stories
circulated of a promised land, where their wants would be
supplied, and their independence secured, without exertion on
their part. It was going to the extent of ignorance and credulity
to credit them; and yet evidences of an undoubted character was
furnished your committee as to this matter. It is one of the
factors in a movement the end of which we cannot now forecaste.
There are in the State of Mississippi alone five million five
hundred thousand acres of land belonging to the United States now
subject to homestead entries. Any thrifty colored man in the
South can pre-empt one hundred and sixty acres of this land at
the moderate cost of about eighteen dollars. Lands in Kansas
cannot be acquired for less. In no part of the civilized world
can unskilled labor secure a larger return, by honest toil, than
among us, but idleness accompanied by extravagance produces
suffering and want here as elsewhere.

Your committee believes that the legislation of our States should
be shaped so as to foster habits of industry among the colored
people, elevate the standard of social morals, and improve and
preserve our common school system.

Diverse views have been expressed by parties equally desirous of
reaching the same conclusion: To ascertain grievances and apply
as far as it can be done by us, the proper redress. If the single
purpose of all was to accomplish this result, without the
influences which our past experiences have engendered to expect
it, this might be done; but it can only be done with full
knowledge of all the facts. That errors have been committed by
the whites and blacks alike as each in turn have controlled the
government of the States here represented, may be safely
admitted. Disregarding the past, burying its dead with it,
standing upon the living present, and looking hopefully to the
future which is before us, your committee think their duty
accomplished when they have adopted and reported these
resolutions:

Resolved, That the interests of planters and laborers, landlords
and tenants are identical; and that they must prosper or suffer
together; and that it is the duty of the planters and landlords
of the States here represented to devise and adopt some contract
system with laborers and tenants by which both par