What Is To Be Done With The Slaves Liberated By The War?

Although but a few thousand slaves have yet been liberated by the war, what we are to do with them has already become a serious question.  Those within the Federal lines along our Southern coast, according to the authority of army officers, so far from being capable of taking care of themselves, would starve if left to shift for themselves. – These chattels are in a condition of childish helplessness, capable of labor, but entirely wanting in the capacity to direct and manage for themselves – destitute of any sort of thrift or forethought.  Slavery wanted nothing but their labor and developed nothing but their muscles.  At least this is the condition of the great mass of them.  A few of them have been employed as overseers and, it is presumed, have more intelligence and self-reliance.  But the mass are as helpless as so many children.  What is to be done with them?  Shall they, the twenty or thirty thousand now within the Federal lines, together with the two or three millions owned by traitors, be turned loose to their own certain destruction?  Certainly not.  Their labor must necessarily be controlled and directed by white men, at least for some time to come.  They will learn self reliance and thrift and ultimately be capable of taking care of themselves.  But those having the best opportunities of knowing tell us most decidedly that now they are not.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1