it was then thought that the South could get along without the Negro.[4] Even newspapers like the Charleston News and Courier, which denounced the persecution of the Negroes, urged them to emigrate to Africa as they could not be permitted to rule over the white people.  The Minneapolis Times wished the scheme success and Godspeed and believed that the sooner it was carried out the better it would be for the Negroes.

Most of the influential newspapers of the country, however, urged the contrary.  Citing the progress of the Negroes since emancipation to show that the blacks were doing their full share toward developing the wealth of the South, the Indianapolis Journal characterized as barbarism the suggestion that the government should furnish them transportation to Africa.  “The ancestors of most of the Negroes now in this country,” said the editor, “have doubtless been here as long as those of Senator Morgan, and their descendants are as thoroughly acclimated and have as good a right here as the Senator himself."[5] This was the opinion of all useful Negroes except Bishop H.M.  Turner, who endorsed Morgan’s plan by advocating the emigration of one fourth of the blacks to Africa.  The editor of the Chicago Record-Herald entreated Turner to temper his enthusiasm with discretion before he involved in unspeakable disaster any more of his trustful compatriots.

Speaking more plainly to the point, the editor of the Philadelphia North American said that the true interest of the South was to accommodate itself to changed conditions and that the duty of the freedmen lies in making themselves worth more in the development of the South than they were as chattels.  Although recognizing the disabilities and hardships of the South both to the whites and the blacks, he could not believe that the elimination of the Negroes would, if practicable, give relief.[6] The Boston Herald inquired whether it was worth while to send away a laboring population in the absence of whites to take its place and referred to the misfortunes of Spain which undertook to carry out such a scheme.  Speaking the real truth, The Milwaukee Journal said that no one needed to expect any appreciable decrease in the black population through any possible emigration, no matter how successful it might be.  “The Negro,” said the editor, “is here to stay and our institutions must be adapted to comprehend him and develop his possibilities.” The Colored American, then the leading Negro organ of thought in the United States, believed that the Negroes should be thankful to Senator Morgan for his attitude on emigration, because he might succeed in deporting to Africa those Negroes who affect to believe that this is not their home and the more quickly we get rid of such foolhardy people the better it will be for the stalwart of the race.[7]