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342 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

good one. A man should never leave his home for a new one till he has earnestly
endeavored to make his immediate surroundings accord with his
wishes. The time and energy expended in wandering from place to place, if
employed in making him a comfortable home where he is, will, in nine cases
out of ten, prove the best investment. No people ever did much for themselves
or for the world without the sense and inspiration of native land, of a
fixed home, of familiar neighborhood and common associations. The fact of
being to the manner born has an elevating power upon the mind and heart of
a man. It is a more cheerful thing to be able to say I was born here and know
all the people, than to say I am a stranger here and know none of the
people.

"It cannot be doubted that in so far as this exodus tends to promote restlessness
in the colored people of the South, to unsettle their feeling of home,
and to sacrifice positive advantages where they are, for fancied ones in
Kansas or elsewhere, it is an evil. Some have sold their little homes, their
chickens, mules, and pigs, at a sacrifice, to follow the exodus. Let it be
understood that you are going, and you advertise the fact that your mule has
lost half its value; for your staying with him makes half his value. Let the
colored people of Georgia offer their six millions' worth of property for sale,
with the purpose to leave Georgia, and they will not realize half its value.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule
is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.

"It may be safely asserted that whether advocated and commended to
favor on the ground that it will increase the political power of the Republican
party, and thus help to make a solid North against a solid South, or upon the
ground that it will increase the power and influence of the colored people as
a political element, and enable them the better to protect their rights, and
insure their moral and social elevation, the exodus will prove a disappointment,
a mistake, and a failure; because, as to strengthening the Republican
party, the emigrants will go only to those States where the Republican party
is strong and solid enough already with their votes; and in respect to the
other part of the argument, it will fail because it takes colored voters from a
section of the country where they are sufficiently numerous to elect some of
their number to places of honor and profit, and places them in a country
where their proportion to other classes will be so small as not to be recognized
as a political element or entitled to be represented by one of themselves.
And further, because go where they will, they must for a time
inevitably carry with them poverty, ignorance, and other repulsive incidents,
inherited from their former condition as slaves - a circumstance which is