generous aspirations which are the basis of all our
hope. It is not now doubted (except, perhaps, in Louisiana) that the
first eager desire of the emancipated slave is to own land and support
his own household. I remember that one of the ablest sergeants in the
First South Carolina Volunteers, when some of us tried to convince him
that the colored people attached too much importance to the mere
ownership of land, utterly refused all acquiescence in the criticism.
"We shall still be slaves," he said, in an impassioned way, "until eb'ry
man can raise him own bale ob cotton, and put him brand upon it, and
say, _Dis is mine_." And it was generally admitted in the Department of
the South, that the freedmen on Port Royal Island, who had mostly worked
for themselves, had made more decided progress, and were more fitted
for entire self-reliance, than those who had remained as laborers on the
plantations owned by Mr. Philbrick and his associates upon St. Helena
Island. Yet it would be impossible to try the system of tenant-industry
more judiciously than it was tried under those circumstances; and if
even that was found, on the whole, to retard the development of
self-reliance in the freedmen, what must it be where this is a part of a
great system of coercion, and where the mass of the employers are still
slaveholders at heart?

It is a fact of the greatest importance, that King Cotton turns out to
be a thorough citizen-king, and adapts himself very readily to changed
events. The great Southern staple can be raised by small cultivators as
easily as corn or potatoes; and difficulty begins only when sugar and
rice are to be produced. Yet it will not be long before these also will
come within reach of the freedmen, if they continue their present
tendency towards joint-stock operations. In the colored regiments of
South Carolina there are organizations owning plantations, saw-mills,
town-lots, and a grocery or two: they even meditate a steamboat. A few
of these associations no doubt will go to pieces, through fraud or
inexperience. Indeed, I knew of one which was nearly broken asunder by
the president's taking a fancy to send in his resignation: no other
member knew the meaning of that hard word, and they were disposed to
think it a declaration of hostilities from the presiding officer. But
even if such associations all fail, for the present, the training which
they give will be no failure; and when we consider that there are
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