RESOLUTIONS.
1. Resolved, That the Principia Club appeal to the government of the country, to render such assistance as will enable their emancipated people to take their families to the Northern and Western States and Territories, and settle on government lands, where they can enjoy their rights of citizenship, and be protected by the government which has thus far failed to render them protection from bull-dozing, assassination, intimidation, and other barbarisms to which they are now subjected by the elements of despotism in the South.
2. Resolved, That a board of trustees be appointed to assist the freedmen in obtaining their lands at government price, together with such an outfit as will enable them to remove their families and commence farming on their own account, to receive and disburse all moneys contributed for the above purposes, appoint such agents as may be necessary in the several States, to promote emigration and carry forward the following plan of operations, until the freedmen and their families who desire it, shall be removed to better homes and more civilized society, entirely away from the barbarism of slavery, and the pernicious doctrine that States rights are supreme and national rights are subordinate.
3. Resolved, That emancipation from American slavery being practically nullified, therefore, emancipation from home rule as understood and practised at the South, becomes a necessity, and emigration to a civilized community a consequence.
4. Resolved, That the President of the Principia Club be instructed to obtain from the Secretary of the Interior a list of the number of acres of unsold and unpre-empted lands in each of the Northern and Western States and Territories, from which the Trustees may select farms for their wards.
5. Resolved, That the same ascertain from the officers of the Pacific and other railroads, the best terms they are prepared to offer to settlers for the transportation of themselves, their families, and their outfits to the lands along their roads respectively.
6. Resolved, That the twenty-eight million acres of land contiguous to the Central, Union, Kansas and Denver Pacific roads, which the Secretary of the Interior has recently decided to open to actual settlers, at the government price of $1.25 per acre (the three years' limitation after the completion of said roads contained in the land-grant laws having expired), shall receive the special attention of the Trustees of this association in the selection of farms for applicants. But in case the decision of the Secretary of the Interior should not stand, or should be contested, then the government lands will be purchased instead.
7. Resolved, That the Republican party, to whom the country owes, under God, Emancipation, be called upon to finish the work so nobly begun, by carrying out a provision of the United States Constitution, Art. IV., Sect. II., Clause I., which reads, "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," and that this clause of the Constitution, together with the amendments enfranchising the freedmen, be made test questions at the polls, until a solid North shall elect a government that will have backbone enough to see to it that every State in the Union shall strictly comply with the requirements of the United States Constitution, or revert to a territorial condition.
[THE PLAN OF OPERATIONS.]
1. The Trustees shall be men of either known wealth, ability, financial strength, or business capacity, in whose honesty and integrity the community will have the most implicit confidence.
2. All moneys entrusted to them shall be appropriated in strict conformity to the directions of the donor or lender, whether for the general expenses or the purchase of lands.
3. The funds furnished the Trustees for the purchase of lands, shall be treated as loans or donations as the party may elect, the deed in each case to be taken in the name of the party furnishing the money to pay for the land, which deed may be held by the Trustees, or passed over to the owner as he may elect, as security, if for a loan.
4. The terms of sale to the freedmen by the Trustees shall be substantially those of the pre-emption laws, to wit: $1.25 per acre; but the terms of payment may be mutually arranged between the owner and purchaser, or their agents, the Trustees.
5. Every freedman who can pay for his own farm may have his deed at once, and enjoy the privileges granted to and by this association, by the payment of five dollars towards the general expenses.
By the above plan it will be seen that any person investing fifty dollars for a quarter section, one hundred dollars for a half section, or two hundred dollars for a section, and so on, will hold the land as security at $1.25 per acre, while the alternate sections which have been sold by the Pacific railroads have averaged much more, or about five dollars an acre (some have sold for fifteen dollars). Thus it will be seen that the investment will be a safe one, and at the same time facilitate the exodus of the freedmen to the Western States.
The Trustees will not be allowed to run the association in debt, but will invest the money put into their hands in the best lands, according to their judgment, and sell them to the freedmen in the order in which application and selection is made.
Justice to the freedmen, after the treatment they have received, requires that the United States government should transport them free of charge, together with their families, household goods, farming implements, &c., to unpre-empted lands in the Western States and Territories, giving to each family land sufficient for their maintenance, with due diligence and care, and a reasonable time to pay for it. But the prospect of a "labor reform" movement of that magnitude does not look very encouraging, when we remember that the rebel South have thirty-five bogus members in Congress, to which they are not entitled, while depriving large Republican majorities of several States of the exercise of the elective franchise, which the amendments to the Constitution conferred upon them.
If we had more STATESMEN in Congress, and fewer corrupt politicians, the prospect would be more flattering that the demands of justice would be heeded.
If, however, the government as at present constituted, should take hold of the matter in earnest and good faith, our "National Farmers' Association" may be easily modified to conform to the circumstances. But on the other hand, if the "solid South," by virtue of its thirty-five bogus representatives, should rule the nation as in ante-bellum times it did with its twenty-five, neither the freedmen nor their friends can expect any thing to be done in the direction we have suggested that will benefit the freedmen, until Congress shall be reconstructed at the polls, or until the large Republican majorities of freedmen in the South, despairing of the protection of their political rights by the Federal power, seize their last resort and defend them by their own strong arms, under "home rule and State rights." If they should do this the "dominant race" and their rifle clubs would vanish like dew before the sun, and that ball wouldn't stop rolling until the whole nest of Southern rebels are cleaned out.
But we propose to the government to prevent all this bloodshed, and quietly remove the freedmen and their families to the Western prairies.
[SAFETY AS AN INVESTMENT.]
1. When an individual furnishes the Trustees with money to purchase a farm of a quarter section or more, for a freedman and his family, he will get, in due time, a deed of the land at $1.25 per acre, as security for his investment. The investor may then sell the land to the farmer or freedman on such terms of payment as may be agreed upon; or, if more convenient, the Trustees will do it, under his instructions.
2. When a purchaser of a farm pays for it himself he will get his deed at once, and that will end the matter with him, so far as the Trustees are concerned.
3. Parties wishing to donate farms for poor and worthy freedmen and their families, can do so through the Trustees, and be furnished in due time with the names of the recipients, their location, and post-office address.
4. As an investment, well-located farms at $1.25 per acre, are as safe as government bonds, and will pay a much larger interest. We have already stated that the lands donated to the Pacific railroads have averaged five dollars per acre, while some of them have sold as high as fifteen dollars per acre.
[OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.]
1. We are aware that one objection to our plan of placing the freedmen in a comparatively independent position from their old masters and their posterity, is its magnitude. But that is no valid reason why it should not be adopted. If it cannot be wholly accomplished in a generation or a century, let it be done, so far as it can be, in our generation, and continued by our successors until it shall be finished.
Under God, Moses undertook to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage into the promised land. In doing it they were forty years in the wilderness, but in due time the thing was accomplished and passed into history. The magnitude of the project and the time required for its accomplishment were no objections to its being undertaken. It is true we have no Moses to lead the freedmen into our western prairies, but we have the same God to work under that Moses had.
2. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, when it began its work, had no expectation of converting the world to Christianity in a generation or a century; but that was no reason why it should not organize and go to work, leaving for its successors to finish what it then only began. The same is true of the Home Missionary Society work, and that of the American Missionary Association, which has the freedmen under its care especially. The work of both of these societies will be greatly facilitated by taking the freedmen from the clutches of the old slave oligarchy, and placing them in an independent civil position on our boundless prairies, and in cities and villages where they can care for themselves, their families, and their country, with none to molest nor make them afraid; a work which neither of the above societies can do, under their present constitutions.
Where they are, Col. Preston, of Virginia, in a paper addressed to the American Missionary Association at its annual meeting said: "There is no place for them as legislators, and no room for them among the whites as doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, architects, or artists. By other pursuits they must gain their livelihood, and for other pursuits they must be trained."
It will be observed that agriculture is left out of the colonel's catalogue, and, of course, must be included in the "other pursuits" by which the freedmen "must gain their livelihood." Now we propose to place them on the best farming lands on this continent, where they can not only gain a "livelihood," but qualify themselves for any and all of the above occupations and professions, with no rifle clubs to keep them in subjection to the ruling class of whites.
President Fairchild, of Berea College, said that the above quotation was a "leaden weight hung upon the neck of the colored youth."
Our plan proposes to put them in a position to shake off that "leaden weight," and rise in the scale of humanity in consonance with their just deserts.
It can but commend itself to the friends of the freedmen.
[THE PLAN APPROVED.]
Since our "open letter to the freedmen of the South," dated Aug. 13, 1878, and published in the Boston "Traveller," a few days after, announcing our plan of emigration, we have received letters of endorsement from leading freedmen, which show the feeling in the South in favor of this plan, and their opposition to the Liberia scheme of emigration. One of them writes us: "I prefer going West, and many hundreds here would join me. I am opposed to emigration to Liberia. We cannot live in the South and enjoy our political rights. We need wealth and education. These are what we cannot get in the South, where the landed aristocrat refuses to sell and divide his land among the blacks. He opposes our education, so as to be able to control our political rights, and make us only "hewers of wood and drawers of water." I hope the plan will be a success. The prayers of many freedmen will go with you and the whole scheme."
This writer is endorsed by Hon. J. H. Rainey, M. C. from South Carolina.
As we go to press with this pamphlet, we will give the key-note of the newspaper press on the subject.
The "Washington Republican" urges upon the colored men of the South that the best thing they can do is to go to the West. It says:—
"And the sooner they go the better for all concerned. Their exodus from the South would leave the soil of that to them inhospitable section without tillers. It would weaken the political strength of the ex-Confederacy in the Union, and they would stand some chance of being represented in the national councils, as well as being counted in the basis of that representation. Besides, it would awaken a sentiment among the better classes of the South in favor of law and order, for the purpose of persuading them to remain 'at home'; and this would result in a determined effort to overcome Ku-Kluxism and bull-dozing in all their varied forms."
To be "counted in the basis of that representation," and be forced to submit to have bull-dozing representatives sent to Congress by the Ku-Klux, is an unparalleled monstrosity.
[THE FREEDMEN'S DANGER.]
We verily believe that the chief danger to the freedmen is in being fooled by the fair promises of "the dominant white race." They have succeeded so well in befooling the government, and have found out by experience that it is much easier and more profitable to fool than to fight, that they will try the same game with the freedmen, as soon as they begin to emigrate. But don't be deceived by them. You had experience enough, both during slavery and since emancipation, of their perfidy, faithlessness, and treachery. In our forty years' contest with the slave power, we never knew its votaries to make a promise, involving human rights, and redeem it, when it was against their pecuniary interest to do so. I may say the same of their political promises, specimens of which are given in the previous numbers of the Principia Club papers, also in the Appendix, and need not be repeated in this.
Rebels who claim that this is "a white man's country," and that "negroes have no rights that white men are bound to respect," are not to be trusted. The thirty-five members of Congress to which the freedmen are entitled, should be chosen by their votes, and, in every locality where the freedmen are in a majority, and are fraudulently deprived of their vote, the representative from that district should be denied a seat in Congress. This would dispose of the Democratic majority of bull-dozers at once. But whether this can be done or not, as things now are, organize into colonies, leave the "solid South to the world, the flesh, and the devil," emigrate West, where you can vote and enjoy your political rights, as the Constitution defines them.