Immigration to Virginia

Virginians claim they have open arms for all immigrants willing to buy land, work or contribute to their community. However, they feel they do not have to respect incomers that believe former Confederates should be disfranchised and blacks given suffrage.

Among the reports industriously circulated to the prejudice of the south at the north, with the view of helping on the radical programme in the game of politics, is one that the south is unwilling to sell lands to northern people, and that they would not he allowed to live amongst southern people. This is untrue. The lands here that are in market are in market for any body, and the owners would be glad to see any men of means who desire to make investments in lands. What this State wants especially is money, and we would hail the arrival of men from the north or any where else, with money to invest, as an encouraging and cheering event. We would not object even if there was a sprinkling of the blue-noses from New England ! Money could no where find more secure investment with better prospect of profit. We wish to assure moneyed men of this, and to invite them, without distinction, to come here and lay out their means. The social relations of new-comers are under their own control. They cannot expect the southern people to love the people of the north yet- especially as Congress continues daily to foment sectional feeling and imbue the southern mind with discontent. But they will always meet with civility, and in a little while with kindness- provided they do not array themselves with a dozen or so in this State who advocate the disfranchisement of the white man and the enfranchisement of the negro. We suppose no man will have the folly to come to live here with such sentiments, he may as well come herewith the threat to poison us all, and expect to be taken by the hand.

“Immigration to Virginia,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/230.