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Richmond Va. June 20th 1865

The anomalous condition of the colored population in our midst coincident with the termination of our lamentable civil war calls for the exercise of the highest faculties of the human mind as well as the noblest qualities of our nature to perfect some plan to prevent the boon of freedom extended to this lowly case by our Government from becoming a calamity to them and ruinous to the white inhabitants of the Southern states.

Doubtless many of the wisest, most sagacious and comprehensive minds of our whole country are at this time exhausting their resources of thought to devise the best plan for the intellectual and moral culture of this large and helpless class of beings and of placing them under such tutelage and guidance as will instruct and fit them for the duties and privileges of freemen-

Whilst this effort to promote the good of these unfortunates engages all the sympathies and hopes of this writer, he feels his entire incompetency to add a single thought not common to all reflecting minds on this momentous subject - Doubtless some plan having the sanction of Divine favor will be matured to compass the benign and vital objects in contemplation - There is however one subject deeply affecting the comfort and indeed involving the existence of this dependent class as well as the welfare of the whole community - to

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