VIRGINIA. 



7C5 



Polish famili"-* settled in the county of S| 



viiiiia. The Legislature adopted rasolotraium- 



daring that tliis method of immigration (in tlm 

 I'lirm of coloni, Tthy of support and 



encouragement. 

 The 1-V'irral Constitutional Amendment WM 



,1 iii t!i> Senate unanimously, 'J7 

 : and in tin- House l.y 74 to 1. 



\vas tVlt in Virginia and else- 

 where in theoaaeof *Dr. Wfitaoa. Ho had been 

 -ml ae-mitted by a Virginia court on the 

 charge of murdering a negro in Rockbridgo 

 County in November, 18G6. Notwithstanding 

 this acquittal, General Schofield ordered him to 

 be tried before a military commission, acting 

 under authority of the act of Congress, passed 

 July 16th of that year. On the assembling of 

 the commission a writ of habeas corpus wns sued 

 out in behalf of Dr. Watson, to which General 

 Schoticld made the following return : 



HE.UI'QRS DEPARTMENT or THE POTOMAC, ) 



liUKBAU OP R., F. AND A. LANDS, V 



KICIIMOND, VA., Dec. 19, 186. ) 

 To the Hon. Circuit Court of the city of Richmond, 



Virginia, in session : 



I hare the honor to acknowledge the receipt, 

 through the hands of James Lyons, Esq., of the writ 

 of your honorable court, dated at the city of Rich- 

 mond this 19tb of December, 1866, commanding me 

 to hare the body of James L. Watson, now under 

 my custody, before the judge of your honorable court 

 on to-day Ht 2 o'clock p. M., together with the causes 

 of his being taken and detained. To which I have 

 the honor to respectfully answer as follows, to wit : 



James L. Watson was arrested by my order on the 



day of December instant, and is now held for 



trial by military commission, under authority of the 

 act of Congress of July 1>, 1866, which act directs 

 and requires the President, through the commissioner 

 and officers of the Freedmen's Bureau, to exercise 

 military jurisdiction over all cases and questions 

 concerning the free enjoyment of the right to have 

 full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings con- 

 cerning personal liberty, personal security, etc., by 

 all citizens, without respect to race or color, or pre- 

 vious condition of slavery, of the States whose con- 

 stitutional relations to the Government of the United 

 States have been discontinued by the rebellion, and 

 have not been restored. The abore-named act of 

 Congress has been officially published to the army 

 by the President, through the War Department, for 

 the information and government of all concerned. 



As an officer of the United States army, command- 

 ing the militarv department which includes the State 

 (>;' Virginia, and Assistant Commissioner of the Fiv.-d- 

 :ncn's Bureau for the same department, my duty re- 

 quires me to decline compliance with the writ of 

 your honorable court, and I do, therefore, respect- 

 fully decline to produce the body of the said James 

 L. Watson. 



I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your 

 obedient servant. 



J. M. 8CIIOFIELD, 

 Brevet Major-General U. S. Army, 

 and Assistant Commissioner. 



In the mean time the U. S. Attorney-Gen- 

 eral had considered the case, and reported that, 

 in his opinion, the military commission con- 

 vened for the trial of Dr. Watson had no com- 

 petent jurisdiction, and the President, there- 

 upon, directed that the commission be dissolved 

 and the prisoner discharged without delay. 



The statistics collected by the Frccdmen'a 



Bureau exhibited a marked diminution in the 



number <!' mvrocs in Virginia and in other 

 border States, and an increase in certain 

 cotton States. Upon this state of facia a J 

 inond paper commented as follows: 



It denotes a loss of laborers which we cannot spare, 

 as few, if any, white laborers have taken the place 

 of the blacks who have disappeared. This exodus 

 from the State has been more rapid since the eman- 

 cipution of the slaves than it was during the war, snd 

 is ascribed to the temptation of higher wages than 

 those paid by our farmers, which are offered in ihe 

 Northern as well as in the Southern States. \\'<: 

 very much fear that there is much truth in this opin- 

 ion, and the history of Irish immigration since 1848 

 fully sustains the theory which professes to explain 

 tin- disappearance of the black laborer. 



When the famine and low wages of 1847-'48 gave 

 the first great impetus to Irish immigrants to this 

 country, an able-bodied laborer was usually paid for 

 ploughing and spade work from fourpence to sixpence 

 ii day. These wages drove from Ireland from 1848 

 i nearly two millions of laborers and their 

 families. But as the peasantry diminished, the rate 

 of wages advanced, and now ordinary laborers' wages 

 average about two shillings per day. In 18-18 there 

 were 310,000 " holdings 1 ' of less than five acres, 

 while now there are less than 80.0CO of such tenancies. 

 The exodus of Irishmen was from a country where 

 there were too many laborers to one where there were 

 not enough. It was a flight from starvation and 

 fourpence a day, to plenty and two dollars a day. 



But the alleged exodus of negroes from Virginia is 

 a loss of labor, where there is not half agricultural 

 labor to properly cultivate our soil and develop the 

 resources of the State. If there were a strong, healthy, 

 vital current of white labor pouring into tie Sthto, 

 we should find great cause for rejoicing in the disap- 

 pearance of the negro. It would then be a beneficial 

 change, and not depopulation. But if the negro is 

 leaving Virginia to obtain higher wages elsewhere, 

 the time is not distant when the Virginia agricul- 

 turist will be forced to pay far more for labor than he 

 is now giving. 



It is the misfortune rather than the fault of the 

 Virginia agriculturist that be cannot offer higher 

 wages to the negro. The want of capital, the ex- 

 hausted condition of the State, and the unsettled 

 state of the country, forbid that he should compete 

 with the farmers of more prosperous States. 



We can conceive of no class of men who would be 

 more benefited by the restoration of the South to 

 her political rights and privileges than the negroes. 

 The pall of gloom and suffering which hangs over 

 the South is the result of political influence and ap- 

 prehensions affecting our persons and property. 

 But the conditions which affect, and the circum- 

 stances of distress and uncertainty which surround 

 us, growing out of Congressional action already 

 taken or anticipated, act upon the negro more ter- 

 rilily than upon the whites at whom the blows are 

 aimed. 



A case, involving the constitutionality of the 

 Civil Rights Mill, was decided adversely by 

 Judge Thomas, of the Circuit Court, sitting in 

 Alexandria. One of the parties offered to pro- 

 duce negro evidence, and the judge nil- d that, 

 inasmuch as the State laws of Virginia forbade 

 the introduction of negro testimony in civil 

 suits t which white men alone were parties, 

 the evidence of the nepro was inadmissible, 

 and that congressional legislation could not 

 impair the right of the States to decide what 

 s of persons were competent to testily in 

 her courts. 



