Francis L. Cardozo
"Let the Lands of the South Be...Divided"
Francis
L. Cardozo, a black graduate of the University of Glasgow
and a minister in New Haven, Connecticut, returned to his
native South Carolina immediately after the Civil War to
serve as a principal of a Negro school. In this selection,
he calls upon the South Carolina Constitutional Convention
to grant land to the freedmen.
One
of the greatest of slavery bulwarks was the infernal
plantation system, one man owning his thousand, another his
twenty, another fifty thousands acres of land. This is the
only way by which we will break up that system, and I
maintain that our freedom will be of no effect if we allow
it to continue. What is the main cause of the prosperity of
the North? It is because every man has his own farm and is
free and independent. Let the lands of the South be
similarly divided. I would not say for one moment they
should be confiscated, but if sold to maintain the war, now
that slavery is destroyed, let the plantation system go with
it. We will never have true freedom until we abolish the
system of agriculture which existed in the Southern States.
It is useless to have any schools while we maintain the
stronghold of slavery as the agricultural system of the
country.
African Americans argue for land
History 122