39 South. The good intentions of General Banks, indeed, cannot be called in doubt, any more than those of Mr. Lincoln ; yet how can we help regretting what has been done in Louisiana ! To those who ask me what is the best regulation to be made, I reply, None. The best organization for free negro labor is, no organization at all. Leave liberty alone, believe in liberty I We tried the experiment of regulation in several of our French colonics, after the abolition of slavery. We had regulations concerning wages ; regulations concerning food ; regulations concerning labor ; regulations concerning removal. Those negroes who moved from place to place, and those who did not work, were treated as vagrants. A semi- slavery was maintained, and this without profit either to the negroes or the whites. Your country, Mr. President, cannot avoid insuring for some time to the emancipated negroes certain exceptional guarantees of federal surveillance and redress in the federal courts. You will have to procure for them the first need of the weak—impartial justice ; but, by the political emancipation of the colored race, you will prepare for them a protection which will not be long in rendering yours useless— the protection of the common law. They will speedily learn how to use their rights, to defend them, and to be sufficient unto themselves. Suffrage—and this will not be its least merit—will suppress guardianship. XI . And above all, do not say that by-and-by you will grant the right of suffrage. This would be deceiving yourselves. There is but one moment in which some things can be done. The metal for the statu must be poured into the mould at the instant of fusion ; this instant past, it cools and becomes rigid. Your metal also is in a state of fusion ; but it will quickly harden, and then you will have before you what is definitive, what is irreparable. Why do you wait ? For the South to return to Congress, and to render any liberal decision impossible ? Or for
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