Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Author:Frederick Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Library of America
Published: 2022-07-07T01:26:43+00:00

What Shall Be Done with the Freed Slaves?

Douglass’ Monthly, November 1862

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If the country were at peace and labor and capital were left to flow on in their natural channels, the question as to what shall be done with the emancipated slaves would present no difficulty whatever. The black man would easily find employment and provide for all his wants as do other laborers; but in the present condition of the country, when business is deranged, the relation of capital and labor in the slave States unsettled, the North endeavoring as a war measure, to snatch the bondman from slavery, and the South as sternly endeavoring to hold him in slavery, the bondman, between the two contending powers, is likely, for a time, to undergo extreme hardships and suffering. The border free States which might easily receive the freed men, affording them protection, shelter and employment, are so completely under the influence of color prejudice as to repel them, and the slave States are only greedy to clutch them as slaves. If they fly to the South they are plunged into the jaws of slavery and if they flee to the North they are repelled by prejudice. They are in a transition state and between two fires.

The true solution of this difficulty has been happily hit upon by Mr. Ely Thayer, of Massachusetts, if he and the Government will apply his principle to the freed men of the South equally with white laborers from the North. His plan is to take full possession of Florida, organize society there on free labor principles, and thus introduce Northern civilization in the place of Southern barbarism. Slavery has already fled the State. The slaveholders have most of them retired from their former plantations, the better to hold their slaves and to carry on their war against the life of the Government. The coast is clear. Now let the freed slaves, be sent into that state, with implements to till the soil, and with arms to protect themselves. Mr. Thayer and other northern capitalists, and laborers flock thither, and enrich themselves, while they at the same time furnish the Government and the freed men a safe deliverance from the difficulties attending the liberation of slaves by the army. Such colonization as this could not be objected to by any body but the traitors and rebels. Let the six-hundred thousand dollars which the Government is called upon to squander in deporting black laborers to a foreign country, be devoted to this measure. There are thousands of intelligent colored men at the North, with minds large enough, and with attainments high enough to govern a State, who would be glad to go down to Florida with their freed brethren and, assist them in beginning life in freedom, order, morality and religion. Colonizing the freed men there would cost nothing in comparison to the expensive scheme of Central American Colonization.

But would not the slave hunters of Georgia and other South atlantic slave States pounce upon them

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