Year: 1866

&C consideration.


Finally, a bill has been reported to Congress,
and is now under discussion, by which titles
granted under General Sherman's field order are
to be confirmed for three years.


j do not think, therefore, that l am risking
either an extreme or doubtful opinion when
say that the chiet cause of all our difficulty in
finding solution OF this question of labor pro-
ceeds from the action of the Government, en-.
COuraging the belief that the seacoast region OF
South Carolina is TO be confiscated in the haudS
OF Its owners for the purpose of establishing q
system OF Independent colonization for the freed
men.


If this is not so, then the interests of this
State require that this impression, so generally
prevailing, should be authOritatively corrected;
and that those who for purposes of personal in
terest or political agitation are endeavoring TO
prolong and to exaggerate the present embar-
easements of the State should be deprived OF so
effective means OF mischief. Ii it is So If un-
fortunately there should exist disposition to do
this great wrong and to inhlct this irreparable
injury upon the State, / would ask your atten-
ton to the following considerations:-Thi
policy can only be intended as reward to the
freedman or as punishment to the landowner.
The number of the freedmen so rewarded must
be very small IN proportion to the millions
whom the Government have enfranchised Upon
what principle are the few thousands VINO have
occupied, or who may occupy, these parishes of
South Carolina to be selected above their fellows
for such a reward? They consist chiefly of those
who remained on the plantations when their
masters removed, have enjoyed for years the
advantages of homes to live in and lands
to work. divided among themselves the sup
plies and household goods that were aban-
doned, and without contributing in the
slightest degree to the aid of Government,
have shrewdly benefited by the confusion of
civil war. The only addition to the original
population being the vag1ant negroes who with
out necessity, abandoned their own homes and
swarmed as camp followers in the rear OF Gen
eral Sherman's columns. So much for the reward.
As for the punishment, it is not a matter of
complaint that these estates being most exposed
should suffer most. That is the chance of war.
But when war has ceased its ravages, when
civil law, the same law for all, and above all,
resumes its authority, then individual penalty
can only be eXacted on general principles But
TO appropriate for condscation only those
lands which, by the accidents of military
strategy, have been occupied by the army, is to
punish by lottery. For more than four years
the owners of these lands, the first occupied by
the armies of the United States, have been pay
ing the penalty not so much of their crime as of
their situation.


Driven from home. deprived of all income
reduced in the vast majority of cases to poverty,
they are now selected as the victims of still
further punishment; while those equally in
voved with them In this revolution, who have
fortunately escaped the suffering of INVASION
are still exempt, only because they have not
suffered at ALL Can any reason be found why
planter on the coast, who was driven from his
home in 1861 or 1862 should now have his lands
appropriated for distribution, while his fellow
citizen of the middle or upper districts, whose
estates have been untouched, whose industry
has been undisturbe0, but who has participated
as fully and heartily in the war, shall be con-
frmed in the possession of his?


But whatever may be the motives of such a
policy, would ask your attention to its con-
sequences both upon the freedmen and the
State. And wish to be distinctly understood
as finding no fault with anytencouragement the
Government may wish to give to the natural
and, in many respects, commendable desire of
the freedman to become an independent land
owner. The policy OF which, as the represen-
tative of the State, complain, is the partial and
unjust confscation Of the property OF small
portion of her citizens including large number
of unoffendng widows and orphans, to be given
in the same spirit OF injustice ia which ii is
taken. to persons having no claim for special
consideration at your hands.


The mere introduction of the bill for confirm.
ing these titles has had an immediate and inu-
rlous effect 1t has checked the energy which
was beginning TO manifest itself, suspended the
contracts which were in progress arrested the
spirit with which the planters were preparing to
go TO work hopefully and heartily, and stopped
at once the investment of Northern capital,
which was beginning to find profitable employ
ment in Southern fields; and these effects are
not confined to the section of country directly
included in the bill, but extend far beyond to
contracts in distant neiehborhoods, and indeed
to the labor of the whole State.


Disastrous as | am persuaded this policy will
be to the freedmen, equally disastrous will it be
to the rest OF the State. As long as so large and
valuable portion of the State is set apart for
such a colonization as is proposed, so long will
there exist in the State a source of perpetual
disorganization of its labor. The freedmen of
the rest of the State will not understand, or be
reconCiIed to the fact, that while they are forced
to contract, and to contract for wages by no
means so liberal as can be paid at present prices
of cotton on the islands, that large bodies of
their fellows, without solitary advantage of
character or sc rvice, should be selected by the
Government for this unparalleled bounty. They
will work discontentedly, and whenever the
opportunity offers they will leave their homes
TOR these lands, which are offered without money
and without price.


Further than this, the separation of so essen
tial portion of the State, and its government
by the Freedmen's Bureau, will be the erection
in the State of government within a govern.
ment, will excite and foster that which It should
be the object of every wise and humane states
man TO eXunguish, a bitter and growing antago-
nism between the races who must live together
and except under the existence of martial law
will place the Government of the United States
and of the State in perpetual contradiction, and
involve them in constant and annoying incon-
sstencies.


This policy, too, deprives the State of the reve-
nue. and resources of the most valuable portion
of her territory at the very time when she needs
every dollar that she can raise and the use of
every industrial resource which she can develop.
1t interposes complete check upon the indus
try and enterprise of the interior, by shutting
out her Atlantic coast from the field of enterprise
and investment. 1t surrounds her commercial
metropolis with a country and a population
which cannot contribute to its development in
trade or add to its growth. 1t renders the rail
road connections which, before the war, con-
nected Charleston with Savannah and Whining
ton useless expenditures. In any other portion
of the State such an experiment would be disas-
trous-upon the sea-cOast of South Carolina it
must be fatal.


In submitting these views-which have been
forced to do under the pressure of constant
engagements-I have not been able to discuss