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The National Homestead, Settlement
AND 
LABOR AGENCY.


The fundamental idea and object of the agency is to render aid and assistance to the comparatively poor, irrespective of color, especially in the late rebellious States, in procuring for themselves homesteads and settlements, and employment, and thus promoting the prosperity and pacification of the country. 
The agency will in all cases act, as far as practicable, in every locality, through or in co-operation with local organizations, and procure the necessary legislation in each State, and thus throw around the operations of the agency and its auxiliaries, all legal sanctions and guarantees.
The agency will receive subscriptions for stock, in sums of not less than twenty-five dollars, in such companies, or for such specific purpose within the province of the agency, as the subscriber in each case may designate or will itself apply, if desired, the appropriation impartially, and having regard to the [page damaged] of all. 
The agency [[page damaged] and in tracts, and sell at cost prices, in small lots, to actual settlers for homesteads, not to exceed twenty acres to any one person, reserving one-third of the land of each tract purchased by the agency, for the benefit of the stock-holders, and for such disposition as they may see fit to make. 
In some cases, the agency will prepare the land for settlement, by the erection of humble tenements and dwellings thereon. 
It will be part of the duty of the agency to aid and facilitate the settlement of colored people upon such lands as government may assign to them for that purpose, and to equalize as far as possible, the distribution of colored labor at the South. 
The agency will exert itself to procure employment-agricultural, mechanical, commercial and domestic-for colored labor at home and abroad, and to supply colored labor for those who require it, in all parts of the country, and for this purpose will aid and facilitate as far as the public interests and the good of the race will warrant, home emigration to and from the States, and different portions of the same State, but without attempt at interference with the free choice of any colored person as to the place of his residence or his home. 
The Agency in the supply of colored laborers, will require the payment of transportation and necessary expenses in advance. 
The Agency will use its best endeavors in forming white and black settlements, without diversity of interests, and with community of interest between black and white laborers at the South, and so as to promote the interests of labor generally and the peace and prosperity of the whole country. 
The Agency will at once open offices in different parts of the country for the furtherance of its objects, and at once put in the field active and efficient men for a work so replete with interest and usefulness.  

Recd 20 Nov/65

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-28 19:26:54 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-28 21:59:14 Recd is abbreviation for "received" ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-29 13:00:56