y a small farm for each one that wants
to go. Travelers say that in the Valley of the Nile, a country with
similar climate and soil to the south land where they wuz born, is an
unoccupied place big enough for each one to have a small farm of their
own. I want you, Samuel, to buy this land for 'em, take 'em back there
at your own expense, all that want to go. There are plenty of the young
and enterprising who would go full of the hope of foundin' a new
republic for their own race, where they can expand and grow strong away
from parlyzing influence of racial and social hatred.

There would be lots of 'em who wouldn't want to go, and why can't you,
Samuel, I'd say, buy them a little home here, for instance, on the vast
unoccupied area of Florida? Let 'em have the hull state if necessary;
let each family have their little piece of land, and then make 'em work
it; send teachers, found schools, teach 'em to be self sustaining and
self respecting.

Samuel would probable sass me back and say, You can't teach a nigger to
respect himself and stand upright.

And I'd say, "'Tain't so, Sam, but if it wuz, centuries have been spent
by the white race in teachin' this people to be dependent and helpless,
to not think for themselves, to lean entirely on the judgment and
justice of the white people (weak reeds to lean on anon or oftener)."

And then I'd say, "Samuel, you did a foolish thing after the Civil war,
you did it with the best of motives, and you needn't be skairt, I hain't
goin' to scold you for it, but it wuz jest like turnin' a company of
babies out into the world and tellin' 'em they wuz jest as tall and
inteligent as their pas and mas and they must go on and take care of
themselves, and with their utter lack of all knowledge and strength take
an equal part in public affairs. How could these babies do it, Samuel, I
would say. But you wuz gropin' along most blind in them dark days, and
you did the best you knowed how to then. But when you see you've made a
mis-step you must draw your foot back and start off agin jest like a
elephant crossin' a weak bridge, I've seen 'em go down into the water
and wade ruther than resk it. You may have to wade through deep waters
to fix it all right, but that would be better than to fall through a
weak bridge and break your neck.

"It is because I think so much on you, Samuel, that I talk so plain to
you, for I don't want you to git the name Miss Eben Simmons got. She
jest spent her hull