"Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire."

On his Rad Geek People's Daily blog, Charles Johnson has posted an extraordinary 1865 letter from a former slave named Jourdan Anderson to his former master Colonel P.H. Anderson. Apparently Col. Anderson wrote to Jourdan in Ohio and asked him to come back and work on the plantation in Tennessee. Jourdan's response is brilliant (and strikes many of the same classical liberal themes as Frederick Douglass' famous letter to his former master). Here's one particularly memorable part:

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost Marshal General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly-and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future.

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

Read the whole thing here.