opportunity given to us to display what we have accomplished in our three hundred years' struggle from barbarism to industrious Christian liberty, right here in the Egypt of our bondage, is one of the bravest acts of the brave and chivalrous people. And I am not slow to recognize the fact that we received much more from slavery than did the slaveholder. Only as we recede from Appomattox, and only as the echoes of Fort Sumter's bloody guns die away in gentle murmurs of the music of love around the altars of faith and hope, [Pg 26]only as memories of former hates shall have been drowned in the Red Sea of brotherly love, and the good things which we have done for each other come like angels into conscious view, will the old master and the old slave know what helps they have been to each other. We must love. We cannot afford to hate.

[Pg 26]

Negro history has solved the Negro problem from the Negro side. There still remains the Caucasian problem. In view of what the Negro has done for this country, in view of what the white man has done for the Negro, will the white man continue and enlarge the work of encouragement to this struggling race? Or will he use the shotgun instead of the Holy Bible; the bloody knife instead of the spelling book? These are problems for Caucasian brains.

I know of no element in noble human character which is not found in the Negro race. Indeed, he has been placed under greater strains of conscience and taxed more severely in honor and integrity than any other race known to history. Did it ever occur to you that the South is even wild in its praises of negro fidelity in the days when it was prostrate in civil strife and its defenseless women and children committed to the care of the black men of the South? Is there a single case of treachery or infidelity recorded against us? Did it ever occur to you that the Northern soldier could always trust his life in the hands of a black man, [Pg 27]wherever found? Is there a single case of treachery or infidelity recorded against us by the North? He would defend and feed "old mistress" committed to his charge. He would hide the cattle and food and valuables in the hollows and in the thickets, and then pilot the Northern army by these hidden goods safely through the mountains out of danger. Has ever human nature been so taxed before? No other citizens in this great country have better right to rejoice at her prosperity than the Negro.

[Pg 27]

The South owes her industrial significance largely to the Negro. King Cotton sits on a throne of gold held aloft by the strong black arms of the Negro and 

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