berts, of the State of Texas. It is a requisition by the
Governor of Texas upon the Governor of Kansas for the body of one
Peter Womack, a colored man, who was indicted by the Grand Jury
of Grimes County at the last November term for the felony of
fraudulently disposing of ten bushels of corn. From further
particulars we learn that this Peter Womack gave a mortgage early
in the spring of 1879 upon his crop just planted to cover a debt
of twenty dollars due the firm of Wilson and Howel. When Womack
came to gather his crop, he yields to the importunities of
another white creditor ten bushels of corn _to be applied_ upon
the debt. About this time this Peter Womack becomes influential
in inducing a number of his colored neighbors in Grimes County to
emigrate to Kansas. Undeterred by threats and despite the
bull-dozing methods employed to cause him to remain a 'citizen'
of Texas, Womack, with others, sick of a condition of citizenship
which is nothing less than hopeless peonage, leaves stock and
crops behind to seek a home in Kansas. His acts in inciting the
movement of these black serfs are not forgotten, however, by the
white chivalry of Grimes County. The evidence of this surrender
on a debt of ten bushels of corn, mortgaged for another debt, is
hunted up, presented to the Grand Jury of Grimes County, he is
promptly indicted for a felony, and the great State of Texas
rises in her majesty and demands a surrender of his body. The
demand is in accordance with law, undoubtedly,--Texas law,--but
if Texas would occasionally punish one of the white murderers who
do not think it necessary to leave her borders, this pursuit of a
negro for selling ten bushels of corn from a mortgaged crop would
seem a more imposing exhibition of the power of the commonwealth
to enforce its laws."[138]

The effect, or rather the results of the Exodus have been twofold. It
taught the Southern people that there was need of some effort to
regain the confidence of the Negroes; that the Negro is the only
laborer who can cultivate that section of the country; that the Negro
can get on without the Southern people a great deal better than they
can get on without Negro labor; that the severe political treatment
and systematic robbery of the Negroes had not only driven them out,
but had discouraged white people from settl