that
their own interests will be best served by abandoning bulldozing of all
kinds.

(5.) Reform in the land tenure, by converting the plantation monopolies
into small holdings; abolition of the credit system, by abandoning the
laws which sustain it; a diversification of crops; and attention to
new manufacturing, maritime, and commercial enterprises,--these are the
material changes that are most needed. They can be secured only through
the active and earnest efforts of the whites. The blacks will be found
responsive.

(6.) The hope of the negro exodus at its present stage, or even if it
shall continue another season, is that the actual loss of the valuable
labor that has gone, and the prospective loss of more labor that is
anxious to go, will induce the intelligent and responsible classes
at the South to overcome their own prejudices, and to compel the
extremists, irreconcilables, and politicians generally, of all parties,
to abandon agitation, and give the South equal peace and equal chance
for black and white.

MY ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY by Frederick Douglass

In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty
years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the public what I
considered very good reasons for withholding the manner of my escape. In
substance these reasons were, first, that such publication at any time
during the existence of slavery might be used by the master against the
slave, and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same
means that I did. The second reason was, if possible, still more binding
to silence: the publication of details would certainly have put in peril
the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was not
more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland than that
of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored men, for
no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive slave, have, like
Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison. The abolition of slavery in my
native State and throughout the country, and the lapse of time, render
the caution hitherto observed no longer necessary. But even since the
abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle
curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons
for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ceased to
exist, there was no reason for telling it. I shall now, however, cease
to avail myself of t