Speech #460115226

A. Idid. Sir. every particle of this evidence. groat and small. indicates the :State of Indiana as an objective point for the movement of the col ored people in their emigration northward. There is no exception or qualification to this statement. In every ramification of the exodus scheme its long and repulsive arms are found reaching out to embrace the only Western State which is reliably democratic. Every thought and every circumstance connected with the negro emigration movement takes hold upon Indiana as a cardinal feature and condition of the whole affair. There is no other reason -why that State should have such an unsought and degrading association extiept that a desperate and unscrupulous political party. defeated over and over again by her people. have determined to win a victory within her borders by the basest means ever yet known in American politics. The efforts to change the current of colored emigration from Kansas to Indiana not meeting with desired success. a now field was entered upon. All of a sudden. with only here and there a symptom of the conspiracy apparent. a tide of negro emigrants broke loose from the State- of North Carolina and came rushing pellmell through this city on thet way to the State of Indiana. filling the country with their charges of bad treatment in the South. and their visions of a negro paradise in the North. It was a strange spectacle. and struck the country with amazement. The emigration was composed of the most worthless. thriftless. and indigent portion of the colored population. and they appealed for charity at every step. and talked loudly about being fugitives from a hodse of oppression andvirtual bondage. The sympathy of the country was aroused. and the groundwork of the approaching presidential campaign was being rapidly laid on a fresh and enormous supply of alleged southern outrages. There were two strong and controlling circumstances. however. which inclined me to suspect. even in the absence of further proof. that the movement was a fraud. and that the real object of it was not disclosed. The first of these two circumstances was the fact2 which I personally know. that the people of Indiana. not the republican politicians. but the honest. industrious masses of both parties. had no inducements to offer for such a class of emigrants to settle in their midst. I knewthat Indianahad never courted thepresonce of a large negro population in her borders. and that she especially did not encourago the advent of the pauper element of that population in the South. I know further that the negroes themselves. if left to their own minds. uninfluenced by political emissaries and glowing circulars describing a country of ease. high wages. and abundance. would never have chosen Indiana as their New Canaan. their promised land. filled with corn and wine and flowing with milk and honey.