What shall we do with them?

As applied to the emancipated blacks of the South, this question is beginning to assume some force. But, say some, are you not rather premature, had you not better wait until the question of emancipation or confiscation be determined? We admit the priority of that question, but at the same time they are so identified that the one carries the other with it, and the latter is pressing its claims with even more urgency than the former question. While Congress is debating and hesitating and squandering its time in determining whether it be policy to emancipate the slaves of the rebels, those slaves are emancipating themselves. By hundreds and thousands they are taking advantage of the absence or laxness of their masters, who are so engaged in their attempts to overthrow the Government that they have no time to attend to their chattels, and are forsaking their old homes for the North, where they can breathe a freer air and call their bodies, as well as their souls, their own.

The question of emancipation, to a considerable extent has already been determined – the slaves themselves are practically deciding it, while the public mind is rapidly maturing upon the subject. Congress never has and never can pass a law counter to the wishes and convictions of the people, that will be binding upon them. It attempted this but measurably, however, when it enacted the Fugitive Slave Law, and a volume could not be printed large enough to contain the infractions of that enactment, until it fell into disrepute and then became so dead that men openly boasted of its infringement, and public sentiment sustained them in it. The slaves are not alone in practically deciding the question of emancipation, but those of our brave Generals who possess both heart and backbone – two very necessary articles to the upright man – are assisting them. While Congress is hesitating they are acting. Read the latest order of that noble man, Major General Hunter:–


HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Ft. Pulaski, Cockspur Island, Ga., April 13, ’62.

All persons of color lately held to involuntary service by enemies of the United States, in Fort Pulaski and on Cockspur Island, Ga., are hereby confiscated and declared free, in conformity with law, and shall hereafter receive the fruits of their own labor. Such of said persons of color as are able bodies, and may be required shall be employed in the Quartermaster’s Department, at the rates heretofore established by Brig. Gen. T. W. Sherman.

By Command of
Maj. Gen. DAVID HUNTER,

CHAS. G. HALPINE, Asst. Adj’t Gen.


Has not that the ring of the true metal? Oh, that we had a Patrick Henry to stand up in Congress and shout in thunder tones, “Gentlemen my cry peace, peace, but the war is already begun!”

What shall we do with them? That’s the question. While Congress is dallying they are flooding the North. Our State, our own town, is being filled with them, and soon our secesh cotemporaries will ring in our ears, with their accustomed brazen effrontery, the words, “see what your emancipation is doing!” No, it is not emancipation nor confiscation that is doing this. It is the delay of Congress to act, to act promptly, to confiscate the slaves of rebels and to provide for them, that is doing this. Ah, and would you have Government provide for negroes? Will sensible men never rid themselves of the prejudice of color? No, not support them, not become in turn the master of slaves, not make them a public burthen; but put them in condition to support themselves and to become, like you and us, supporters of the Government that protects them.

The subsistence of the immense army of the Union now congregated in Virginia is the source of vexation, delay and enormous expense; at the same time thee are hundreds of thousands of acres of rich, arable land in Eastern Virginia lying fallow, its owners having fled and left it. It is adapted to the growth of wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, and every kind of garden produce. The negroes who have formerly lived in that region, understand the cultivation of these things. Why not place the manumitted slaves there and let them raise food for our army and turn an honest penny for themselves?

The same reasoning will apply to the South, where cotton is the staple and tropical fruits the production of a clime to which the enfranchised negroes are inured. Gen. Hunter is already doing this. The exclusive planting of cotton by our Government is a mistake. Our army is to be maintained there, and food is necessary to their support. Let the negroes be employed in raising food for the support of the army and for their own sustenance. The Government will make more by this operation than if it go into the commercial uncertainties of the cotton business. There are a thousand modes in which the manumitted negroes can be employed if the aegis of the Government is spread over them, but if left to work out their own physical salvation unaided by the strong arm of legislative and executive power, they will overrun the North, and caste will abuse and trample upon them. Manumit them at once, and they will remain upon the soil where they were born and prove a blessing to themselves, to their Government, to the nation and to the world.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 30, 1862, p. 2