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THE 
 
 Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ♦♦♦♦ 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered Before the “Unity Club,” 
 
 OF 
 
 New Bedford, Mass., 
 
 April 27, 1900, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JNO. W. STAGG, D. D. 
 
 ♦♦♦♦ 
 
 CHARLOTTE, N. C. 
 Presbyterian Publishing Company, 
 1900. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 https://archive.org/details/raceprobleminsouOOstag 
 
THE 
 
 Race Problem in the South. 
 
 REV. JNO. W. ST AGO, D. D. 
 
 Mr. President , Members of the Unity Club , My Fellow 
 Countrymen , Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is my purpose to speak dispassionately and for truth 
 sake only. We have for discussion a question of vast 
 importance to the nation, the understanding of which is of 
 great import to a large section of our country, and of even 
 greater consequence to the negro race. I speak as a friend 
 of the negro, provided you let friendship mean a willing¬ 
 ness to do for him that which is for his very best interests, 
 and which would not be good if done for an equal number 
 of white men living anywhere in this union. The best 
 friend of the negro is he who recognizes that negroes and 
 whites are not equal, and it is beyond the power of man to 
 make them so. The reason is, a negro is a negro and a 
 white man a white man. This distinction will appear 
 absurd to you here in New England, while it will be satis¬ 
 factory to any Southern man as intelligent and as kind as 
 any citizen of your great Commonwealth. The failure to 
 accept the dictum of your Southern white brethren has led 
 to, what I consider, the greatest wrong ever perpetrated 
 upon an inferior race, viz : the extension of the franchise 
 to those helpless in the grasp of such a power for evil. 
 
 I shall undertake to account for the attitude of the public 
 mind toward slavery that finally gave such a resultant. In 
 doing so, I shall necessarily refer to that which is already 
 familiar, but probably has never been considered by you in 
 relation of cause and effect. Beginning with the Missouri 
 
Compromise in i 82 r, it is interesting to note that every 
 public question of any proportions was directly aff cted in 
 all discussion and finally settled in view of the apparently 
 disassociated problem of American Slavery. From 1821 
 to 1854 it will be observed by all students of public events 
 that there was no difference of opinion between the North 
 and the South. The question then, as it has always been 
 since, was handled with the view of its effect upon political 
 parties in determining their success or failure, and never 
 with a view of what was best for the country, the institu¬ 
 tion of slavery, or the negro race. There was not an 
 utterance made on this subject nor an opinion held by a 
 Southern Statesman, that did not find its parallel in a 
 Northern Statesman. 
 
 It is significant that Mr. Emerson remarked about Mr. 
 Webster, not about a Southern Statesman, “Every drop of 
 blood in this man’s veins has eyes that look downward.” 
 However many or few names prior to this time may be 
 written down at the North as opposed to slavery, as it 
 existed in America, an equal number can be written down 
 at the South as opposed to slavery as an institution, with 
 the difference that the Southern man was more than apt to 
 be a slave owner, and the Northern man certainly not one. 
 
 A brief review may recall the political situation :—From 
 the adoption of the Missouri Compromise in February, 1821, 
 until January, 1836, slavery excited no serious discussion in 
 congress In May, 1833, Andrew Jackson wrote, “The 
 tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a Southern 
 Confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the 
 negro or slavery question.” The great political parties 
 ignored the issue, but forces were at work beyond their 
 control. Lundy and Garrison began the agitation which 
 led to the formation of anti-slavery societies. In a conven¬ 
 tion held at Baltim >re in 1826, eighty-one such societies 
 were represented, of which seventy-three were in slave¬ 
 holding communities. In January, 1831, Garrison began 
 to publish “ 1 he Liberator” in Boston. In November the 
 New England Anti-Slavery Society was founded. In 1833 
 
the New York Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and a 
 convention at Philadelphia established the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society- A single sentence from the declaration 
 of principles adopted by the American Society summed up 
 their position :—“We also maintain that there are at the 
 present time the highest obligations resting upon the 
 people of the free states to remove slavery by moral and 
 political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the 
 United States/’ I his was a clean cut statement of the 
 issue, and it disclosed the fact that the public mind was by 
 no means prepared for its reception, and that men at the 
 North the equal in every particular to those advocating it, 
 were bitterly opposed to it. It was the effort of a few 
 private citizens with little influence and small means, grap¬ 
 pling with a gigantic evil, supported by the political, social, 
 and business powers of the country. Many Southern men 
 were opposed to slavery, and acquiesced in a system which 
 it seemed impossible to change without disaster, political 
 and business, Edward Everett expressed the sentiments 
 of many r when he said “The great relation of servitude in 
 some form or other with greater or less departure from the 
 theoretic equality of men, is inseparable from our nature; 
 it is a condition of life as well as any other, to be justified 
 by morality, religion, and international law,” and that it 
 was right “to abstain from a discussion which, if not aban¬ 
 doned, there is great reason to fear will prove the rock on 
 which the Union will split.” Garrison was dragged through 
 the streets of Boston, Lovejoy was killed in Illinois, and 
 anti-slavery agitation was met by mob violence in almost 
 every Northern State. Southern Postmasters took anti¬ 
 slavery publications from the mails. The Postmaster- 
 General, Amos Kendall, admitted this was illegal, but said 
 “By no act or direction of mine, official or private, would I 
 be induced knowingly to aid in giving circulation to papers 
 of this description, directly or indirectly.” From this 
 period on, every public question of proportions was affected 
 by slavery in its settlement. The struggle over the right 
 of petition was caused by a petition praying Congress for 
 
action against slavery. The twenty-fourth Congress orl 
 May 26, 1836, ruled that all petitions relating in anyway 
 to slavery, be laid on the table. Against this rule Mr. 
 Adams waged unrelenting war, until, in the second session 
 of the twenty-eighth Congress it was abandoned. 
 
 In 1845 the annexation of Texas was before the Congress 
 of the United States ; it was a critical time and the debates 
 were long and fierce ; the entire discussion turned on the 
 question of slavery. The consequences of the admission 
 of Texas were far-reaching. It divided the Whigs of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts into two parties—sometime^ called the “Con¬ 
 science Whigs” and the “Cotton Whigs.” In 1846, the 
 contest between Mr. Winthrop and Dr. S G Howe was 
 due to Winthrop’s vote on the Mexican War bill, which in 
 turn was determined by his views on slavery. September 
 29th, 1847, Daniel Webster was a candidate for the next 
 Presidential nomination. In a speech to the convention, 
 he took ground against the extension of slavery, but was 
 averse to affirmative anti-slavery action. His candidacy 
 was seriously affected by this question, and he failed of 
 nomination. Early in 1848 the Mexican War was ended by 
 a treaty which ceded to the United States New Mexico and 
 Upper California, in return for a payment of fifteen million 
 dollars. 
 
 The question, “should this new area be free or slave 
 soil,” had been raised early in the war. Th is was the most 
 important question before the country. Whigs and Demo¬ 
 crats alike recognized that a decided position would alien¬ 
 ate some of their followers. The Democratic Convention 
 nominated Lewis Cass on a platfoi m which did not deal 
 with the question, but denied the power of Congress to 
 interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the 
 States. The Whig convention was even more diplomatic. 
 It nominated Gen. Taylor, at once, a successful General 
 and a Southern slaveholder, and adjourned without adopt¬ 
 ing any platform. This surrender of the Whig party was 
 the immediate cause of revolt, and the purpose so to do 
 was announced by Charles Allen and Henry Wilson in 
 
convention itself. On August 9th, at Buffal o. a national 
 convention nominated Martin Van Buren and Chas. Francis 
 Adams ; thus a new party, known as the “Free Soil’’ party, 
 was formed, whose leading principle was opposition to the 
 extension of slavery, and to its longer continuance wher¬ 
 ever the national government was responsible for it. This 
 stated the position soon to be taken by the Republican 
 Party, and it is not necessary to trace the causes further 
 leading to the ormation of this great political body. We 
 have now the issue squarely before us. 
 
 In 1845, in the autumn after the annexation of Texas, in 
 many respects the greatest man the country has ever pro¬ 
 duced entered the arena; that man was Charles Sumner. 
 Mr. Sumner was sine cera , one of whom, it might be said, 
 behold a public man in whom there is no guile. He was 
 pure and honest, a scholar and a thinker, a servant of truth 
 and right, regardless of men and parties, as deadly in his 
 invective against the North as against the South, whenever 
 the one or the other struck at the principle of his conten¬ 
 tion. He was childlike but never childish. He often spoke 
 and wrote in such way as to alienate his warmest friends 
 and sting to the quick his enemies, and was as surprised as 
 a child to think that anyone could possibly be offended at 
 anything he had said, so completely did this truly great 
 man rise above personalities in his attempt to conserve 
 right. No nobler man ever lived than Charles Sumner. 
 Nothing more to be regretted and more unjustifiable has 
 ever happened to any public man than Mr. Brooks’ coward¬ 
 ly assault upon Mr. Sumner, and the defense of the act by 
 his own people of South Carolina and other Southern States, 
 is only to be explained from the heated condition of the 
 blood, incident to the incisive debate that had so long agi¬ 
 tated the public mind. It is impossible to study this peiiod 
 of our national history, and be surprised at anything that 
 happened. 
 
 Mr. Sumner defined his position thus: “It cannot be 
 doubted that the Constitution may be amended so that it 
 shall cease to render any sanction to slavery. The power 
 
to amend carries with it the previous right to inquire into 
 and discuss the matter to be amended, and the right ex¬ 
 tends to all parts of the country over which the Constitu¬ 
 tion is spread—the North as well as the South.” 
 
 This statement defines the limits in which Mr. Sumner’s 
 action against slavery was always confined. He is the only 
 man, so far as I know, who discussed slavery always in the 
 abstract up to this time, and never in the concrete; who 
 discussed it independent of all political and business inter¬ 
 ests, who spoke for right and right alone. So powerfully 
 did the man impress himself upon the country, that a con¬ 
 vention in Kentucky, composed of delegates from twenty- 
 four counties, pronounced slavery “injurious to the prosper¬ 
 ity of the commonwealth, inconsistent with the fundamental 
 principles of free government, contrary to the natural rights 
 of mankind, and adverse to a pure state of morals,” and de¬ 
 clared “that it ought not to be increased, and that it ought 
 not to be perpetuated in the commonwealth.” A Richmond 
 newspaper said, “two-thirds of the people of Virginia are 
 open and undisguised advocates of ridding the State of 
 slavery.” This latter we take to be untrue, but it at least 
 shows that Mr. Sumner’s influence was strongly felt. 
 
 ATTITUDE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 No party ever came to life through such birth-throes as 
 the Republican party. With the country on the verge of 
 internecine war and a great voice like Mr. Sumner’s lifted 
 in behalf of right, regardless of all consequences, it is not 
 to be wondered that the party in its early life was guilty of 
 faults for which it has not yet made atonement, and perhaps 
 never can. When we remember that the party had control 
 of the ship of state when the country had been engaged 
 for four years in internecine strife, and that Lee’s surrender 
 brought to a close the greatest war of the world, we expect 
 mistakes to be made, and in such disorder and confusion 
 misunderstanding is certain to be, and injustice is sure to 
 follow. In such times men do not understand each other 
 and measures are adopted, with pure motives, that are dis- 
 
astrous in their carrying out. In such times men do not 
 understand God. It is looked upon as an inscrutable provi¬ 
 dence by the South, as well as the North, that Mr. Lincoln 
 should have been taken away when he was, and in the 
 horrible manner of his death I must confess that the 
 inscrutable providence ol the times to me is, why Mr. 
 Sumner was permitted so long to direct the party he had 
 been instrumental in organizing. He was too abstract a 
 man for confused times and when action was demanded. 
 Such a man knows no concession, and without concession 
 wise measures are impossible. During reconstruction times 
 John Bright was discussing the extension of the franchise 
 in the British Parliament, and Mr. Sumner’s mind took no 
 note of the difficulties in the way of applying this principle. 
 He said, “the work of liberation will not be completed, 
 until the equal rights of every person once claimed as a 
 slave, are placed under the safe-guard of irreversible guar¬ 
 anties.” Whatever may be said for or against President 
 Johnston, to my mind he showed greater insight into the 
 problem, when on the 29th of May he issued a proclama¬ 
 tion of amnesty, and another providing for reconstruction 
 in North Carolina, “by a convention to be chosen only by 
 persons qualified to vote before secession,” thus excluding 
 all negroes from the electorate. Mr Johnston had split 
 rails with negroes, and as we say down South, “He sho’did 
 understand a nigger.” During the period of reconstruction 
 men were controlled by passion and not directed by reason. 
 That time to the South was Hell come upon the earth No 
 people, since the day that man was created upon the earth, 
 ever endured such outrages and indignities, and had they 
 not been starved out during four years of lighting, th ey 
 would have taken up arms after ’65, in an attempt to throw 
 off the yoke of the conquerer. In illustration of the insan¬ 
 ity of the time, I call attention to the utterance of a man 
 who was regarded before his death a^ the greatest living 
 preacher. Phillips Biooks, on the Sunday Mr. Lincoln’s 
 body lay in state in the city of Phil idelphia, spoke as 
 follows: “Abraham Lincoln was the type-man of the coun- 
 
try, but not of the whole country. This character which 
 we have been trying to describe, was the character of an 
 American under the discipline of freedom There was 
 another American character which had been developed 
 under the influence of slavery. There was no one Ameri¬ 
 can character embracing the land, there were two charac¬ 
 ters, with impulses of irrepressible and deadly conflict. 
 This citizen whom we have been honoring and praising 
 represented one The whole great scheme with which he 
 was ultimately brou gilt in conflict, and which has finally 
 killed him, represented the other. Besides this nature, 
 true and fresh and new, there was another nature, false and 
 effete and old. The one nature found itself in a new world, 
 and set itself to discover the new ways for the new duties 
 that were given it. The other nature, full of the false pride 
 of blood, set itself to reproduce in the new world the insti¬ 
 tutions and the spirit of the old, to build anew the structure 
 of the feudalism which had been corrupt in its own day, and 
 which had been left far behind by the advancing conscience 
 and needs of the progressing race.” Only when reason is 
 dethroned by passion can good men speak words so derog¬ 
 atory to a great section of the country, and which have 
 been refuted every time the stars and stripes have been 
 unfurled, and men have been called to their defence. The 
 tramp of soldiers has been heard from the Rio Grande and 
 the Gulf, and that tramp will be heard so long as the 
 Republic stands. 
 
 SLAVERY AND ITS EFFECTS ON RIGHTS. THE FRANCHISE 
 
 AND ITS EFFECTS ON RIGHTS. 
 
 November the 4th, 1845, ,n Boston, Mr. Sumner said : 
 “The Government and Independence of the United States 
 are founded on the adamantine truth of Equal Rights 
 and the Brotherhood of all men, declared on the 4th of 
 July, 1776, a truth receiving new and constant recognition 
 in the progress of time, and which is the great lesson from 
 our country to the world.” We of the South concur in 
 every word of this attempt to define our position, as a 
 
nation, before the world ; and yet the greater portion of 
 the meaning in Mr. Sumner’s mind is not in ours, showing 
 at least, that the question of rights is debatable, and the 
 meaning of the language of the Constitution is by no means 
 self evident. 
 
 We hold that slavery involves right in the constitutional 
 sense, and that the franchise does not involve right, but 
 involves the question of expediency. Up to 1835 in North 
 Carolina free negroes exercised the right of the franchise. 
 Gov. Graham was elected, the first time he entered public 
 life, by one vote, and that vote was cas^ by a free negro. 
 The agitation of the public mind in 1835 was such that it 
 was expedient to debar the free Negro from the privilege of 
 voting, thus early was this the doctrine of sections of the 
 South. 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 I have no word too strong to express my condemnation 
 of slavery as an institution Its existence in the South was 
 due to a sequence in cause over which the country appar¬ 
 ently had no control after once the iniquity of slave trading 
 had been touched by the nation. You at the North are. if 
 anything, more to blame for its existence in America than 
 we at the South. Of this condition of slavery I have no 
 word of condemnation. It v/as the best form of it that ever 
 existed since Adam was created. But the defence of 
 slavery, as an institution, such as was given to it by many 
 leading statesmen and pulpiteers of the South, may be set 
 aside as absurd It is useless to deny that slavery was 
 defended as a divine right. Good men taught it. I was 
 taught it by a man as pure as ever occupied a chair in an 
 institution for the education of youth. When I remembered 
 what the people of the South passed through during the 
 war and during the period of reconstruction at your hands, 
 
 I understood how prejudice and hatred blinded to the truth. 
 It would have been strange if the teaching had been other¬ 
 wise. Nevertheless slavery in any form, anywhere on the 
 face of the earth, is damnable. It is a wrong against God 
 and man. I have never seen an argument in its justifica- 
 
tion that would not at the same time justify those things 
 that by common consent are damnable. The Rible gives 
 a history of slavery and polygamy, and the one as well as 
 the other, can be justified with the arguments usually 
 advanced for slavery. When the mind and body of a 
 human being is controlled by a master, the question of 
 right is involved, and no penalty is too great to pay for 
 the settlement of where right begins and ends. The civil 
 war was horrible, it saturated the land with blood, but if it 
 helped in settling this question it was cheap. 
 
 THE GREATEST BLUNDER OF THE NATION. 
 
 It could hardly be expected that a political party, in 
 power at such a time as that immediately preceding and 
 following the war, should not make blunders ; but to my 
 mind the most egregious wrong ever perpetrated in the his¬ 
 tory of the Republic, was when the Constitution was so 
 amended as to give equality of suffrage to the negro with 
 the white race of this Union. The folly of this part of our 
 history is being written now. It was a gross wrong to the 
 white race ; it was a greater wrong to the negro race. 
 
 A scrutiny of the condition of affairs will make clear the 
 wrong to the Southern white. I wish to set this forth by 
 analogy. I prefer to take my incidents trom the New Tes¬ 
 tament, that f may give to the argument the force of being 
 Christian. One of the noted men whom the Apostle Paul 
 persuaded to embrace Christianity, was Philemon. This 
 man was a slave-holder, and possessed a slave named 
 Onesimus. Philemon seems to have recognized, even for 
 slaves, a right of personal freedom in the highest sphere, 
 and he did not force his slaves to become converts to Chris¬ 
 tianity, but, as was the manner of many slave-holders in 
 the South, gave his slaves the opportunity of having the 
 arguments for the new faith presented. Among the hear¬ 
 ers of the great apostle was Onesimus. He heard Paul’s 
 exhortation, in which he called upon his auditors to stand 
 fast in that liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. 
 The theory of Christian liberty was as yet too subtle for 
 
him, but the fact was patent and inspiring. Here was a 
 religion which asserted in the most unqualified terms the 
 equality of all men before God ; which declared in the 
 most uncompromising accents that with him there was no 
 respect of persons ; which maintained that in his sight all 
 distinction was abolished between Jew and Gentile, Greek 
 and barbarian, freeman and ' lave. The two ideas of bond¬ 
 age and freedom took possession of him, heart and brain, 
 and Philemon became to him as unbearable as if he had 
 been the object of despotic tyranny. One day Paul was 
 surprised, near the conclusion of his first Roman period, by 
 a visit from Onesimus, with the information that he was a 
 run-a-way slave, and that he had left his master because of 
 the preaching of the great Apostle. This incident is of 
 greater significance than many suppose. Paul had now to 
 give the Christian answer, for the world, to Onesimus, on 
 slavery, and at the same time give direction to the conduct 
 of a man who was wronged by an institution without divine 
 sanction, and un-Christian. Whether Paul understood, 
 or did not understand, the tremendous issues dependent 
 upon his answers to Onesimus, the direction he gave the 
 matter is worthy of all imitation He unhesitatingly 
 taught Onesimus that slavery was wrong and that his right 
 was to be free from Philemon, but that there were other 
 considerations which should determine the exercise of that 
 right. He taught Onesimus that the new doctrine was not 
 designed to reduce men to one level, but to establish a new 
 social grade. He knew well that, if society were made a 
 plain to-day, it would be studded again with mountains 
 to-morrow. He knew well that, however equal men might 
 be in rights, they were, and always would be very une¬ 
 qual in merits. 
 
 The condition confronted was this: “Christianity had a 
 right to proclaim the freedom of man as man. Nothing 
 was simpler than to make such a proclamation. Paul had 
 only to connive at the flight of Onesimus and to indorse 
 the act by his own imprimatur ; it would have been a 
 signal to the whole slave population of the world that the 
 
watch word of the new religion was emancipation from 
 servile bonds. What would have been the effect of such a 
 signal ? Doubtless it would have instantaneously added to 
 the numerical strength of Christianity ; the kingdom of 
 heaven would immediately have been taken by violence, 
 and so would the kingdoms of earth. It is impossible to 
 conceive a more perfect picture of anarchy than would 
 have been created bv a sudden and successful insurrection 
 
 j 
 
 of the slave population. The numerical proportion of the 
 bound to the unbound in the Roman Empire is a matter of 
 dispute ; probably the bond outnumbered the free. Figure 
 anything approaching to such a proportion, and then to the 
 quantity add the quality. Consider that the slave popula¬ 
 tion represented at its worst that state which we designate 
 by the name of Paganism—a name which embraces as its 
 leading characteristic the predominance of the sensuous 
 over the spiritual. It was Paganism without its restraints 
 and without its refinements. What would have been the 
 effect of the emancipation of these millions—the emanci¬ 
 pation of an un-Christianized, unhumanized horde impelled 
 by the fanaticism of a new watch-word, accomplished in a 
 moment of time, and achieved by a stroke of violence ? 
 Could it have had anv other result than one—the transfer- 
 mation of order into anarchy, the uprooting of that line of 
 civilization on which Christianity itself had begun to move ? 
 
 I have taken the picture ready made. With slight varia¬ 
 tion it descr bes the condition of the South. What the 
 Republican party did, the Apostle Paul could conceive of 
 no condition of servitude as justifying. By one act it lifted 
 four millions of slaves to equal rights with their white supe¬ 
 riors, and four millions in whom the sensuous predominates 
 over all other qualities of heart or head. The only safe¬ 
 guard for the Southern white, was the kindness which the 
 negro had received at his hands during all the history of 
 Southern slavery ; and if the malicious lie of general 
 cruelty, on the part of Southern slave-holders, can find 
 refutation nowhere else, let it find it here. When a great 
 political party turned loose four million slaves with author- 
 
ity and backed by power, to perform their will, they 
 had to be led by corrupt white men, and driven by corrupt 
 politicians to do even as badly as they did. be it said here 
 that the kindness of the negro race during the war, when 
 every gun was at the front, and women and children unpro¬ 
 tected on the farm, is without parallel in the history of man. 
 
 THE EFFECT ON THE NEGRO RACE. 
 
 Nothing ever done by the most malignant enemy of the 
 negro has been as detrimental as the amendment of the 
 Constitution, by which the right of a vote was given him. 
 It was like putting a stick in his hands, and then compel¬ 
 ling him to break his own back with it. The enormous 
 power of the franchise in the hands of so many newly made 
 citizens, was at once taken advantage of by unscrupulous 
 white men, both North and South, and from that day to 
 this the Negro vote has been a commodity on the political 
 market, to be bought and sold for every manner and kind 
 of corruption. For a long while, at least, it destroyed all 
 hope in the South of accomplishing anything in the way of 
 good for that section. It is not necessary that I should 
 undertake to tell the manner of the doing. Thomas Nel¬ 
 son Page, in “Red Rock,” has given the picture of an 
 intelligent Northern man amid the scenes as they were 
 enacted, and while the story is fiction, it is fiction founded 
 on fact, and the conclusion of this intelligent Northern 
 character as to the wrong of giving the power of suffrage to 
 the negro race, is more than confirmed, under one of the 
 modern wonders of the world—the speed of communication 
 with all parts of the earth—when so many right thinking 
 and just men, of the north, have seen with their own eyes, 
 and heard with their own ears, things they once would not 
 believe on the highest testimony. The period immediately 
 following the war was fraught with influences that as com¬ 
 pletely changed the negro as if he had been put to school. 
 The carpet-bag regime was indeed a school of training for 
 outrage, and the negro succumbed to this influence. From 
 a long term of servitude he had learned to admire author- 
 
ity, pomp, and wealth. The war destroyed pomp and 
 wealth. His former master was attired in rags, and his 
 former mistress had laid aside her diamonds. The Federal 
 government had destroyed the white man’s authority by 
 giving equal rights of suffrage to the negro. When he was 
 told that he was as good as the white man, he could, at 
 least, see that there was not the difference that once existed. 
 Under this tutelage he was changed ; his kindness changed 
 to hate, his respect to contempt, his reverence to insult, his 
 temperance to intemperance, his self control to rape. In a 
 word, the Negro was brutalized. The result was that the 
 whites organized into bands of various characters and 
 names, and many negroes were killed. The result of this 
 has been that to the present time the papers of the country 
 have kept up crimination and recrimination. And I believe 
 a paper called the Independent , published in New York, 
 still keeps it up in the ^ame old way, refusing to believe 
 that things have changed at all. 
 
 I wish to show how thoroughly this school of out-laws 
 trained the negroes. There is in Alabama a negro named 
 Booker Washington at the head of an industrial school for 
 the training of negroes. On February the 12th, 1899, he 
 was invited by the Union League Club of Philadelphia, in 
 commemoration of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, to deliver 
 an address, in which he said: “My first acquaintance with 
 our hero and benefactor is this: night after night, before 
 the dawn of day, on an old slave plantation in Virginia, I 
 recall the form of my sainted mother, bending over a batch 
 of rags that enveloped my body, on a dirt floor, breathing 
 a fervent prayer to Heaven that “Massa Lincoln might suc¬ 
 ceed ” If this was intended to give a picture of slave life in 
 Virginia, it is very misleading. But what I apprehend 
 Booker Washington wished to do was to express the opini¬ 
 on he thought his Northern friends had in their minds, and 
 that they rather expected he would say something deroga¬ 
 tory of slavery. Booker Washington is a great negro but 
 not a great man, and he and all other negroes I have seen 
 show this weakness when circumstances give the opportu- 
 
nitv of currying favor with their friends by obtaining sym¬ 
 pathy through fiction. 
 
 The reason why the intelligant people of the North failed 
 to understand the situation better, was due in no small part 
 to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” This book has had a sale larger 
 than all other books, with, perhaps, the two exceptions of 
 “Pilgrim’s Progress” and the Bible. In view of this, its 
 great influence is understood. 1 he plot of the book was 
 conceived at Ripley, Ohio, in the house of a Presbyterian 
 minister named Rankin. Mr. Rankin’s house occupied the 
 summit of the highest hill in that section on the banks of 
 the Ohio River. It was the point known as the “Under¬ 
 ground Railroad,” where runaway slaves crossed on their 
 way North and to Canada. Whatever cruelty attached to 
 the slave system, she saw in its most exaggerated form. 
 
 Slave-dealers and those hunting slaves for the reward of 
 their return were here. I suspect they were horribly treated. 
 Mr. Rankin was recognized as an apostle to freedom, and 
 I believe has erected to him in the little cemetery at Rip¬ 
 ley, a monument with an inscription that states as much. 
 Under these conditions, and a fertile imagination fired by 
 prejudice, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a natural product; 
 but when sent to the world as a correct exposition of the 
 condition of slaveiy as it existed in the South, it was an 
 enormous misrepresentation. 
 
 THE AMENDMENT. 
 
 After the endurance of outrage and insolence, from the 
 negro race, for thirty-five years, the white people of the 
 South have undertaken to deal with the question. Many 
 people living at remote distances from the South are anxious 
 to understand what is proposed, under the amendments to 
 the State Constitutions; such, for instance, as is proposed to 
 \ be voted on, in August next, in the State of North Carolina. 
 
 I will say that the wise men in the South will have the 
 negro’s good at heart, as well as their own, in whatever 
 measure may be finally decided upon. I am convinced that 
 some action must be speedily taken—for the good of the 
 
negro race. The best action would be tor the nation to 
 take from the Constitution of the United States the 15th 
 15th amendment, stating it was put there in time of 
 passion and under the pressure of misguided enthusiasm. 
 By this one act all friction between the white and negro 
 races would in time be removed. It would convince the 
 negro that his outrages would not be tolerated by the gov¬ 
 ernment, and restore somewhat of the feeling of the 
 ante-bellum negro who knew there was no escape from his 
 wrong doing. This race cannot be controlled anywhere on 
 the earth without some such fear of the consequences of its 
 acts. If this cannot be accomplished, then the States must 
 do the best they can. 
 
 THE REMEDY PROPOSED. 
 
 Before another generation of negroes is allowed to arise, 
 worse, as we must see than the present, the people of the 
 South must act. First they must remove the negro from 
 politics—not, perhaps, forever—but certainly until the 
 proper time. When such distant and alien advisers as the 
 Philadelphia Inquirer can see what the following statement 
 indicates, it is blindness that prevents the man on ihe 
 ground from seeing. That journal, in a recent editorial 
 (February 6th, 1900), says: “We have made many mistakes 
 during the course of the century in the United States. 
 What is called the ‘Southern question’ revolves almost ex¬ 
 clusively around the ballot box. The freedom of the ballot 
 box is altogether too free.” To deprive the ignorant negro 
 of the political liberty, which he now uses for license, will, 
 by the immediate change it will bring in his relation to the 
 white man, soon indemnify him for the seeming loss. It 
 will, let us hope, soon bring again the old relations in feel¬ 
 ing that existed between the races at the close of the war. 
 It the change is long delayed, however, it will come too 
 late; the young whites of the South, more familiar with the 
 “new issue” than the old, have as we have seen but little 
 of that sympathetic feeling for the race that their fathers 
 had. The negro is to them a political menace only; they 
 
have no cause to love him and in spite of their traditions 
 they are beginning- to hate him. It were better for botli 
 races that this should be changed, at the first possible 
 moment. 
 
 Some one will say, “what about the negro’s right to 
 vote.” The answer is that the question of right is not in¬ 
 volved. It isn’t anybody’s right to vote. I accept Herbert 
 Spencer’s doctrine ol rights. Voting, in this country, is a 
 question of expedie icy for whites as well as blacks. It 
 may not be expedient for you here in Massachusetts to 
 vote; then you should not vote. Once upon a time you 
 thought it was not expedient for a large number of the best 
 citizens of this country not to vote, and you said so, and 
 they did not vote. These were also South of the Mason’s 
 and Dixon’s line. We say, on the ground of expediency, 
 that the negro, in North Carolina, ought not to vote. 
 
 My fellow men, here in cold New England, it is expedi¬ 
 ent that he should not. It will be the beginning of great 
 things for the negro, and without which redemption to 
 good citizenship is impossible. Whatever else the Spanish- 
 American war failed to accomplish, it did accomplish this: 
 it destroyed all misgiving in our own minds, and convinced 
 the world that this country is one We are a union, and 
 whenever we are attacked, whether here on this New Eng¬ 
 land coast, or the Mexican border, we are a union against 
 the world. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have intimated 
 to the South, “Write the word Union, and you may ask for 
 what you will, and it shall be granted.” We write the word 
 “Union,” as we have written it in blood, and our request is 
 that you let us deal with the race problem in the South. 
 We oi the South understand the negro. We love him. He 
 is the best friend on earth when uncorrupted. By this 
 amendment we are only r trying to do what the wisest and 
 best men in the South besought you to do in 1861 The 
 Virginia Secession Convention of that y r ear, in Section 7, of 
 Article XIII, of its proceedings prayed, “The elective 
 franchise and the right to hold office, whether Federal or 
 Territorial, shall not be exercised by persons who are of 
 
the African race.” The condition of affairs in Wilmington, 
 N. C , last year, was due to a failure in apprehending this 
 restriction proposed to be put upon the negro race, and it 
 may serve as illustration of the cause of riots elsewhere, 
 and be prophetic of worse things in store for the negro, 
 unless measures are adopted to hedge him about and pro¬ 
 tect him. This Anglo-Saxon race is long suffering, but it 
 is the fiercest race on earth, and when the day of retribu¬ 
 tion comes, harrowing tales will be told. Disfranchisement 
 is the remedy, for things will not continue always as they 
 now are. I take this occasion to state that I have little 
 patience with the harangues of politicians recently made in 
 North Carolina and elsewhere in the South. They are un¬ 
 just to the negro, and are not in accord with the thought 
 of the best and wisest white men of that section. The 
 question has merits, which, when presented in a dispassion¬ 
 ate and dignified manner, will command a hearing, even 
 from the negroes themselves, many of whom have said, 
 “The measure is just; we do not need the franchise; we 
 need that help that will fit us for its exercise.” I have no 
 sympathy for the man who needlessly abuses the negro. 
 Every wrong the negro has perpetrated in the South is due 
 to the short-sightedness of his supposed white friend. His 
 record during slavery proves this. A correctly taught 
 negro will take charge of the virtue and the wealth of your 
 family, and neither will be molested. Ten thousand South¬ 
 ern white men will testify to the truth of this statement. 
 The Spanish-American war incidentally emphasizes the 
 wisdom of the Virginia resolution in 1861 in petitioning that 
 no member of the African race be allowed to hold office. 
 The incident of a negro officer in the volunteer army of the 
 late war, reminding a private white soldier of “the duty of 
 inferiors to salute their superiors,” to which the white soldier 
 replied, “All coons look alike to me,” while humorous, is 
 significant. 1 he significance is deepened when we remem¬ 
 ber that the reply was not made by a Southern man. It 
 means that a negro cannot be put in authority over a white 
 man anywhere in these United States, and the negro’s life 
 
be safe. In the regular army, whatever good word may be 
 said for the negro is due to the fact that in the regular 
 array the negro is practically in slavery, and when managed 
 properly, his equal for service is not easily found. But in 
 the volunteer army, the Northern white volunteer saw the 
 negro in all his insolence, and the most insolent being on 
 earth is a negro in the paraphernalia of office, without the 
 instincts of a gentleman or the qualifications of an officer. 
 These Northern white volunteers have done more than all 
 the newspapers published since the war in giving a correct 
 estimate of the negro as a race, and they have taken this 
 information to every State of the Union. The horrible 
 crimes committed in the South in the way of killing innocent 
 government officers, is due to feeling kindled by negro in¬ 
 solence at first, and has been fed until the drapery of office 
 will render obnoxious the best negro in the land to many 
 of the lower class of whites. I frankly admit that this is 
 unjust; at the same time, I wish to declare that this condi¬ 
 tion is due to lack of judgment on the part of the govern¬ 
 ment, in trying to force an inferior race to the place of rule 
 over a superior race, when it is unfitted by inheritance and 
 training, and lacking in merit for such position When we 
 remember the tremendous effort to arouse this country 
 against slavery, and recollect that slavery went down in 
 one of the bloodiest wars of the world, it is not strange that 
 the North should have erroneous views of the negro race, 
 and exaggerated ideas of his sufferings and wrongs, nor is 
 it even surprising that the North glorified and deified the 
 negro: but the time for visions is past, and the time of 
 soberness is at hand. With purity of heart, sincerity of pur¬ 
 pose, and soundness of mind, the South says the wrong to 
 the white and the wrong to the negro will never be righted 
 until the negro is relieved of the burden of responsibilities 
 for which, as a race, he is unqualified. I could name sever¬ 
 al hundred negroes, in every way as well qualified for office 
 and citizenship as the late Fred. Douglas, who, if they should 
 ask my opinion of the attitude they should assume in this hour 
 of the negro race’s life, I should unhesitatingly say, “Re- 
 
nounce your own right of emancipation for the sake of your 
 race, which is unripe for emancipation.” 
 
 THE CONDITION NOW. 
 
 Under present conditions 1 wish to discuss, first, lynch¬ 
 ing. I ask you to consider carefully these words from Hon. 
 L. E Bleckley, Chief Justice of Georgia: “A fundamental 
 truth which certainly exists, and which ought to be recog¬ 
 nized by all men everywhere, is that, according to right 
 reason and just views of civilization, government and morals, 
 provocation has nothing whatever to do with the right or 
 wrong of lynching negroes. No kind or degree of provo¬ 
 cation will justify or even mitigate it. Lynching is barbar 
 ic, anarchic and wrong per se.” 
 
 I ask you to consider the following from the late Bishop 
 Atticus G Havgood, of the Southern Methodist Church: 
 
 “In a country unorganized and without government, in¬ 
 dividuals must punish violations of natural law; theirs is no 
 
 other recourse. But this is not civilization; it is at best 
 
 % 
 
 barbarism. In organized society, lynching is a crime 
 against society. It is not a question of what the victim de¬ 
 serves; it is a question as to what society can afford. In 
 organized society there is no higher civil or social duty 
 than obedience to law; the lyncher is, of all men, the vio- 
 later of law. Lynching is a crime against God and man. 
 Lynchi ng breaks the law, defies it, despises it. puts it to 
 open shame. Punishment by government, according to 
 law, represents the judgment )f God; punishment by lynch¬ 
 ing is vengeance. Legal punishment educates men into 
 respect for law; lynching educates them into contempt for 
 law. Lynching does more to put down law than any crim¬ 
 inal it takes in hand; lynching kills a man; the lyncher kills 
 the law that protects life; lynching is anarchy.” 
 
 There is no mistaking the meaning of these words, they 
 describe the thought of all good men in the South, in regard 
 to lynching. But we are trying to ar rive at a conclusion 
 by the way of lacts. What are the facts? Legal punish¬ 
 ment has been tried, yet the crime of rape increased. Shoot- 
 
ing and hanging, without law, has been tried, yet the crime 
 in creased. Finally, mutilation and fire have been tried, 
 and still the crime increases. Dr. E. E. Boss, editor of the 
 Christian Advocate published at Nashville, Tenn , in 1S93, 
 in an editorial article said, “ I hi ee hundred white women 
 have been raped by negroes within the preceding three 
 months.” 
 
 Bishop Haygood further said, “I have been asked to ex¬ 
 plain the burning of negroes, not the killing of them I 
 give frankly my opinion; the people who burned them were 
 for the time insane.” Mr. Walter Page pooh-poohs this 
 idea, and undertakes to account for it by the “Southern 
 Bully.” I concur in Bishop Haygood’s opinion, and l wish 
 to describe three cases of lynching of which I was eye¬ 
 witness. 
 
 I happened to be traveling in Texas the year the negro 
 was burned of whom Bishop Haygood was asked to give his 
 opinion on the manner of his death. It was in Paris, Texas. 
 The mob assembled after the manner of all mobs; it looked 
 like a crowd of curiosity seekers, while it was being ascer¬ 
 tained it the right man had been apprehended. When this 
 had been settled, resolution and determination took posses¬ 
 sion of the last man of them; the pile was prepared and the 
 negro laid thereon; nothing but death could have stopped 
 them; they were insane. The crime was this: 
 
 A big, burly negro had taken an innocent child, of a few 
 years of age, and after trying to accomplish his purpose, 
 had literally torn her limbs apart. In arguing the cause as 
 insanity, Bishop Haygood says, “Had the dismembered 
 form of his victim been the dishonored body of my baby, I 
 might have gone into an insanity that might have ended 
 never.” 
 
 The next case was at Nashville, Tenn. Two young ladies 
 living with a widowed mother, in a small hamlet not far 
 from Nashville, had been outraged and gagged by a negro 
 brute, afflicted at the time with a nameless disease. He 
 was apprehended and lodged in jail in the city of Nashville. 
 Farmers mounted on every kind and description of animals, 
 
came into the city in great numbers, broke into the jail in 
 broad daylight, took the negro to the foot-bridge spanning 
 the Cumberland River, and hanged him thereon; then 
 stood for half an hour and riddled his body with bullets. I 
 was crossing the riv r in a canoe at the time, and my atten¬ 
 tion was attracted by the shooting; from where I was, so 
 much lead being wasted on a man already dead, looked very 
 insane. 
 
 In Bowling Green, Ky., some time between ’94 and ’96, a 
 beautiful young lady of that section had been outraged by 
 a negro. He was caught. The people controlled them¬ 
 selves long enough for a trial by law to begin, when, to 
 my utter amazement, two hundred and fifty men, with Win¬ 
 chester rifles, marched to the courthouse at high noon, and 
 took the prisoner from before the face of the Judge and 
 hanged him by the neck until he was dead. If you can 
 give any explanation for such conduct, other than insanity, 
 I submit the case. 
 
 My fellow-citizens, the exasperations have been cumula¬ 
 tive, as in continued doses of digitalis, and the effect has 
 been insanity. As much as I condemn lynching—and I 
 say it is the most damnable practice any civilized man can 
 join in—and realizing as I do the awful consequences of 
 not speaking soberly, in the fear of God and man, on this 
 fearful subject, yet I must say it, and I say it deliberately— 
 the cure for lynching is the stopping of rape. Unless 
 assaults by negroes on white women and little girls come 
 to an end, there will most probably be still further displays 
 of vengeance that will shock the world. The law should 
 take its course. Provocation cannot set aside law with 
 impunity, but the difficulty contended with is the determi¬ 
 nation of the Southern white man that women shall not be 
 dragged into court to testify in such cases. 
 
 REMEDY. 
 
 W hen this government decides to stop trading in negro 
 votes and takes from him the right of suffrage, on the 
 ground that a citizen that curses his race with such crimes 
 
as his, is unworthy of its exercise, a step will be taken 
 towards putting an end to rape, and the elevation of the 
 negro, more advanced and promising than all the essays and 
 papers and speeches ever delivered on the social and polit¬ 
 ical status of the negro race since rape began I say it, 
 here and now, the negro must be controlled, for his own 
 good, as well as for the safety of society. Bishop Hay- 
 good said he remembered to have heard of only one case of 
 rape in all his life, while the negro was a slave, and he was 
 burned. His disfranchisement by the Southern States will 
 not affect his interests, social, business, moral, religious, or 
 educational. 
 
 SOCIAL. 
 
 Sociology may one day be worthy of the dignified name 
 of Science, and may be able to point out the way, by which, 
 the clash between the classes can be avoided, but it will 
 never devise a way of fulfilling the ideas of many intelli¬ 
 gent Northern whites regarding the social position of the 
 negro. There is a barrier, in the race itself, that prevents 
 anything like an approach to social equality in the South. 
 Not riding in the same railroad coach, stopping at the same 
 hotel, going to the same school, worshipping in the same 
 church, sociology may point out, but will never be able to 
 remedy. When these things are so, why dream of a social 
 position for the negro that would indicate the high plane of 
 companionship ? The mere fact that a Northern man will 
 ask the question, “Why ?” makes a Southern man despair 
 of undertaking to tell him. To a Southerner it is like an 
 intuitive truth, to be accepted through its own power of 
 assertion ; to a Northerner it is like 1 he Gospel, to the Jew 
 a stumbling block and to the Greek foolishness, and like¬ 
 wise, not unlike the Gospel, when once accepted ; bv living 
 among the negro race, it creates such a zeal that the 
 Southern friend has to keep the Northern friend from kill¬ 
 ing his once idolized pet. When a man like Joseph Cook, 
 can even hint at amalgamation one is tempted to give up 
 the task of presenting the social side of life as it must be 
 observed by the negroes of the South, 
 
I wish to produce the impression that the suggestion has 
 never yet been made, nor the plan devised, by which whites 
 and negroes can live together in the same section of the 
 South, save as negroes and whites, in the sense that the 
 Southern white man understands these distinctions ; which 
 is identically that of oil and water, and as there is no law 
 of chemistry that can force these fluids to be one, so there 
 is no law o f God or man that can force the white man of the 
 South to sit down at the same table with the negro and say 
 we are one. What God has joined together let not man 
 put asunder ; the converse of this likewise must be obeyed. 
 What God has put asunder let no man or government join 
 together, for in the union is the death of the inferior. 
 
 If 1 have made myself clear, I wish now to state what 
 will appear strange to any one unfamiliar with Southern 
 life. While a Southern man will not associate with as an 
 equal, nor permit his family to admit to his home as a 
 guest, the most refined, best educated, wealthiest, most 
 honored negro on earth, he will advise with, give all the 
 privacy of his home life to, sit down by the side of in a 
 railroad coach, let his children sleep in the same room with 
 and let his wife take with her into the finest parlor car, or 
 into the best hotel, any decent negro woman, provided she 
 is, in every case, considered simply as a negress in the 
 employ of her superior; or to change the picture, he will 
 trade with, sell to, buy from, employ for work, or work for, 
 any decent negro man, provided it is understood that he 
 is a negro with no claims of equality with his white superior. 
 
 Not long since a negro, here in the North, wrote for one 
 of the magazines an article, in which he created a condi¬ 
 tion of affairs which he said, by inference, existed in the 
 South, and located the scene at Fayetteville, North Caro¬ 
 lina. lie undertook to show that prejudice was so great 
 against the negro, that a young negro girl who loved her 
 foimet mistress, was denied the privilege of looking upon 
 her dead face, was kept from the church at the time of her 
 funeral, and prohibited from entering the cemetery at the 
 time of her burial, and so gave a bunch of flowers to a little 
 
dog who placed them on the newly-made mound. Doubt¬ 
 less some tender-hearted Northern white has wept over 
 this story, not stopping to think how such a cruel race 
 could ever have so won the affection of this negress. The 
 editor of the Presbyterian Standard, published at Charlotte, 
 N. C., replied to this piece of idiocy, by saying: “The first 
 funeral preached on my assuming a pastorate at Fayette¬ 
 ville, was that of an honored negro woman, and it was 
 preached in the church of the white people; the main body 
 of the church was reserved for the negroes, while the 
 whites occupied the sides and galleries. The undertaker of 
 the town was a respected negro and officiated at the funeral 
 of every white citizen, and entered the cemetery on all 
 funeral occasions. This negro was respected as- much as 
 any white man living in the town.” 
 
 I have given this incident to illustrate my meaning. If 
 this negro undertaker had assumed the air of an equal, or, 
 in any way, showed that he regarded his office as breaking 
 down the social barriers, the people of Fayetteville would 
 have let the bodies of their loved ones rot in the sun and 
 have left their bleached bones as a testimony to the impos¬ 
 sibility af any such thing as social equality between the 
 white and negro races. 
 
 To make the paradox more apparent, the negro may be 
 placed in the finest drug store in the South, with every 
 assistant a negro, and provided they are competent, the 
 finest families will have prescriptions filled by them, and 
 the most refined and elegantly dressed ladies will be served 
 by them at soda founts, and ice cream tables, provided 
 they conduct the business as negroes, but if the store is to 
 be run on the ground of equality of race, if plague was rag¬ 
 ing and drugs could be procured nowhere else, the white 
 people of the South would die, rather than receive at a 
 negro’s hand the remedy for death, if social equality was 
 thereby to be conceded. You say that is fool-hearted; be 
 it so, it is nevertheless true. There is no enterprise or busi¬ 
 ness in the South, for which a negro is competent, that is 
 not open to him, as a negro. There is nothing in the South 
 
for the negro but death, if he demands it, or his Northern 
 white friends demand it for him, otherwise than as the 
 Southern white man understands “as a negro” to mean. 
 
 To put the case plainer still—a leading Southern preach¬ 
 er told me he was put to utter confusion, when a boy, while 
 on a visit to relatives in New Jersey. He was Southern 
 born. A negro, whom he called Tom, was servant to the 
 family he was visiting. Proposing to go fishing one day, 
 Tom, negro like, offered to dig the bait and row the boat 
 for the privilege of accompanying his white companion. 
 Nothing suited a Southern white boy better than this, and 
 an agreement was quickly reached. When they returned 
 from fishing, where they had both sat on the same log, ate 
 out of the same lunch basket, smoked the same pipe, to his 
 utter amazement his relatives upbraided him for going fish¬ 
 ing with a servant. When the boy recalled, that against 
 his training and will, he had been compelled to attend 
 church and sit together in the same Sunday-school class 
 with tliis negro, the censure for going fishing with him pro¬ 
 duced such a mental impression that to this day, though 
 advancing in life, he has never recovered from it. The fact 
 is, the conditions were so completely reversed that his boy¬ 
 ish mind could not take it in. We in the South will do 
 anything to help negroes as negroes, but if they arrogate 
 to themselves equality of race, that moment life is jeopar¬ 
 dized. Th ere is a boundary beyond which he cannot pass. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 I have often been asked by intelligent Northern white 
 men : “Does education benefit the negro.” To which I 
 give two answers. 7 'he first is alter the manner of reply 
 made by preachers, when asked if education helps a bad 
 man ; to which they reply, especially if they happen to be 
 arguing for a church school, that without religion it ena¬ 
 bles him to be a more effective bad man. Education 
 undoubtedly strengthens the mental faculties of negroes as 
 well as of whites. But you will observe that the question 
 is one of benefit; in its answer we must be^ guided by his 
 
circumstances. The only thing gotten from the present 
 system of negro schools, that sticks to the pupil through¬ 
 out life, is an intense hatred for the white race, and false 
 ideals of life. This is due to having negro teachers. Con¬ 
 sidering that the present generation of younger whites 
 have little of that love and affection for the negro which 
 marked the older generations, education is not beneficial, 
 under these conditions, if both races are to dwell together. 
 
 The other answer is : If the younger negroes will take 
 their places in a school distinctively for negroes, save only 
 that they shall be directed by white talent, and the negro 
 will lay aside all ideas of education being able to pull down 
 the barriers between him and his white teacher, then edu¬ 
 cation will broaden and elevate the negro to a fitness for 
 citizenship and suffrage. The Southern white who does 
 not admit this latter, is blinded by prejudice, and the North¬ 
 ern white who undertakes to contradict the former, either 
 does not, or will not, understand the situation. The negro’s 
 lack of virtue, of honesty, of filial affection, of cleanliness, 
 and likewise his tendency to revert to savagery, his lack of 
 self-control, when fired by passion that leads to such death¬ 
 invoking deeds as rape, have been, and will still be, affected 
 by education when wisely directed. No money is wasted 
 when spent by the State or the Nation for the better edu¬ 
 cation of the negro race. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL STATUS. 
 
 It would seem that here, if nowhere else, with the decla¬ 
 ration “that of one blood God has made all peoples that 
 dwell upon the face of the earth,’’ and that “with Him there 
 is no respect of persons,” the Southern white man would 
 sit down by the side of his brother in black as an equal in 
 every respect; but it is a fact that he will not—and the fact 
 is what we wish explained-—the Southern white distin¬ 
 guishes between the rights of a soul and the rights of a 
 citizen. He knows that in God’s sight a negro’s soul is as 
 good as his, that none of the benefits of grace which accrue 
 to him may not likewise accrue to the negro; but he knows 
 on the other hand, it is not a violation of any New lesta- 
 
ment principle for him to recognize, in his worship, those 
 distinctions of race, which God lias made, and the observ¬ 
 ance of which is for the interest of good order, good gov¬ 
 ernment, the good of the negro and the safety of the body 
 politic. If suffrage had not created such a relationship 
 between the races, as it has, involving the social status of 
 the white race, the old custom of parts of churches, for 
 whites, being set aside for negroes, where, under the same 
 preaching, they might worship God and join in communion 
 at a common table, spread for a sin-cursed earth, might 
 still prevail; but there will never be a church, in the South, 
 of any denomination, that will allow negroes in its courts 
 or within its walls as equals so long as the race question is 
 involved. I give you the fact—ecclesiastics may argue it in 
 what manner and in what way they please. But in the 
 vernacular of Sam Jones, “When you meet a fact in the 
 middle of the road, you might as well hitch your horse, get 
 
 down and take out vour lunch ” 
 
 * 
 
 My friends, we might as well face the condition : It is 
 not in the power of refinement, education, wealth, honor or 
 title to break down the barrier between the negro and 
 white races in the South. The measure that undertakes so 
 to do is incapable of being carried out by the strongest 
 government on earth. 
 
 I wish to say, the proposed methods of dealing with the 
 franchise in the South will in no way be detrimental to 
 the negro; his very best interest will be conserved thereby; 
 and we who know the conditions, tell you, in the fear of 
 God and man, that we believe a few years of trial will 
 convince the negro of the good of the measure, and con¬ 
 vince the world of the righteousness of the act. 
 
 The city of the South in which I live, contains about 
 30,000 people. It is the capital of Mecklenburg county, 
 and the total population of the county is about 65,000. Of 
 this population, about two-fifths are colored. The city is 
 one of considerable activity, and in its population it counts 
 many Northern men, who are respected and influential in 
 the community. 
 
In the suburbs of this city is located Biddle University, a 
 large and flourishing Presbyterian College and Seminary 
 for the colored race, in which colored men largely are 
 teachers. This Institution is supported by the General 
 Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church. There 
 the colored folk are contented, happy and prosperous. 
 
 In the government of this ci13^, the colored men take no 
 part. We have not now, nor have we had for many years, 
 any policeman or other officers connected with the city 
 government except of the white race. 
 
 In the government of the county no colored man takes 
 any part whatever. He does not sit on the jury, and mem¬ 
 bers of his race, when charged with criminal offenses, are 
 tried by a jury of the white race; and, if the property rights 
 of any colored man are in jeopardy, men of the white race 
 exclusively determine what his rights are. 
 
 In this city and count)", where the government, by tacit 
 consent, has assumed this phase, colored men being ex¬ 
 cluded from any participation therein, the rights of the 
 colored man have, as I have been informed, always been, 
 and are now, most safely guarded. His rights of property; 
 his rights of person; the safety of his family, the sanctity 
 of his home are as well protected in that county and in that 
 city, as the rights, property and home of any white citizen. 
 The colored man is there the absolute equal of the white 
 man before the law. He is not his equal socially. He is 
 not allowed the hope to be his equal socially. He has 
 learned that neither the Southern man nor the Northern 
 man, who has come to dwell amongst us, desires or will 
 permit his domination in an>" governmental affairs, but he 
 knows well that his rights are safe in every particular, and 
 he is never discontented and never disturbed except when 
 bad men, for their own selfish purposes, work upon his 
 prejudices and ignorance, and either buy his vote for money, 
 or else excite his passions and his fears by falsehood, in the 
 hope that, with the assistance of the ignorant colored vote, 
 men who could not otherwise hope to gain office may 
 
succeed, by such means, in accomplishing their wicked 
 purposes. 
 
 If any man in this audience desires to know how white 
 men and colored men live together in peace and amity 
 under these circumstances, I invite him to come to the 
 community where I live, and I will introduce him to men 
 who, but a few years ago, were ignorant of the Southern 
 ways and Southern ideas upon this subject, but who have 
 learned, by close contact with our people, that we are not 
 only merciful and kind to the black man, but that we are, 
 what is better for him and for us, absolutely just towards 
 him and his. 
 
 The white men of the South say to the colored race, in 
 all kindness, “You shall not govern us,” and, in the same 
 breath, they say to that race, “Our government of you shall 
 be kindly and just.” 
 
 In the Hawaiian policy, already adopted by the govern¬ 
 ment, there has been a refusal to extend the franchise on 
 account of race. The color line, in this instance, has been 
 the governing principle, and a line has been drawn at blacks, 
 browns and yellows. This measure is eminently wise and 
 will save the government great trouble in future. 
 
 The silence of the Republican party on the Porto Rico 
 and the Philippine question, as forecast in the platform in¬ 
 dicated by Mr. Hanna, is very significant. Its significance 
 will save both the party and the government a criticism of 
 inconsistency. 
 
 The expansion plank in the Massachusetts platform is 
 worthy of study by those who like to observe a high politi¬ 
 cal somersault. It has taken the Republican party 35 years 
 to make the turn, but here it is, down on both feet with its 
 face where the back of its head was. 
 
 “ By the Treaty of Paris, a number of islands formerly held by Spain 
 have come under the dominion of the United States, and by the terms of 
 the treaty the duty of providing for their government and of determin¬ 
 ing the civil rights and political status of their inhabitants has devolved 
 upon the Congress of the United States. As a result of these acquisi¬ 
 tions, races of people have come under the protection of the American 
 flag who have been so long degraded by tyranny as to have very inade- 
 
qnate conceptions of the true spirit of liberty and of the responsibilities 
 of self-government, and who have been so impoverished and weakened 
 by the exploitations of their oppressors as to be unable to defend them¬ 
 selves, unaided, from the greed of foreign conquest. 
 
 “ No greater trust than the uplifting and educating of these defence¬ 
 less people has ever been imposed upon the United States. The Repub¬ 
 lican party believes it to be the high and solemn duty of the nation to 
 accept and execute this trust, with all the responsibilities it involves, by 
 retaining the islands, and by providing for their adequate government 
 upon the principles of liberty and humanity. It believes that to abandon 
 them to local anarchy or to th j lust of the invader would be cowardly 
 and dishonorable, and a betrayal of its trust, impossible to be contem¬ 
 plated by a great, free and enlightened nation.” 
 
 The measure proposed would be admirably suited to meet 
 the requirements of all wants in the Union. The South, in 
 the effort now beine made in the attempt to amend the sev¬ 
 eral constitutions of the States, looks to no better attain¬ 
 ment for that section than this paragraph from the above 
 forecast of the Republican platform. 
 
 It is a curious fact that in the government’s effort to alle¬ 
 viate human suffering, in the only war in the history of the 
 world which was fought solely for the relief of the op¬ 
 pressed, it has hit upon a difficulty, the solution of which 
 brings to the front the mistakes made by the Republican 
 party 35 years ago. Whether we will or not, the race 
 question in this country has assumed such proportions that 
 it will not down. It would be very embarrassing to the 
 Chief Executive and to the Federal Government to have 
 the Constitution of these United States guaranteeing cer¬ 
 tain rights to, and keeping certain privileges from, those ot 
 her citizens dwelling in the isles of the sea and yet under 
 the protection of the American flag, and at the 
 sume time having in her very bosom all rights guaranteed 
 to, and no privileges excluded from, the race, in many par¬ 
 ticulars, more vicious and as incompetent for the exercise 
 of the franchise as the brown and yellow-skins of the Haw¬ 
 aiian group. 
 
 In concluding the discussion on this great subject, we are 
 confronted by a fact; and that fact is the citizens of one 
 part of this Union ask you to deal as fairly and as sincerely 
 
by them, as the whole Union is dealt with, when you con¬ 
 sider the inabilities of the citizens in newly acquired terri¬ 
 tory. 
 
 The old question when Mexico and Upper California were 
 admitted to the Union, is now before us. That question was: 
 “Shall the new territory be free or slave soil? The ques¬ 
 tion now is changed only to this extent: “Shall all of the 
 new citizents have the right of franchise, or only those com¬ 
 petent to use it?” The government has answered, on the 
 ground of expediency, that the franchise shall not be ex¬ 
 tended to those incompetent for its intelligent exercise. 
 We ask for nothing more. Either way, if the government 
 is to be consistent, the 15th Amendment of the Federal 
 Constitution must be stricken from that document. If this 
 shall be done friction is at an end, and the negro race may 
 eventually give to this country a sturdy, intelligent citizen. 
 
 Charlotte, N. C. 
 
 

 
 

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