Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c.,&c.,&c.
[Document referred to in the above
despatch.]
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to
President Johnson.
27 New Broad Street, E.
C,London,
September 1, 1865.
Sir: The committee of the British and.
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society respectfully entreat your kind
attention to a few observations, which they feel impelled to make
upon certain points connected with the actual position of the
freedmen in the United States, and the committee venture to hope
that their well-known interest in the African race, and their
exceedinganxiety for the success of emancipation in America,.may
plead their sufficient excuse for the present address.
[Page 553]
The committee are deeply impressed with a sense of the heavy
responsibilities which rest upon you at the present crisis;
responsibilities so much the heavier, because the circumstances
under which they have devolved upon you are unprecedented; but they
feel that these will be materially lightened by a strict adherence
to those broad principles of justice which underlie all sound
government, and which the committee believe you are anxious to bring
into practice.
The committee do not consider it their province to dwell upon the
complicated political questions which they perceive with regret are
being mixed up with the subject of the extension of equal civil
rights to the freedman, nor to attempt to define what ought to be
the course of individual States in this matter; still less would
they assume any authority to suggest what the supreme government
might do. They simply exercise, as the friends of the negro race,
the privilege to submit their own views as to the just claims of the
late slaves to enjoy equality of civil rights, as a result of the
emancipation policy of the United States government; and for this
purpose it is convenient to assume that the classes formerly held in
bondage are virtually all emancipated.
The committee conceive that the first result of this anti-slavery
policy should be to place the freedmen in the same position in all
the States as other citizens are: that is, equal in every respect
before the law; and that they ought not on account of complexional
differences to be debarred of any of the rights or privileges
whatsoever of citizenship actually enjoyed by other citizens of the
States in which slavery lately existed. It is so obvious that any
departure from this principle must place the freedmen at
disadvantage, directly tending to leave them at the mercy of a
ruling class, that it does not seem to the committee necessary to
dwell upon the many evils which their exclusion from the full rights
of citizenship would entail.
The committee have observed with regret and some apprehension the
various attempts that have been made to fix the rate at which the
freedmen should hire out their services; in principle, such
interference is unwarrantable, being an arbitrary intervention
between the laborer and the hirer of labor, to the detriment of the
former. A similar policy produced the worst results in the British
West India colonies, the effects of which are still lamentably
apparent. The committee, however, are somewhat relieved of their
anxiety on this subject by the recent action of the Freedmen’s
Bureau, the ultimate result of which they trust will be to leave the
freedmen at perfect liberty to make their own contracts for
services, and to dispose of their labor in whatever markets they may
find most advantageous.
In conclusion, the committee would express the fervent hope that,
relying upon Divine help, you may be sustained in the discharge of
the onerous duties of your high office, and that the fullest measure
of prosperity may be meted out to the great American people over
whom you have been called to govern.
On behalf of the committee:
EDMUND STURGE, Chairman of
Committee.
L. A. CHAMEROVZOW,
Secretary.
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of America.
