ese stores at exorbitant
prices.

Your committee regret to say that they found it to be frequently
the case that designing men, or bad and dishonest men, would take
advantage of the ignorance or necessity of the Negroes to obtain
these exorbitant prices; but at the same time your committee is
not aware of a spot on earth where the cunning and unscrupulous
do not take advantage of the ignorant; and cannot regard it as a
sufficient cause for these black people leaving their homes and
going into distant States and among strangers unless they had a
proper assurance that the State to which they were going
contained no dishonest men, or men who would take such advantage
of them. Your committee feel bound to say, however, in justice to
the planters of the South, that this abuse is not at all general
nor frequent; and that as a general rule while exorbitant prices
are exacted sometimes from men in the situation of the blacks,
yet the excuse for it is the risk which planter and merchant run.
Should a bad crop year come, should the Army worm devour the
cotton, or any other calamity come upon the crop, the landlord is
without his rent, the storekeeper is without his pay, and worse
than all the laborer is without a means of subsistence for the
next year. It is hoped and believed that when the heretofore
disturbed condition of the people of the South settles down into
regularity and order, the natural laws of trade and competition
will assert themselves and this evil will be to a great extent
remedied, whilst the diffusion of education among the colored
people will enable them to keep their own accounts and hold a
check upon those who would act dishonestly towards them.

On the whole, your committee express the positive opinion that
the condition of the colored people of the South is not only as
good as could have been reasonably expected, but is better than
if large communities were transferred to a colder and more
inhospitable climate, thrust into competition with a different
system of labor, among strangers who are not accustomed to them,
their ways, habits of thought and action, their idiosyncrasies,
and their feelings. While a gradual migration, such as
circumstances dictate among the white races, might benefit the
individual black man and his