Record Data
"North Carolina," The American Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events 0f the Year 1866 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 552.
Minutes of the Freedmen's Convention held in the City of Raleigh on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of October 1866 (Raleigh, NC: Standard Book and Job Office, 1866), 2-14.
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
In the first place, let me assure you, that I am disposed to do every thing I can, as a citizen, and as Governor, to protect you in all your rights, and to encourage you to be industrious, to educate your children, and to make yourselves respectable and happy; and while you may expect my protection, while you do right, I shall be equally ready to have those punished who do wrong.
You are very poor. Your first care should be, by industry and economy, to provide good supplies of meat and bread, and devote all you can spare to educate your children; and remember that it is the common interest of both races that no enmity be allowed to grow up between them. As far as I know, the general feeling of your late masters is kind towards you. The whites feel that they owe you a debt of gratitude for your quiet and orderly conduct during the war, and you should endeavor so to act as to keep up this kindly feeling between the two races.
Let me advise you not to meddle in governmental affairs. You know how few of your race are now capable of understanding matters of this sort, and you see the strifes and troubles in which party politics have involved the whites. Avoid politics. Practice industry, virtue, and cultivate the kind feeling which now exists between the races, and you will thus acquire competence and elevate your condition.
