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to compel him to work for such pay and so much against his interest. I told him that he was free to choose his own employer, and to hire for just as long a time as he saw proper, and more than that his wife was entitled to pay and she could get it. 

This information was looked upon in a very unfavorable light by many in the neighborhood, who knew of the circumstances, and many said that it would be the cause of the Freedmen leaving their old homes, and that if the least inducement was held out for the black people to leave they would do so en masse.

I explained what we meant by staying at home, and that it was expected the Freedmen, if urged to stay at home, would be treated as human beings, and not the same rule applied to them as when slaves.

The fact is apparent as truth can be that they want the labor of the blacks, and cant do without it.  Yet they want it on the principle as of old, and their ideas of labor and the negro wont admit of their taking a sensible view of things as they exist.  Many
plans to systematize labor have been presented to me, all