Viewing page 325 of 326

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

and of course it must be this year. They say that the negroes should not be armed, as they might be led to commit some lawless act, and in fact Governor Sharkey himself thought the Freedmen should not be armed as soon collision might occur. I told him that no fears need be entertained; that if the Freedmen were let alone nothing could occur.

That under the Constitution they were protected in person and property, and that they owned their Shot–guns and revolvers, and had a right to keep them so long as they did not abuse that right by acts of violence and wrong, and that in my judgement the negro had no more right to be disarmed then the hordes of prowlers throughout the country, who infest the highways. I have been informed that the State Militia have in many instances deprive the blacks of their arms in certain neighborhoods, on suspicion that something would happen, which act is unwarranted altogether.

I have heard of no abuse on their part as yet. The idea of an insurrection is of no moment,