law or violence. Any other course might be cruel
to the negro in encouraging him to enter on a new life in a strange
climate, as well as an injustice to the white land owners of the South.

(3.) There is danger that the Southern whites will, as a rule,
misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to underrate
its importance, and those who appreciate its significance are apt to
look for temporary and superficial remedies. The vague promises made at
the Vicksburg convention, which was controlled by the whites, and called
to consider the emigration movement, have had no influence with
the negroes, because they have heard such promises before. Had the
convention adopted some definite plan of action, such as ex-Governor
Foote, of Mississippi, submitted, its session might not have been in
vain. This plan was to establish a committee in every county, composed
of men who have the confidence of both whites and blacks, that should
be auxiliary to the public authorities, listen to complaints, and
arbitrate, advise, conciliate, or prosecute, as each case should demand.
It is short-sighted for the Southern people to make mere temporary
concessions, such as have been made in some cases this year, for that
course would establish an annual strike. It is folly for them to suppose
they can stem the tide of emigration by influencing the regular lines of
steamboats not to carry the refugees, for the people of the North will
see that the blacks shall not be detained in the South against their
will. It is unwise for them to devise schemes for importing Chinese,
or encouraging the immigration of white labor as a substitute for negro
labor, when they may much better bestir themselves to make the present
effective labor content.

(4.) Education will be the most useful agent to employ in the permanent
harmonizing of the two races, and the redemption of both from the faults
and follies which constitute their troubles. It is not the education of
the negro alone, whose ambition for learning is increasing notably with
every new generation, but the education of the mass of the young whites,
that is needed to inculcate more tolerance of color and opinion, to give
them an aspiration beyond that of riding a horse and hanging a "nigger,"
and to enable them to set a better example to the imitative blacks in
the way of work and frugality. The blacks need the education to protect
them from designing white men; the whites need it to teach them