Referring to the grievances and proposing a redress, the committee admitted that errors had been committed by the whites and blacks alike, as each in turn had controlled the government of the States there represented.  The committee believed that the interests of planters and laborers, landlords and tenants were identical; that they must prosper or suffer together; and that it was the duty of the planters and landlords of the State there represented to devise and adopt some contract by which both parties would receive the full benefit of labor governed by intelligence and economy.  The convention affirmed that the Negro race had been placed by the constitution of the United States and the States there represented, and the laws thereof, on a plane of absolute equality with the white race; and declared that the Negro race should be accorded the practical enjoyment of all civil and political rights guaranteed by the said constitutions and laws.  The convention pledged itself to use whatever of power and influence it possessed to protect the Negro race against all dangers in respect to the fair expression of their wills at the polls, which they apprehended might result from fraud, intimidation or bulldozing on the part of the whites.  And as there could be no liberty of action without freedom of thought, they demanded that all elections should be fair and free and that no repressive measures should be employed by the Negroes “to deprive their own race in part of the fullest freedom in the exercise of the highest right of citizenship."[14]

The committee then recommended the abolition of the mischievous credit system, called upon the Negroes to contradict false reports as to crimes of the whites against them and, after considering the Negroes’ right to emigrate, urged that they proceed about it with reason.  Ex-Governor Foote, of Mississippi, submitted a plan to establish in every county a committee, composed of men who had the confidence of both whites and blacks, to be auxiliary to the public authorities, to listen to complaints and arbitrate, advise, conciliate or prosecute, as each case should demand.  But unwilling to do more than make temporary concessions, the majority rejected Foote’s plan.[15]

The whites thought also to stop the exodus by inducing the steamboat lines not to furnish the emigrants’ transportation.  Negroes were also detained by writs obtained by preferring against them false charges.  Some, who were willing to let the Negroes go, thought of importing white and Chinese labor to take their places.  Hearing of the movement and thinking that he could offer a remedy, Senator D.W.  Voorhees, of Indiana, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate authorizing an inquiry into the causes of the exodus.[16] The movement, however, could not be stopped and it became so widespread that the people in general were forced to give it serious thought.  Men in favor of it declared their views, organized migration societies and appointed agents to promote the enterprise of removing the freedmen from the South.