very candid and intelligent
witnesses that their object in promoting this exodus of the
colored people was purely political. They thought it would be
well to remove a sufficient number of blacks from the South,
where their votes could not be made to tell, into close States in
the North, and thus turn the scale in favor of the Republican
party.

Wages, rents, method of cropping on shares, &c., were inquired
into in all of the Southern States mentioned, and the fact
ascertained that the aggregate was about the same as in North
Carolina. In most of the Southern States, where wages were higher
than in North Carolina, expenses were also higher, so that the
aggregate, as before stated, was about the same.

One cause of complaint alleged as a reason for this exodus of the
colored people from the South was their mistreatment in the
courts of justice. Directing our attention to this the committee
have ascertained that in many of the districts of the South the
courts were under entire Republican control--judges, prosecuting
attorneys, sheriffs, &c., and that there were generally as many
complaints from districts thus controlled as there were from
districts which were under the control of the Democratic
officials; and that the whole of the complaints taken together
might be said to be such as are generally made by the ignorant
who fail to receive in courts what they think is justice.

Your committee found no State or county in the South, into which
this investigation extended, where colored men were excluded from
juries either in theory or in practice; they found no county or
district in the South where they were excluded, either in theory
or practice, from their share in the management of county affairs
and of the control of county government. On the contrary,
whenever their votes were in a majority we found that the
officers were most generally divided among the black people, or
among white people of their choice. Frequently we found the
schools to be controlled by them, especially that portion of the
school fund which was allotted to their race, and the complaints
which had been so often made of excessive punishment of the
blacks by the courts as compared with the whites upon
investigation in nearly all cases, proved to be either unfounded