f power and influence it possessed to protect the Negro race against all
dangers in respect to the fair expression of their wills at the polls,
which they apprehended might result from fraud, intimidation or
_bulldozing_ on the part of the whites. And as there could be no
liberty of action without freedom of thought, they demanded that all
elections should be fair and free and that no repressive measures should
be employed by the Negroes "to deprive their own race in part of the
fullest freedom in the exercise of the highest right of citizenship."[14]

The committee then recommended the abolition of the mischievous credit
system, called upon the Negroes to contradict false reports as to crimes
of the whites against them and, after considering the Negroes' right to
emigrate, urged that they proceed about it with reason. Ex-Governor Foote,
of Mississippi, submitted a plan to establish in every county a committee,
composed of men who had the confidence of both whites and blacks, to be
auxiliary to the public authorities, to listen to complaints and
arbitrate, advise, conciliate or prosecute, as each case should demand.
But unwilling to do more than make temporary concessions, the majority
rejected Foote's plan.[15]

The whites thought also to stop the exodus by inducing the steamboat lines
not to furnish the emigrants' transportation. Negroes were also
detained by writs obtained by preferring against them false charges. Some,
who were willing to let the Negroes go, thought of importing white and
Chinese labor to take their places. Hearing of the movement and thinking
that he could offer a remedy, Senator D.W. Voorhees, of Indiana,
introduced a resolution in the United States Senate authorizing an inquiry
into the causes of the exodus.[16] The movement, however, could not be
stopped and it became so widespread that the people in general were forced
to give it serious thought. Men in favor of it declared their views,
organized migration societies and appointed agents to promote the
enterprise of removing the freedmen from the South.

Becoming a national measure, therefore, the migration evoked expressions
from Frederick Douglass and Richard T. Greener, two of the most prominent
Negroes in the United States. Douglass believed that the exodus was
ill-timed. He saw in it the abandonment of the great principle of
protection to persons and property in every State of the Union. He felt
that if the Negroes could not be protected i