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[[illegible]] in 1860.  [[illegible]] control its
[[illegible]] to its own, [[illegible]] far from it. The [[illegible]] Southern States [[illegible]]  and overthrown. [[illegible]] have been as disastrous to [[illegible]] most malignant foes could [[illegible]] or desired.  If sectional hatred [[illegible]] cease, and reason and justice [[illegible]] fanaticism and folly, then the [[illegible]] and misfortunes of the South will [[illegible]], but until then the South will have
neither peace or prosperity.
A FRIEND OF JUSTICE.

What Shall be Done with the Negro?
Is the question which now absorbs the public mind, rendering all others comparatively insignificant.  Look not for peace and tranquility at the South until this subject be satisfactorily adjusted.  Negro suffrage is of less importance to them than negro labor, for on the latter their very existence depends.  Of what value is land without the means of cultivating it?
I am willing to admit, what others deny, that a large proportion of the Northern mind was actuated by motive of the purest philanthropy in advocating emancipation.  They little anticipated the wide-spread ruin that has involved so many families, once living in comfort and even affluence.  Do not attribute this to the war--the war has done much, but not all.  The negroes represented property to a large amount; these gone, the land must come under the hammer.  Many widows and orphans derived their support from the hire of negroes; they are now reduced to want.
Nor did those philanthropists imagine that the boon of freedom would prove anything but a blessing to the negro.  They could not look through the distance and see the squalor, wretchedness, disease, starvation and death from many causes, that has already befallen them.  Letters are pouring in from the South which confirm all this.  The race will soon be swept from existence unless something like law and order be restored to a distracted people.  Alas, alas!  the mortality has been fearful.
We of the Eastern Shore of Virginia have gone through the terrible ordeal consequent upon the sudden liberation of the laboring class.  How different would have been the result had the act of emancipation been prospective and its operation gradual, so that time be allowed to prepare for the new order of things; but no, the negroes were suddenly told they were all free.  Immediately the wildest excitement among them prevailed.  They wandered away, leaving many families without a single servant, and for no cause whatever but the love of change.  No matter how kindly treated nor how liberal the wages offered; it did not look like freedom to remain in their former homes.  Therefore they crowded together a score or more in small huts unfit to receive one fourth the number, whiling away the time in sloth and sleep, the negro's bliss; subsisting by plunder; robbing corn cribs, meat, and poultry houses, stealing hogs and cattle, and pilfering the growing crops.  More of these depredations were committed within a twelvemonth than during the preceding twenty years.  Property nowhere was held secure, and the deepest anxiety prevailed; despair seized upon every one, all further efforts seemed vain, and had this state of things continued, there would not have been grain raised to feed the people.
We had also domestic troubles.  Many families were without sufficient help--some had none.  Ladies of refinement and education had to perform the most menial offices; gentlemen unused to labor, unskilled with the ax, were obliged  to go to the woods to provide the Winter's fuel.  
We had other severe trials.  A negro was not only as good as a white man but something better; his word went further.
Mr. Dennis' cook refused to get the breakfast or leave her seat before the fire.  He slapped her cheek; a white man witnessed it; she complained to the provost marshal, saying Mr. Dennis had dragged her out of doors by her hair and beat her cruelly.  Mr. Dennis was arrested, incarcerated in a filthy jail all night, and the next day made to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars!
Mrs, Stephons lost her pet lamb; her husband 

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if any, of every negro in his employment, and also of every one living on his land.  The citizens will gladly co-operate in any measure of the kind and in two weeks a correct census will be obtained.  
These scrips the Supervisor will enter in a book alphabeticezed, with columns ruled to show all these particulars, with one for the number of the scrip, and also a column for the number of the contract to be mentioned directly.
An order is then issued requiring every negro over twelve years of age immediately to provide a home among the farmers, the terms to be settled by the parties.  The agreement is to be reduced to writing, suitable printed blank forms being provided for the purpose, signed by the parties before a witness, and handed to the Superintendent, to be numbered and entered in the alphabet, as above mentioned, census scrip and agreement filed numerically for ready reference.  It is best to let the alphabet show the name of the owner, with his former servants beneath.  Here are a hundred Bills and as many Bettys, but everybody knows Mr. Tyler's Bill.  The negroes all have a second name, but not even their master knows it.
By running the eye down the column every negro not hired out is seen at once.
A fee of two dollars is paid to the Superintendent for each agreement of one year.  One dollar for six months, and fifty cents for a less period.  He makes a semi-monthly report, and pays over all funds to the General Superintendent.
Any person harboring or employing a negro already hired to another, shall pay a fine of $25.  This is necessary to keep the negroes to their engagement.
Any person harboring a negro not provided with a permanent home, shall pay a fine of $25, unless he reports the case to the Supervisor.
You have now raised a sum sufficient to provide for the aged and infirm, and those not able to support themselves.  How is it to be employed?  Therein we made a great mistake.  One of the abandoned farms was fitted up with buildings, stores and other things necessary at a cost that soon exhausted the entire fund before the year was half gone.  The place is also a nuisance to all living within five miles of it, for pigs and poultry, corn and cotton are sure to suffer by their nightly depredations.
A much better plan may be copied from that which has subsisted here from the time immemorial; it is to let them choose their own homes and their support be paid for.
Take a plain case.  Here is a man with his wife and five children, the eldest ten years old.  No one will agree to feed these seven persons and give sufficient wages to clothe all.  The deficiency, then, must be found somewhere.  The "fund" already mentioned, will do this at less expense, with less trouble, and less injury to others than any plan that can be devised.
A healthy, middle aged woman is worth $50 a year, and fed; but with a child her services are depreciated $10, leaving $40.  To clothe and feed the child will cost $25, leaving but $15 to clothe the woman--not enough.  The "hand" will pay $20 to the farmer, who will engage to feed and clothe mother and child.  For each additional child, pay $25.  Thus for a woman and two children, pay $45; with three children, $70; four children, $95; five children, $120.
Many old men too inform to work in the field are yet useful as gardeners, fishermen, oystermen--these would readily find homes and support for such services as they can render. The totally helpless, of which there are but few, would be taken for $75.  Payments to be made in June and December, the superintendent being first satisfied that all stipulations have been fulfilled.  The chargeable will select their own homes.
For medical attendance, arrangement could be made with the resident physician in each section, to attend the chargeables for a specific sum to be agreed upon.
Such a system of organized labor would restore order and harmony within a month after it had gone into operation wherever adopted.
There are some unwelcome truths which you of the North have to learn, but which we of the South have known from long experience.  One is, the negro can be governed only by fear--fear of punishment; not that the punishment must be often resorted to, but there must, at least, be the fear of it.  Another is, the negro will not work, even for wages, unless compelled to do so.  Who, then, is to make him?  This brings up an important element in the whole scheme--the power necessary to compel both parties to comply with their agreement; for we here see all around us that the negroes will not remain at their homes when freed from all restraint.
There must be punishment of some kind for refusing to work, and acts of insubordination.  The jail will not do--they laugh at that, and boast when they come out of having had plenty to

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Reopened for Editing 2024-01-31 15:22:28