hat
section had, by means too shocking and shameful to relate,
deprived them of their rights as American citizens; in the face
of the fact that it has been clearly shown by the evidence that
organizations of colored laborers, one of which numbered
ninety-eight thousand, have existed for many years and extending
into many States of the South, designed to improve their
condition by emigration--in the face of all these facts the
majority of the committee can see no cause for the exodus growing
out of such wrongs, but endeavor to charge it to the Republicans
of the North.

In view of this fact, it is our painful duty to point out some of
the real causes of this movement. It is, however, quite
impossible to enumerate all or any considerable part of the
causes of discontent and utter despair which have finally
culminated in this movement. To do so would be to repeat a
history of violence and crime which for fifteen years have
reddened with the blood of innocent victims many of the fairest
portions of our country; to do so would be to read the numberless
volumes of sworn testimony which have been carefully corded away
in the crypt and basement of this Capitol, reciting shocking
instances of crime, crying from the ground against the
perpetrators of the deeds which they record. The most which we
can hope to do within the limits of this report is to present a
very few facts which shall be merely illustrative of the
conditions which have driven from their homes, and the graves of
their fathers an industrious, patient, and law-abiding people,
whom we are bound by every obligation of honor and patriotism to
protect in their personal and political rights and privileges.

We begin with the State of North Carolina because the migration
from that State has been comparatively insignificant, and also
because the conditions there are more favorable to the colored
race than in any of the other cotton States of the South. Owing
to the lack of funds, and to the time employed in the examination
of witnesses called by the majority the Republican members of the
committee summoned no witnesses from the State of North Carolina,
and were obliged to content themselves with such facts as could
be obtained from one or two persons who happened to be in this
city,