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Now that the policy of the Government is
maturely settled, it is clear that one of the chief questions of the immediate future will be the
care of the freedmen. In ordinary times, when emancipation is enforced by law, as in the case
of the British colonies, and especially in Jamaica, the rage and pride of the planters prevent
a fair trial of the experiment. They refuse to treat honorably as paid laborers those whom
they have been used to drive as cattle, and the inevitable consequence is that the great
plantations fall into ruin, and the laborers take to the bush. Nothing is surer than that if the
planters of Jamaica had been as equal to the new condition introduced by emancipation as the
slaves were, the prosperity of the island would never have been disturbed.
The condition of our emancipated slaves is such as to require the most faithful and
intelligent care. The operation of the act is to attract them to our lines. They come in groups of
utterly destitute men, women, and children. The most unfortunate of human beings, they yet do
not find corresponding sympathy. Even the Government which has freed them, and which
invites them to enlist as soldiers, does not treat them honorably, and pays them not the wages
of the white soldiers, with whom they bravely fight and nobly fall, but only the ten dollars a
month allowed by the law for the general employment of contrabands. Homeless, almost
houseless, utterly destitute and dependent, this rapidly-increasing class of our population demand
a peculiar care. It is idle to say that no particular class of persons can be provided for, but
they must all take their chance, because we recognize that common-sense is the basis of
statesmanship when we establish a Bureau of Indian Affairs and a Department of Agriculture.
Indians and farmers are the two classes directly interested; but does any body quarrel with the
bureaus for that reason?
The sagacity of the President will undoubtedly lead him to make some proposition to
Congress for the establishment of a Freedman's Bureau, charged with the care of this exceptional
class. Davis says in his Message, with a sly leer at Europe, "By the Northern man, on
whose deep-rooted prejudices no kindly restraining influence is exercised, they [the negroes] are
treated with aversion and neglect." But the reluctance to touch the subject, the stupid
prejudice against the word Abolitionism, the dull slang about "one idea," must give way to plain
practical common-sense, or the country will be dishonored.
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Note:
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In February 1862 George
William Curtis wrote Treasury
Secretary Salmon Chase
suggesting the creation of a
federal agency to assist the
former slaves crossing into
Union territory. The March 1,
1862, issue of Harper’s
Weekly carried Curtis’s
endorsement of the same idea in
his "Lounger" column.
He placed such importance on the
issue that he addresses it here
in the first issue in which he
assumed responsibility for
writing the Harper’s Weekly
editorials. Curtis and his
father-in-law, Francis Shaw,
president of the philanthropic
Freedmen’s Relief Association,
helped Senator Charles Sumner
draft the Freedmen’s Bill to
establish the Freedmen’s
Bureau. It passed Congress in
1865.
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