It cannot be doubted that in so far as this exodus tends to promote restlessness in the colored people of the South, to unsettle their feeling of home, and to sacrifice positive advantages where they are, for fancied ones in Kansas or elsewhere, it is an evil.
In his autobiography, Douglass concludes that the exodus movement is detrimental because it fosters restlessness, disrupts the sense of home, and sacrifices tangible benefits for uncertain prospects.
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More from Frederick Douglass
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.