest island
icS became like raDbit-Warren, and
race in the world not only could not
+. Is to wear but absolutely were too
Duv enough to hide their nakedness.
not in this forget other causes which
J ought about such great disasters IN
a. especially the distrust which an infe
L ignorant race must always have
e. q superior, if kept from all share in the
{ Hent, but we believe the most efficient
c. yi the poverty of Jamaica, its distress
a. late slavery outbreak, has been the
te ~ land, and the tact that the freedmen
h; been, IN general, landowners. We would
he. these warnings to any reasonable man
a g. South who can possibly rise above the
pa l.s of the hour, and who would provide
foI he future, that the South can became
riC and powerful and prosperous again. They
ma have the destinles of the Southern States
in heir hands They caa, perhaps, decide
whc ler they Will have a contented industrious
imp owing peasantry, owning lands, and cqua
beio tc the law, making employers rich, anC
ath citing capital by their productive industry
or tney can have a discontented, degenerating,
suspCious, thriftless hopeless and half idle
peasantry, who VIII drag masters and land dowI
to their own state OF degradation, and repe
in migration and capital. They can make (pos
sibly) poor Jamaica or rich Barbados olt o
the old slave States.
PeOnage in Mexico.
Eroso he Tribune.