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The freedmen are not unmindful of the fact that their old masters are longing for their "lost estates" as their equivalent and that they will seize upon all the means and every occasion through which to get back what they have lost and that too at the expense of the colored race. Some of the more intelligent of these people have explained the fear to me that the [[?]] by their own improvidence or [[carelessness?]] or through the political chicanery of the whites could restore to the whites the control of [[?]] legislation and by that means give them the power to regulate + control the labor of the freedmen— Such evidences of the fact that the colored man is awake to the importance of guarding jealously his rights + privileges convinces me that his exercise of the elective franchise will as a general thing betray at least as high an appreciation of the intents at stake as is characterized by the white mans note. 

The wonderful improvement they have made under the limited advantages

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-14 20:31:53