The local papers were calling out lustily to “checkmate the Freedmen’s League.” This association, it seemed, had “taken upon itself to fix the wages of freedmen at ten dollars per month,” a rate higher than had been heretofore ruling.
Reid discusses the local papers' reaction to the Freedmen’s League and its wage-setting efforts.
Share
More from Whitelaw Reid
And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.
They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues.
May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the…
Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.