120 EEMAEKS ON THE GOVERNMENT TAX. 
gling for their very existence, is denied them. Their State 
treasuries are empty, and must be replenished ; they have 
thousands of helpless widows and orphans, and maimed 
and crippled men to support ; and, owing to the ruin and 
desolation caused by a vandal enemy, those once in af- 
fluence are mostly reduced to poverty. All the business 
pursuits of life have been thrown into confusion by the 
destruction of their former organized system of labor. 
Half the negroes will not work at all, or, if they do, it is 
to no valuable purpose. Under these circumstances, it is 
not only unjust but it is heartless cruelty to levy a partial 
and enormous tax on their chief means of support. This 
tax will operate peculiarly hard upon the poor negro. A 
large majority of the negroes engaged in planting have 
formed partnerships with their employers, and are to 
receive, in some cases, one-third, but in most cases one-half, 
of the crops. The industrious among them are struggling 
to make a " start in the world ; " but if they have to pay 
fifteen dollars tax on every five hundred pound bale they 
make, they will have little or nothing left, after defraying 
the enormous expenses of living the present year. Indeed, 
many of them will be left in debt. The result will be, 
dissatisfaction with their condition, and they will sink into 
discouragement. They^ill find the fancied boon of free- 
dom like the apples of Sodom, beautiful to the sight or in 
the imagination, but dissolving to ashes upon the touch. 
WiU not our Congress do something to relieve them? 
Surely if they have no sympathy with or compassion for 
the sufifering whites of the South, they will do something 
to relieve their colored brethren. 
The intention of the framers of the Constitution was to 
form a Union founded on justice, and on equality of rights, 
privileges, and immunities among all the parties to the 
