There can be no doubt of the manner in which
the Southern :States intend to use their powers. They will pass vagrancy laws, 'which will tie the negro to the soil, whip for disobedience, and if necessary limit the rate of wages to bare food. South Carolina has „already proposed a law under which all vagrants or "immoral per- sons" may be hired out to planters for terms of years, the wages to go to the State, and Florida has gone a step further. She has pro- posed that any vagrant, white or black, "may be sold for a term
'Y not exceeding twelve months," and the proposal" will undoubtedly be adopted." All children not provided for by their parents are to be "apprenticed," the whites are to vote for the blacks in the old proportion ;—this has been carried,—and "all persons making or .executing any law" of Florida must be white men. In short, through the culpable ambition of President Johnson the whole work of emancipation has to be done over again.
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