KIDNAPPING OF FREEDMEN.
Remarks in the Senate, on a Resolution of Inquiry, January 9, 1866.
January 9th, Mr. Sumner offered the following resolution:—
“Whereas it is reported that persons declared free by the Proclamation of Emancipation and by the recent Amendment of the Constitution are now kidnapped and transported to Cuba and Brazil, to be held as slaves, and that in this way a new slave-trade has been commenced on our southern coast: Therefore,
“Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be directed to inquire if any further legislation is needed to prevent the kidnapping of freedmen and the revival of the slave-trade on our southern coast.”
The Senate proceeded to its consideration, when Mr. Sumner explained it.
Before the vote is taken, I desire to state some of the information that has come to my possession. For instance, here is a letter from Alabama, from which I will read a short extract.
“Another big trade is going on,—that of running negroes to Cuba and Brazil. They are running through the country, dressed in Yankee clothes, hiring men, giving them any price they ask, to make turpentine on the bay, sometimes on the rivers, sometimes to make sugar. They get them on the cars. Of course the negro don’t know where he is going. They get him to the bay, and tell him to go on the steamer to go around the coast, and away goes poor Cuffee to slavery again. They are just cleaning out this section of the country of the likeliest men and women in it. Federal officers are mixed up in it, too.”
Mr. Johnson [of Maryland]. Who writes the letter? Give the name of the writer.