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and justice is to become better informed as to what are their rights and what is just. But very few complaints have been made during the last month of unjust treatment or ill usage. The authorities have been better disposed to hear their complaints and treat them with fairness than formerly, and the Freedmen have learned how and where to make their complaints. No complaints have been made of unfairness in trials where Freedmen were interested parties. Seven sentences have been pronounced upon several who have been found guilty of petty crimes under a mistaken idea that "the Negro could only be governed by being kept in servile fear". The sentiment of the community is adverse to the improvement of the Blacks by educating him or giving him equal advantages with the whites. This can be corrected only by a more general diffusion of the Northern sentiment, against this the people labor with all their might, and while asking Northern capital to improve their Cities and Towns they ask it on conditions that the sentiments of the north regarding labor and intelligence are left behind. The Freedmen can expect to make but little advancement until such change is made in the Statutes as will make them fully equal before the law in all Civil matters and will place no other restraint upon the industry and enterprise of the poor laborer than is placed upon a rich land owner. 
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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-03 18:16:44