GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MIDI) 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 OR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F.SARTORI 
 
 fe the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 

 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 4T9Z 
 
 15 1( 
 
 1 1 1928 
 
 MAY 18 1928 
 NOV 27 1928 
 
 j UL 31 192* 
 NOV 6 
 
 SO 
 
 MAR 1 4 1934 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L I 
 
 e
 
 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK -. 
 
 HIS FREEDOM AND HIS FUTURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF EMORY COLLEGE, OXFORD, GA. 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN. : 
 
 SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 NEW YORK: PHILLIPS eft HUNT. 
 CINCINNATI : WALDEN & STCTWE. 
 1881. 
 
 S79b,j
 
 Copyright 1881, by 
 
 ATTICUS O. HAYGOOD, 
 Oxford, Georgia.
 
 
 
 85 , I* 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Six MILLIONS OF NEGROES 5 
 
 II. SOME CHARACTERISTICS 9 
 
 III. HERE TO STAY 17 
 
 IV. PROVIDENCE IN THEIR LOCATION 24 
 
 V. THE NEGRO FREE 39 
 
 \> 
 
 Sr VI. PROVIDENCE IN EMANCIPATION 46 
 
 O> 
 
 P^ VII. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 58 
 
 _ VIII. THE FREEDMAN MADE A CITIZEN 73 
 
 M 
 
 IX. THE TIME ELEMENT IN THIS PROBLEM 84 
 
 H 
 
 X. CANTERBURY GREEN IN 1831-1834 105 
 
 XL A NATIONAL PROBLEM 112 
 
 XII. THE METHODS OF OUR PROBLEM 128 
 
 XIII. SCHOOLS FOR NEGROES 144 
 
 XIV- SOME WORK GOOD PEOPLE ARE DOING 158 
 
 XV. THE NEGRO AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY.... 182 
 
 XVT. THE NEGRO AND THE LAND 200 
 
 XVII. THE AFRICAN CHURCHES IN AMERICA 220 
 
 XVIII. THESE AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND AFRICA 241
 
 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SIX MILLIONS OF NEGROES. 
 
 last census shows that there are nearly 
 * six millions of negroes in that part of the 
 United States that is known as " The South." 
 Comparatively speaking, there are few of them in 
 the other sections of the Union not enough 
 to make an exigent question in labor, society, or 
 politics. In the South the case is very different ; 
 the negroes are about one third of the whole pop- 
 ulation ; in some States nearly one half. Thus, in 
 Georgia, according to the census of 1 880, the 
 total population is 1,538,983 ; the colored people 
 number 724,765. In some of the States they are 
 in the majority. 
 
 The great majority of the colored people in the 
 Southern States are pure-blood Africans, though 
 many lighter skins among them show the mixture 
 of races. The white blood betrays itself. This ex- 
 plains the hasty conclusions of some observers, 
 traveling through the South. They think that
 
 6 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 there are very large numbers of mulattoes. They 
 are mistaken, and not unnaturally. A score of black 
 children are passed unnoticed ; one mulatto is ob- 
 served. In a country peopled with only one 
 race there might be as many children born out 
 of wedlock as there are mulattoes in any one 
 of the Southern States, but there would be no evi- 
 dence to the eye. But where white and black are 
 blended the yellow skin advertises the origin of its 
 owner. 
 
 As there are some prevalent misconceptions on 
 this subject, one other remark may be allowed at 
 this point ; in the South the half-breeds are gener- 
 ally found in towns and cities, and from towns and 
 cities most tourists derive their impressions of a 
 country. But the great mass of the Southern pop- 
 ulation is rural. Of the entire Southern population 
 hardly one million are in the cities. 
 
 When this whole subject, with its history and 
 conditions, is well and fairly considered, and with 
 the passionless attention that is bestowed upon any 
 table of mere statistics, it will be concluded, I 
 think, that there is but one other such case in his- 
 tory of a race living for generations within another 
 race and yet keeping its blood so pure. The Jews 
 alone can match this unique fact. Let it be ob- 
 served that I am not speaking of the moralities im- 
 plied in these remarkable parallels, but only of 
 the fact of mixed bloods. The Americanized-Afri-
 
 Six Millions of Negroes. 7 
 
 cans increase rapidly. They numbered about seven 
 hundred thousand at the close of the war for inde- 
 pendence. They have multiplied more than eight 
 times in a little less than a century. How many 
 will they be in the year 1991 ? 
 
 I apprehend the difficulty of the subject taken in 
 hand in these pages. The historian who may write 
 of our times a century hence may offend such is 
 the sensitiveness and pertinacity of prejudice some 
 of the descendants of those who are now concerned 
 in such a discussion. But this he can do, endeavor 
 faithfully to state facts as they may then appear to 
 him. He will have many advantages over any 
 writer of the present time. Much smoke will have 
 cleared away, and with it much heat and prejudice. 
 Questions now in dispute will have been finally, 
 and, let us hope, happily settled ; experiments now 
 only in process will have been ended. The his- 
 torian, in forming his judgments upon our times, 
 will have the benefit of results. If we could only 
 foresee, and in a clear light, what will be very plain 
 to him, we would understand not only our duties 
 but each other much better than we do now. Lord 
 Bacon dedicated his history of Henry VII. to 
 Charles, then Prince of Wales, and apologized for 
 any defect in the picture in these words : " I 
 have not flattered him, but took him to life as well 
 as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better 
 light." But this advantage he had, he did not sit
 
 8 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 too near, and the light he had was without heat. 
 An artist may sit too near his subject, and the 
 light may be so intense or so crossed as to blind 
 or confuse him. This is peculiarly true of those 
 who, in a long and fierce conflict, have felt either 
 the exultations of victory or the humiliations of 
 defeat.
 
 Some Characteristics. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 MOST of these six millions of Africans are 
 very poor. Fifteen years ago they had noth- 
 ing but their trained muscle and their hope. Of 
 multitudes of them this ought to be added their 
 faith in God. 
 
 During these fifteen years, which many of them 
 have spent in trying to find their reckoning on a 
 wide and unknown sea, most of them have had a 
 sharp struggle for existence. A very few have 
 shown good capacity for business and have accumu- 
 lated handsome properties. A larger number have 
 built themselves humble houses that are their own, 
 and a few have got some foot-hold in the land, and 
 are the owners of small farms. Most of them de- 
 pend for subsistence solely on their labor. A very 
 great majority of the whole number are in the rural 
 districts at work as hired laborers, or as tenants, upon 
 contracts renewable at the beginning of each year. 
 
 The fact that the great body of them are on the 
 plantations and farms gives them one marked ad- 
 vantage over certain laboring classes of some States 
 and countries they are not subject to " lock-outs,"
 
 jo OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 nor are they liable to be thrown out of employ- 
 ment by " suspensions " or by " panics ; " for agri- 
 culture does not suspend. They are beginning to 
 appear upon the tax books as land owners. Thus, 
 in Georgia, according to the " Report of the Comp- 
 troller-general " for 1880, the colored people own of 
 " improved lands," 586,664 acres. The white peo- 
 ple own 29,823,581 acres of "improved lands." 
 That is, of the farming lands in Georgia the negroes 
 own a little less than one acre in every fifty. All 
 things considered, this is a very creditable showing 
 for them. It may be doubted whether the average 
 is quite so high in other Southern States. 
 
 With few exceptions the best lands are owned 
 by the white people. It is easy to explain this. 
 First, the whites have, as a rule, been reluctant to 
 sell their lands to anybody. They cling to the 
 land ; it is an instinct. They have been doubly re- 
 luctant to sell lands to negroes ; not because they 
 have felt unkindly to them, but chiefly because 
 they have been afraid that negro land owners would 
 frighten immigrants from the South. Whether this 
 fear is well grounded may be doubted. Some, it 
 may be, have not wished to see the negroes land 
 owners, from a vague prejudice, or a vaguer fear. 
 This, I think, is clear ; the negroes who own land in 
 Georgia are more satisfactory as citizens and neigh- 
 bors than those who do not. This is undoubtedly 
 true of my negro neighbors.
 
 Some Characteristics. II 
 
 The majority of the negroes live in small and, 
 generally speaking, very uncomfortable and ill-fur- 
 nished cabins. They have few comforts. But this 
 'gives them comparatively little trouble, for they live 
 very plainly, and most of them have enough to eat, 
 and, in winter, wood enough to keep warm. Most 
 of them will spend their last dime for food or fuel ; 
 if it come to the pinch, some of them will get it 
 elsewise, as will some white men. A fence rarely 
 survives a cold winter if it be close to a settlement 
 of negroes. The average negro will burn his own 
 fence without hesitation. The necessity generally 
 arises through his habit of putting off till to-morrow 
 what he is not obliged to do to-day. Many of them 
 are much like the improvident white man whose roof 
 was out of repair. His explanation was: "It don't 
 leak in dry weather, and I wont patch any man's roof 
 in the rain." I have a negro neighbor who has 
 burned his own fence and part of mine for four 
 winters past. Next spring we will make a new 
 fence. It is left to the reader's ingenuity to find 
 out my reason for waiting till warm weather. 
 
 Nearly all of them are field-hands and common 
 laborers ; few of them are skilled workmen ; the 
 best mechanics among them " learned their trades " 
 before the war. Free negroes and Southern white 
 boys are alike at least in this they are impatient 
 of apprenticeship. This is one reason why the 
 South is behind in the mechanic arts.
 
 12 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 As a class the negroes in the South are not 
 systematic in their plans and labors. They are not 
 thrifty, or frugal, or economical. Few of them 
 know how to " lay by for a rainy day." When they 
 were slaves they never thought of such things; 
 when sick, or old, or worn out, they were taken care 
 of better than any class of superannuated laborers in 
 the world. The exceptions to this statement were 
 few. No railroad, or mining company, or great 
 manufactory, can match the care the " old masters " 
 took of their disabled or worn-out servants. And 
 thousands of the old servants still look to their for- 
 mer masters for help, and receive it. The old cus- 
 toms made it unnecessary for the negro to provide 
 for sickness or old age. Very naturally, therefore, 
 the habit of forecasting has not been largely 
 acquired among them. They spend their money 
 freely while it lasts, much as children do. Instance, 
 a colored man, who lives near me and who has no in- 
 come but his wages as a common laborer, recently 
 gave seven dollars for a flashily bound family Bible, 
 being overcome by the arrangement at the back of 
 it for receiving the family photographs. 
 
 Their weaknesses are perhaps partly in their blood ; 
 they may well be more in their antecedents. ( Some 
 of these " antecedents," if may be remarked, ante- 
 date their coming to America.) But, poor as they 
 all are, and thriftless as most of them are, they are 
 improving in their condition. The tax books show
 
 Some Characteristics. 13 
 
 that they are beginning to produce a little more 
 than they consume. They live better, dress better, 
 have better furniture, than they had ten years ago. 
 
 Some things I am about to say will be disputed 
 by a good many people, but I give my opinion. 
 Many of them drink whisky when they can get it. 
 As a race, they are fond of strong drink, but I be- 
 lieve that, as to sobriety, they will compare favora- 
 bly with the poorer class of common laborers of 
 any color or country. Their moral code is, it must 
 be admitted, flexible enough to allow more margin 
 than consists with sound ethics. Many of them 
 have some loose notions on several of the funda- 
 mentals of morality; but they are not so bad as 
 many have represented them to be. Many writers 
 on the morals of the negro in the South do not 
 consider perhaps do not know what are the facts 
 in other countries as to the poorest and most igno- 
 rant of common laborers. Too much attention has 
 been concentrated on the South for just judgments 
 as to either the white people or the negroes. It 
 has been like reading small type in a bright sun- 
 light bad reading and blurred vision. 
 
 During the past summer I passed over perhaps 
 as many as a thousand miles of country roads by 
 private conveyance. Some negro families I saw 
 crowded in most wretched cabins, but they were 
 not worse than the illustrations given in " Harper's 
 Magazine" some months ago of attic and cellar
 
 14 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 life in New York city. Nor were they worse than 
 the illustrations and letter-press declared to be the 
 condition of a great multitude of families who keep 
 miniature truck-gardens about the suburbs of our 
 metropolis. 
 
 One of the saddest facts of their lot is that most 
 of them are very ignorant. The vast majority of 
 them are untaught. (Many of our white people 
 are in the same condition.) Few ex-slaves can 
 read at all. While slavery lasted there was small 
 chance to teach them. For this state of things 
 the masters were not alone to blame. Some were 
 taught, nevertheless. It would surprise some peo- 
 ple to know how many of them were taught by 
 " young masters " and " young mistresses " to read 
 the Bible. I made a faithful effort on " Uncle 
 Jim," who taught me to ride and to plow; who 
 was my skillful instructor in the lore of the fields 
 and the woods. Whether he was too old, or his 
 teacher too unskilled, has never been determined, 
 but he never got beyond " words of one syllable." 
 The house girl, Alice, made better progress ; a sister 
 had her schooling in hand. 
 
 A few ex-slaves have learned to read since they 
 became free, greatly to their credit. There are 
 some pathetic instances of old people learning, 
 slowly and with difficulty, that they might read the 
 Bible for themselves. Thousands of the younger 
 race can read and write and cipher if not after
 
 Some Characteristics. 15 
 
 the best models, yet profitably. Some of them 
 have learned all these things after the best models. 
 I have examined, with a grateful heart, specimens 
 of the work done by negro boys and girls in some 
 of the public schools of the city of Atlanta. They 
 were every whit as good as the best done in the 
 white schools of similar grade. And thousands 
 more of them will learn. Some of them " hunger 
 and thirst " after knowledge. One of the most en,. 
 couraging indications of their progress and uplift- 
 ing is this : it is fast becoming a " point of honor " 
 with colored parents that their children learn to 
 read and to write. This sentiment is entering into 
 their " society." Of this there can be no doubt. 
 
 Alas, that there ever was any hinderance to their 
 education ! God be thanked ! there is now, Janu- 
 ary, 1 88 1, next to no opposition to their instruc- 
 tion. Where one benighted neighborhood can be 
 found where their education is opposed, twenty may 
 be found where it is encouraged. 
 
 In closing this chapter, that is designed to give 
 only a general statement and rough outline-sketch 
 of their present condition and characteristics, a few 
 words should be added as to their dispositions and 
 tempers. They are kind-hearted, generous to the 
 distressed, obliging, unrevengeful. They love their 
 friends and forgive their enemies more promptly 
 and truly than do many who have had better cult- 
 ure. Their disposition to help one another is a
 
 16 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 wonder. In this little village of Oxford I have 
 seen, time and again, very poor negroes helping 
 some of their neighbors still poorer than them- 
 selves. They have organized many " societies " for 
 the relief of the sick and the afflicted. Many times 
 I have known " burial expenses " met by these so- 
 cieties. And there can be little doubt that their 
 " finances " are generally well and faithfully man- 
 aged. One of their " treasurers " has been for some 
 years a trusted member of my household. He has 
 given me insight of their methods. If he were not 
 an honest man, as he is, he has to give such rigid 
 account that he would have little opportunity for 
 " financiering " on the society's funds, even if he 
 had the disposition. The picture must not be 
 drawn in colors too bright, for, alas ! a colored treas- 
 urer now and then imitates some white treasurer or 
 cashier so closely that the society's funds are seen 
 no more by the society forever. This, however, 
 should be said for the negroes in such a case : they 
 call their unfaithful treasurer " a thief," they do not 
 say " defaulter."
 
 Here to Stay. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HERE TO STAY. 
 
 SO far as man can see or devise, these negroes 
 are in "the South" to stay. Common sense, 
 in considering this problem, cannot assume a super- 
 natural intervention to move them elsewhere. Left 
 to the natural conditions that enter into such ques- 
 tions, there is no reason to expect that these 
 Americanized Africans will remove or be removed 
 from the regions where we now find the great mass 
 of them. If such a not-to-be-expected migration 
 should occur, still leaving them within the United 
 States, the problems that grow out of their pres- 
 ence in this country must be worked out all the 
 same. Change of place can no more eliminate this 
 factor in our national equation than it can change 
 the past history of these people in the United 
 States. 
 
 There is much reason to believe that the problem 
 can be better solved without a change of locality. 
 The South is the best place for these emancipated 
 negroes, and the people of the South will yet prove 
 themselves to be, of all people in the world, the 
 
 fittest to deal with this very difficult and delicate 
 2
 
 1 8 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 race-problem. What we want is not a change of 
 blackboards, but a thorough study and a clear un- 
 derstanding of the problem itself; also, the right 
 spirit all round. 
 
 The conditions of this problem will not be greatly 
 modified by the so-called " exodus " a very large 
 word, by the way, for the fact it represents. I hold 
 myself bound to modify my opinions in the light 
 of new facts, for facts must govern opinions as well 
 as silence prejudices; but as the case now is, it is 
 very clear to me that the negroes as a body will 
 never move to Kansas, to Indiana, to New Mexico, 
 or to any State or Territory, either so cold in its 
 climate, or so different in its population, or so di- 
 verse in its conditions of living, from any thing they 
 have ever known. A few thousands may go to 
 these States, a few thousands may scatter them- 
 selves through various northern and western States. 
 It is desirable that they should do so ; it will ex- 
 tend the knowledge of the difficulties of our na- 
 tional problem, and nurture patience in regions 
 where patience is as much needed as "toleration" 
 is needed in the South. 
 
 This we may certainly depend on ; if the negroes 
 were moved en masse to some other section of our 
 country, they would carry their race-problem with 
 them. The problem would, indeed, be modified ; 
 perhaps it would lose none of its present difficul- 
 ties; certainly it would take on some new ones.
 
 Here to Stay. 19 
 
 Wherever the negroes are in large numbers, there, 
 we may be sure, are their characteristics. If they 
 live in the midst of another race, there, also, are the 
 characteristics of that race ; and these diverse race- 
 characteristics for they are not the accidents of 
 place or special conditions must somehow adjust 
 themselves both to their resemblances and their 
 differences. And there are differences as well as 
 resemblances a simple but important fact not 
 always considered. The differences as well as the 
 resemblances go deeper than the skin. Whether 
 the negroes are superior or inferior, whether better 
 or worse than white people, it will nevertheless be 
 admitted by candid persons that a company of 
 negroes if the reader please, a very small com- 
 pany, so small as to be socially and politic- 
 ally powerless are not, in any State, or city, or 
 town, or country hamlet in the United States, real- 
 ized in the inmost consciousness of men to be just 
 the same as white people. The negroes themselves 
 certainly understand and recognize these differ- 
 ences. These differences are realized on the plan- 
 tations, in the humblest relations of obscure coun- 
 try life, as distinctly as in Washington city, where 
 the wisest and best people feel (January, 1881) that 
 they will not know just how to conduct themselves 
 if the incoming administration should appoint a 
 worthy and capable colored Senator from Missis- 
 sippi to a cabinet portfolio. How true and wise is
 
 2o OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the remark attributed to the President elect : " It 
 is a difficult thing always to behave one's self prop- 
 erly." 
 
 The preposterous scheme of colonizing the whole 
 six millions of our negro fellow-citizens in some 
 part of the United States, as Arizona, for example, 
 has been mentioned a few times. Such a scheme 
 could never originate in the serious thinking of any 
 representative Southern man. For the Southern 
 people, with all that has been said and thought 
 about them, know the negro too thoroughly and love 
 him too well to wish him such a fate. What utter 
 nonsense ! what inhuman folly ! A negro State ! 
 A little Africa in America ! They would perish by 
 starvation, by internal feuds, by aggression from 
 sharpers, speculators, and " filibusters," like those 
 % who are now threatening the peace of the Indian 
 Territory. If the lands given them were worth 
 having, they would be taken from them ; if not, 
 they would starve. Those who know the history 
 of our Indian problem, who know how we have 
 failed either to govern or protect a few thousand 
 Indians, who were never slaves, do not desire 
 the government to undertake the management or 
 guardianship of several millions of emancipated 
 Africans. 
 
 A few dreamy and sentimental visionaries talk 
 about solving the problem at one masterful stroke. 
 "Move the whole of them to Africa; America is 

 
 Here to Stay. 21 
 
 for white people," they tell us. While engaged on 
 this chapter the papers brought us word that some 
 member of Congress has actually offered some sort 
 of a paper proposing to buy a large territory in 
 some of the States of Central America for the 
 wholesale colonization of the negroes ! Such legis- 
 lators only serve to illustrate some of the passing 
 humors of American voters. 
 
 If it be supposed that the negroes could be per- 
 suaded to make a real " exodus," and go to Africa, 
 or to any of these places prepared for them, it is 
 simply a mistake. If even one man in the United 
 States talks of their enforced colonization, he should 
 remember that free negroes, at least, have many 
 " rights that white men are bound to respect." The 
 right to live where it pleases them, so long as they 
 obey the laws, is one of these rights. 
 
 The wholesale colonization of these people in 
 Africa is a scheme so visionary and impracticable 
 that it does not deserve serious discussion. But it 
 may be looked at for a moment, if only to show what 
 some people forget when they are caught in the cur- 
 rent of a favorite theory. Suppose we could move the 
 whole six millions of them to Africa. What would 
 we do with them after getting them there ? Africa 
 is a big country, and it does not belong to us. 
 Would it do to land them wherever our ships can 
 approach the shore, and then turn them loose, as 
 Mr. Seth Green turns young shad loose in the 

 
 22 . OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 rivers, to find their way to life and fortune as best 
 they may ? This would be to turn them loose to 
 . die, or to relapse into the savagery of their ancestors. 
 But if we owned enough of Africa, desirable and 
 healthful parts of the continent, to furnish each 
 family a farm ; if, after getting them well settled, we 
 could secure them decent government ; if we could 
 make sure that they would not (except those who 
 died promptly) relapse into the heathenism from 
 wMch their ancestors were taken generations ago 
 by the cruel English and New-English sailors; if, 
 
 IN* "- ' 
 
 in a word, all the conditions of successful coloniza- 
 tion could be met, how are we to get them there ? 
 Suppose we take five hundred to the ship-load, 
 
 employ one hundred ships, and make two voyages 
 each year; we could, at this rate, get across one 
 hundred thousand annually. But they are born 
 faster than this. If, however, all the difficulties of 
 transportation could be overcome, the cruelty of 
 such a wholesale deportation would be equaled by 
 but one thing in their eventful history, namely, the 
 cruelty of bringing them from Africa as they were 
 brought by the slavers. 
 
 This, I think, may be settled down upon ; these 
 negroes, ever increasing, will, for the most part, stay 
 right where they are, in the South. But if they 
 should be, as is most unlikely, diffused with some- 
 thing like equality of distribution, throughout the 
 United States, the problem would be diffused, that
 
 Here to Stay. 23 
 
 is all, and with much increment of confusion and 
 difficulty. 
 
 It seems very clear ; this race-problem is likely to 
 be our problem as a Nation always. It is certainly, 
 at this time, a problem that the whole people should, 
 and that the Southern people must, seriously but 
 calmly consider. 
 
 NOTE. After this book was written, a friend, Mr. F. R. Richardson, 
 the Washington city correspondent of the "Atlanta Constitution," 
 furnished me some important statistics, taken from the official records 
 in the office of the superintendent of the last census. I quote the 
 following statements: "The total negro population is 6,577,497. 
 The increase in the total population during the last ten years is 30.06 
 per cent. ; the increase in the white population is 28.82 per cent.; the 
 increase in the colored population is 34.78 per cent." 
 
 Wise people will study these figures.
 
 24 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROVIDENCE IN THEIR LOCATION. 
 
 k HE African slave-trade was "the sum of all 
 villainies." One cargo of the wretched creat- 
 ures I saw long years ago. It was sickening as it 
 was devilish. Well did David Livingstone say of 
 the slave-trade that still exists in some parts of 
 Africa : " It is the open sore of the world." But I 
 have not now to discuss the sins of the bad men 
 who brought to this country several thousands of 
 savage Africans, the progenitors of the several mill- 
 ions of Americanized Africans who have been so 
 long the bone of contention in this Republic. Nor 
 have I, at this time, to discuss the sins of the bad 
 masters who abused their slaves, nor the virtues of 
 the good men and women who did the best they 
 could with an awkward and burdensome insti- 
 tution, handed down to them from their fathers, 
 and fastened upon them by historical, industrial, 
 political, and social conditions that they could not 
 control. 
 
 In this discussion I am concerned about those 
 facts connected with their history and present con- 
 dition which may aid me in the consideration of
 
 Providence in Their Location. 25 
 
 the problem that grows out of their presence 
 here. 
 
 They are in the United States, six and a half 
 millions strong. Their dwelling-places are chiefly be- 
 tween parallels of latitude 30 and 40, and of longi- 
 tude ( west of Washington ) o and 25, embracing, 
 as some patriotic and perhaps enthusiastic people 
 think, the very best part of the globe, as Goshen 
 was the best part of Egypt. 
 
 At the first there were slaves in the Northern 
 States, even in New England. Slavery was abol- 
 ished in Massachusetts by the State Constitution 
 of 1780. It was not finally extinct in Connecticut 
 until after the year 1840. "The United States 
 Census," says Curtis, in his " History of the Consti- 
 tution," vol. ii, p. 289, foot-note, "for 1790 returned 
 2,759 slaves for Connecticut; the census for 1840 
 returned 17 ; in the census for 1850 none were re- 
 turned. A like gradual emancipation took place in , ( ^ 
 New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New 
 York and Pennsylvania." The emancipation of 
 the slaves in these States did not produce any finan- 
 cial, social, or political convulsions. And chiefly 
 for two reasons : I. There were few to set free, too 
 few to make it profitable to keep them in servitude 
 or perilous to emancipate and enfranchise them. 
 2. Their emancipation was so gradual that both mas- 
 ters and slaves were prepared for it. Is it surpris- 
 ing that the sudden emancipation of between four
 
 26 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 and five millions of slaves, at the close of an ex- 
 hausting war, convulsed and prostrated the South- 
 ern States in 1865? 
 
 Slavery was unprofitable in the Northern States, 
 and, in the course of time, the opinions and senti- 
 ments of the best people were arrayed against the 
 institution. These opinions grew into amazing 
 strength soon after the final abolition of slavery in 
 the last of the Northern States. Some of their 
 slaves lived after their emancipation in the States 
 where they had been set free; others were sent 
 South before their emancipation, and sold to those 
 who still believed in the institution. In this way, 
 in some cases at least, the ignorance and errors of 
 one party helped another party to ease of con- 
 science without loss of cash. I have long believed 
 that it was one of the most fortunate things 
 in the world that slavery did not prosper in the 
 Northern States. If it had been profitable in the 
 North, these good people, according to the infirm- 
 ity of our nature, might possibly have remained 
 to this day unconvinced of the evils of slavery, 
 being blinded by their worldly interests. Had 
 slavery been profitable in the North, the institution, 
 with all its evils, might have been fixed upon this 
 country, so far as human purposes might have 
 had to do with the matter, forever. 
 
 Most sincerely do I believe that this would have 
 been not only a grievous misfortune, but a wither-
 
 Providence in Their Location. 27 
 
 ing curse. If slavery had damaged the whole of the 
 Union as it undoubtedly damaged the South, what 
 a loss to the world ! Well may we admire the re- 
 sources of the divine Providence that works vast 
 moral revolutions out of the failure of men's devices. 
 After slavery failed in the North it was doomed in 
 the South. 
 
 It has been a dark and troubled question to 
 thousands of as honest and godly people as ever 
 sought the truth, fought for what they believed to 
 be the right, or worshiped God ; yet who can tell 
 but that the failure of the Southern Confederacy 
 may yet, in the wise and gracious Providence that 
 overrules the nations, bring as great blessings to 
 the South as the failure of slavery brought blessings 
 to the North ? If it shall turn out so, our chil- 
 dren's children will celebrate the surrender at Appo- 
 mattox as a day of blessing, although they will still 
 honor the spirit of the men who won the praise of 
 the world for their heroic struggles for what was 
 dear to their love and their faith. 
 
 If it shall be asked, How came these poor Africans 
 to this country? I answer, without hesitation, God 
 brougJit tJiem here, " to save much people alive' 1 I do 
 not say that the merciful and just God sanctioned 
 the slave-trade. For that was one of the darkest 
 crimes recorded on the page of history. But there 
 is no doctrine more clearly taught in the Holy Script- 
 ures than that God " makes the wrath of man to
 
 28 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 praise him : " that he overrules the selfishness and 
 sins of men to bring about good and gracious 
 results. On this rock has triumphant faith ten 
 thousand times planted her feet in the day of dark- 
 ness and doubt. 
 
 Let us illustrate the doctrine : 
 
 Joseph was carried into Egypt as a slave, and sold 
 by his blood-brothers to wandering merchants of the 
 Arabs. What a light is cast upon dark providences 
 by the words of good and wise Joseph to his peni- 
 tent brethren when they had returned to Egypt 
 from the burial of their father Jacob : " As for you, 
 ye thought evil against me ; but God meant it unto 
 good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much 
 people alive." And what blessings, reaching wide, 
 did this Joseph, stolen from his father, sold into 
 slavery by his brothers, bring not only to his father's 
 house, but to Egypt, the land of his servitude ! 
 
 All providences, in the lives of individuals and in 
 the history of nations, must be interpreted in the 
 light of their relation to the Cross of Christ, which 
 shines backward and forward upon all the dark 
 questions of the ages. Let us try to look at the 
 question, first, of African slavery, and, secondly, of 
 African freedom in the United States, in this clear 
 and steady light. 
 
 The secular historian will say truly that the 
 negroes did a wonderful work in helping to subdue 
 this western wilderness. But the historian of the
 
 Providence in Their Location. 29 
 
 Church of Christ and the recorder of the great 
 deeds in true human progress, will say that the most 
 wonderful of all facts connected with the strange 
 history of the children of Africa in America is this : 
 that there are now, 1881, nearly one million of them 
 in the communion of the various Christian Churches 
 in the United States, and that the six millions of 
 them have been brought largely under the influence 
 of the Christian religion. Immortal is the honor 
 that belongs to the memory of the Christian men 
 and women of the South who, long before 1865, so 
 preached the Gospel to the slaves upon the planta- 
 tions, that nearly half a million of them were 
 brought into the different Churches that were then 
 at work in the Southern States. And immortal is 
 the honor due to those who, taking up the good 
 work where the men and women of the South were, 
 by the circumstances of an evil time, compelled to 
 lay it down for awhile, (it is only for awhile,) have 
 carried it on so well that in fifteen years they have 
 added nearly half a million more to the number of 
 believing negroes. 
 
 Weak and foolish are they who sneer at the relig- 
 ion of negroes. It is true that they may have vague 
 ideas of " dogma ; " they may not use a dignified 
 " liturgy " in their worship ; they may have more 
 emotion than " esthetics" in their religion ; but this 
 fact remains they are not heathens. They are as 
 far above and beyond their heathen forefathers as
 
 
 30 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the most cultured of English-speaking people are 
 superior to the Britons, long after Caesar's in- 
 vasion. 
 
 Seeing that the greatest fact of the history of 
 African slavery in the United States is the Chris- ] 
 tianizing of hundreds of thousands of them, I con- 
 clude that Christianizing them was the grand 
 providential design in their coming to this country. 
 It is, by the way, a significant fact, that the wild 
 Africans appeared on these shores long before there 
 was a thought of a Foreign Missionary Society in 
 the American Churches. Who, knows but that the 
 heathen who were brought to us largely moved the 
 Churches to send the Gospel to the heathen in 
 their own lands ? He who cannot, through all the 
 mists and clouds of this strange and troubled his- 
 tory, see the hand of God in their coming to this 
 country, can hardly understand the " going down " 
 of Israel " into Egypt." 
 
 Let us refer to that history a moment. God 
 would " raise up a peculiar people." The problem 
 of a Hebrew race, of comparatively pure blood, 
 could not have been worked out in Canaan, with its 
 roving shepherd life. As far back as the " call " of 
 Abraham out of " Ur of the Chaldees " we see the 
 hand of Providence in manifold adjustments that 
 issued in separating this one family from their fire- 
 worshiping kindred the other side of the Euphrates. 
 The same design is manifested in God's dealing
 
 Prwidence in Their Location. 31 
 
 with the larger family of Jacob. To preserve them 
 a " peculiar people " they were, under pressure of 
 famine, moved into Egypt, where, in many provi- 
 dential ways, they were cared for " nourished " is 
 Joseph's word and protected till the family grew 
 into a tribe, the tribe into a race, a nation within 
 a nation, but yet not strong enough, in numbers or 
 character, to be transplanted to the promised land. 
 The problem needed Egypt, fertile and favorable to 
 the rapid increase of the race, and, as the strongest 
 of the nations, able to protect the children of Israel 
 from their enemies. It needed, also, a people who, 
 by tradition, hated " shepherds," and who, when 
 they came to fear their increasing strength, made 
 them slaves. The Hebrew slavery and the Egyp- 
 tian caste-prejudice against foreigners and shep- 
 herds conspired to keep the races unmixed. If 
 there had been free intermarriage the Hebrew race 
 would have been absorbed within the first hundred 
 years of their stay in Egypt, and the whole prob- 
 lem lost irretrievably. 
 
 A good deal has been said at random, and in 
 a declamatory way, about the iniquity of caste. 
 May be we have not yet reached the bottom of this 
 subject; may be, if God had designed any such com- 
 mingling of bloods as would issue in one conglom- 
 erate race, there never would have been any such 
 sentiment or instinct in the human breast. 
 
 Let us suppose now that one hundred thousand
 
 32 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Africans heathen all had been set down in 
 America about the time the children of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers were getting a foothold in Massachusetts 
 and the Cavaliers were establishing their settle- 
 ments in Virginia and the Carolinas ; and suppose 
 there had not been, as there was from the begin- 
 ning, spontaneous and resistless, one instinct of 
 caste attraction and repulsion, and that there had 
 been no obstacle to free intermarriage. Very soon 
 there would have been no African race in this 
 country. The issue would have been largely differ- 
 ent; there would have been no heathen African race 
 to train to useful arts, sturdy strength, and manly 
 character, to lift up and to Christianize ; but a 
 Christian white race might have been largely hea- 
 thenized. How would such a mingling of bloods 
 as is here supposed have effected the development 
 of civilization in the United States ? It is a ques- 
 tion that one who loves free institutions and has 
 hope that his country holds a blessing for the 
 world, does not like to consider. 
 
 Furthermore, had such an issue followed the in- 
 troduction of the heathen negroes into this country, 
 there would have been for continental Africa, with 
 her uncounted millions, no morning star of hope 
 shining over the lowly cabins and humble sanctu- 
 aries of their Christianized brethren in America. 
 For we must never forget the ultimate outcome of 
 this vast movement ; we must never forget that the
 
 Providence in Their Location. 33 
 
 Christianizing of these multitudes of Africans here 
 looks, and must look, to the salvation of the vaster 
 multitudes in Africa itself. And in order to work 
 out these results, both here and yonder, it was 
 necessary to preserve a comparatively pure African 
 race in this country. In those cases where human 
 sin has mixed these diverse bloods the divine 
 plan, I must believe, has been so much marred. 
 But, as to the great majority of them, the Afri- 
 cans in this country are, as we have seen, pure 
 bloods. The caste feeling and the environments of 
 slavery favored this design of Providence in a far 
 greater degree than those persons suppose who do 
 not thoroughly know the negro in the rural districts 
 of the South, as well as in the towns and cities. 
 
 But why should the South be the chosen field for 
 working out this stupendous race-problem that in- 
 volves, as surely as the world moves or stands, the 
 destiny of two continents? All the reasons I claim 
 not to have discovered ; some, doubtless, are as yet 
 undeveloped ; but some of them seem very plain 
 tome. 
 
 i. These African children, in the school of Prov- 
 idence, needed a warm climate. The South gave 
 them a better climate than Africa could give. And ...i 
 
 one result among many is, the descendants of the? 
 wild Africans that first landed on these shores are, 
 in every respect, a finer race than were their ances- ( jy ytf 
 tors when they came, than are their kindred who 
 
 I r f
 
 
 34 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 still inhabit the original dwelling-places of their peo- 
 ple. In horticultural gardens tender exotic plants 
 are sometimes hardened by frequent transplantings. 
 So these Africans, who were brought to America, 
 found a climate that was warm enough to suit their 
 constitution, and that was yet free from the enervat- 
 ing heats of the tropics. The wisdom of Providence 
 is justified in an improved and bettered race. 
 jA 2. They needed, for a time, the guidance and 
 protection of a stronger people. And they need- 
 ed, in order that the best results might follow, 
 in this stronger race, a people of homogeneous 
 blood. They found such a race in the Southern 
 whites as they could have found it nowhere else in 
 the United States. Thus, in Georgia, according to 
 
 * 
 
 the Census of 1880, there is a total population of 
 1,538,983. Of the whole number only 10,310 are 
 foreigners. In further illustration it may be men- 
 tioned that in Louisiana, where there was not a 
 homogeneous white race, the Christianizing process 
 did not succeed nearly so well as in South Carolina, 
 where nearly all the white people were English, or 
 in Georgia, where, as we have seen, the foreign ele- 
 ment in the population is, practically, an inappre- 
 ciable quantity. How our difficult problem would 
 be complicated were there in the States where the 
 freed negroes are a dense foreign population ! Only 
 suppose an Irish ward in New York or Philadelphia, 
 or a German ward in Chicago or Cincinnati, out-
 
 Providence in Their Location. 35 
 
 worked, under-bid, and out-voted by a "solid" black 
 column ! There would be blood and chaos. 
 
 3. They needed in the religion of the ruling race i 
 a Protestant faith, pure and simple. They found 
 such a Protestantism in the South as they could 
 have found it nowhere else in the world. It may 
 be one of the blessings of Southern provincial- 
 ism that the many speculative vagaries that have 
 plagued the Church in Germany, in England, and 
 in New England, have never prospered in the 
 Southern States of the Union. No form of infi- 
 delity has ever had welcome, or won a foothold, 
 among the people of the South. And, with the 
 exception of the French-settled State of Louisiana, 
 Romanism has never had dominion in these States. 
 
 I do not wish to say what may offend pious Roman 
 Catholics, but I refer to matters of history when 
 I say that, as compared with the influence of Prot- 
 estantism upon Africans held in slavery, Romanism 
 has notably failed. Witness Louisiana in the 
 United States ; the West India Islands, except in 
 those members of this group where the English 
 flag gave liberty and opportunity to Protestant 
 missionaries. Witness, also, Mexico, the Central 
 American States, and the Empire of Brazil. 
 
 4. They needed protection against the worst in- 
 stincts of the stronger race itself; this they received 
 through the self-interest for slavery was profitable 
 in the South if not through the humanity, of their
 
 36 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 masters. That there were many exceptions to this 
 rule I allow and deplore. But perhaps one would 
 not go too far were he to say, If it was needful for' 
 these men in stature and children in intelligence to 
 have masters, for a time, the Southern whites made 
 as good masters as they could have found in any 
 country. 
 
 Alas ! many of these masters did not recognize 
 the divine hand in the wonderful providences of 
 this strange history ; many of them did not realize 
 their sacred function of " school-masters" to bring 
 these children of the sun to Christ. But many of 
 them did, and they were faithful to God and to their 
 servants. Wherein any of them sinned against God 
 in sinning against their dark-skinned brother, alas! 
 they were not alone. Southern masters were not 
 alone in dealing hardly with dependents. " Let 
 him that is without sin" let him only " cast the 
 first stone." May I not add this word also ? 
 wherein any have sinned all have suffered. For 
 every wrong done to defenseless slaves the whole 
 race of masters paid a penalty, of which the loss of 
 money was unspeakably the lesser part. For every 
 mercy shown the slave, for every kind word, for ev- 
 ery effort to lift him up, for every brotherly office, 
 the good and just God gives the master full recog- 
 nition and approbation, j Men have not always 
 treated the master so justly; they could not, for 
 they saw only in part ; and the better part, from
 
 r 
 
 
 , 
 
 Providence in Their Location. 37 
 
 their distant point of view and their uncertain 
 lights, they could not see. I know that in very 
 many Southern homes (scores I could name in 
 these pages my honored and translated father's 
 among them) in the old days, the servants made 
 part of the worshiping household, and that be- 
 hind them, as they sung or knelt at the family 
 altar, the devout master saw " Ethiopia stretching 
 out her hands." 
 
 The outcome of it all is, the one million com- 
 municants and the six millions more or less " leav- 
 ened" by Christian principle and sentiment. If 
 there is such a fact in Christian history I know not 
 where it is recorded. 
 
 The religion of the Southern negroes slave or 
 free was, and is, a divine reality. During the 
 late war their religion was pure and strong enough 
 to secure to helpless women and children, on the 
 Southern plantations, peace and safety, while the 
 men were in the Southern armies fighting under a 
 flag which did not promise freedom to the slaves. 
 And we may be quite sure that the negroes under- 
 stood what the war meant in its relation to them. 
 In what history can the conduct of these Southern 
 slaves, from 1861 to 1865, be matched? There are 
 three explanations: i. The negro is not naturally 
 daring or revengeful. 2. The majority of them 
 loved their owners. 3. Multitudes of them were 
 truly religious.
 
 38 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 In trying to understand the coming of these 
 African slaves to America and their settlement and 
 history in the South, we must remember these one 
 million of communicants ; this whole race more or 
 less influenced by the gospel leaven ; we must also 
 consider what these American-African Christians 
 may some day do for Africa. 
 
 IV 
 
 -K\ rv -
 
 The Negro Free. 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NEGRO FREE. 
 
 ONE may be entirely consistent when he says, 
 I recognize the hand of Providence in the 
 coming to this country of several thousands of sav- 
 age and heathen Africans ; I recognize the hand of 
 Providence in the circumstances of their enslave- 
 ment, in such a country and among such a people, 
 and I rejoice now, and thank God, from day to day, 
 that this same Providence has set them free for- 
 ever. If any object, he must say, Either Provi- 
 dence was not in their coming, their enslavement, 
 or their emancipation. He who says either of these 
 things has given up the Bible and the rational doc- 
 trine of Providence. For one, I do not believe 
 that the Providence that includes " lilies " and 
 " sparrows " overlooks millions of human beings. 
 
 As to slavery itself, I do not discuss it. The sins 
 connected with it every good man deplores ; for the 
 blessings God brought the negroes while in slavery 
 whether by virtue of it, or in spite of it every 
 good man, who has knowledge of the facts, gives 
 thanks to the Giver of all good. I am not called 
 on to discuss the right or wrong of slavery. I will
 
 40 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 not discuss dead issues while there are more living 
 ones than we can manage. In this discussion my 
 chief concern is not with slavery, but with the facts 
 that grow out of its abolition. I have nothing to 
 do with slavery, except only as its facts and issues 
 affect us of to-day. I say " us." I mean the ne- 
 groes and the white people of this whole Nation. I 
 am not, in the least degree, responsible for the intro- 
 duction of African slaves into this country; I am 
 not responsible for being born in a slave-holding 
 community; I am not responsible for being born 
 the son of a slave-holder a man who feared God 
 and " served his generation according to the will of 
 God," who never treated a slave unjustly or un- 
 kindly, and who was followed to his grave (Decem- 
 ber 26, 1862) with their loud lamentations. Let it 
 be remembered that of the white people of the 
 South who are now suffering so many of the ills of 
 slavery, who are now paying, in a hundred ways, so 
 fearful a price for the imposition of slavery upon 
 the very civil and social institutions under which 
 they were born let it be remembered that the ma- 
 jority of these people never did own slaves. Let it 
 be remembered, also, that of those who must now 
 bear the responsibilities of citizenship, who must 
 now, through a thousand struggles, and against a 
 thousand adverse minds, win for their section of 
 the Union what, but for slavery, they would have 
 i ', hen ted let it be remembered that the majority
 
 The Negro Free. 41 
 
 of these men have "come of age" since 1861. And 
 let those men who, so far as their civil life is con- 
 cerned, were " born free " from the entanglements 
 of slavery, remember, also, that they are not of the 
 past, but of the present and the future ; let them 
 remember that God has set them free as well as the 
 negroes, and that now the " truth " should " make 
 them free " altogether and forever. 
 
 Again I say, I will not discuss the dead and 
 buried slavery. If slavery must be discussed, there 
 are plenty of people who are masters of the argu- 
 ment ; plenty of people who have delight in it. 
 One may, it is to be hoped, in such a country and 
 in such an age as this rejoice that the negroes are 
 44 free," without being required, in order to prove 
 his sincerity, to contemn the memory of his fathers, 
 who conscientiously believed that they ought not 
 to be set free. I will neither malign nor contemn 
 the memory of my fathers, for I cannot forget that 
 the Federal Constitution, which not only recog- 
 nized slavery, but inwrought it into- the very bone 
 and fiber and blood of our institutions, was framed 
 nearly one hundred years ago. But I do rejoice in 
 the emancipation of the negroes. To ask a South- 
 ern man to denounce the past history of his people, 
 because he recognizes the facts of the present and 
 believes in the possibilities of the coming time, 
 would be as reasonable as to require a son of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers to vindicate his present intolerance
 
 42 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 of persecution by declaring Cotton Mather to have 
 been a hypocrite and a villain. 
 
 There is no more slavery in our country. The 
 former advocates of slavery such of them as are 
 still alive, for the majority of them are dead fully 
 accept emancipation. Let the former advocates of 
 emancipation accept it also, and have done with 
 digging up slavery as an everlasting theme of 
 anniversary orations. It would be just as sensi- 
 ble to denounce George III. on every anniver- 
 sary of American Independence. Now his Majesty 
 George III. is dead and buried ; let him rest. 
 We would suspect one of poverty of intellectual 
 resources if he found himself unable to get through 
 a " Fourth-of-July " speech without making faces 
 and hurling epithets at the poor old king. It is 
 said that the monarchists, when Charles II. was 
 restored to his father's throne, dug up the bones of 
 Cromwell and hung them on Tyburn Hill. It was 
 not statesmanship but passion that did this. True 
 wisdom, to say nothing of magnanimity, would have 
 left his bones in their grave. Even slavery is enti- 
 tled to its grave. In that grave, for it is very deep, 
 both parties should bury their quarrel, without 
 resurrection. 
 
 Slavery is done with. The negroes have been 
 set free once and for all, as every body knows. It 
 is done, and it will never be undone. There are 
 many reasons for this opinion. Three I mention :
 
 The Negro Free. 43 
 
 First, If there were any to desire their re-enslave- 
 ment, they know full well that the might and con- 
 science of the Christian world are against it. There 
 is no fool mad enough to breast a tidal wave that 
 moves with the force of a whole ocean. Secondly, 
 Their re-enslavement is not desired. The few " old 
 masters " who still live and let it be remembered 
 by just men that most of them are dead do not 
 desire it. (I have known but one man among the 
 "old masters" who said he wished his slaves again. 
 He said this a few months after Appomattox. In 
 less than twelve months he was elected to office by 
 negro votes !) Thirdly, Every body knows, fully 
 and definitely, that the re-enslavement of these 
 freed negroes cannot, by any possibility, be brought 
 about. One of the wants of our generation is si- 
 lence on this subject. It is not only true that the 
 Southern people do not desire the re-enslavement 
 of the negroes, but it is true, also, as has been men- 
 tioned, that the majority of Southern people never 
 owned slaves, and it is further true, that thousands 
 upon thousands of them never believed in the insti- 
 tution, and they ask on this subject silence. Are 
 they not entitled to ask this much ? 
 
 I do not claim to have been among those who 
 never believed in slavery. Time was when I did 
 believe in it thoroughly, and when I defended it to 
 the best of my ability. I make no apology for .hav- 
 ing believed in it. I was taught to believe in it; I
 
 44 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 grew up in the midst of it ; I saw its very best 
 aspects in my father's house. His slaves loved me, 
 and I loved them ; and we love each other to-day. 
 Nor do I make any apology for saying, I do not 
 now believe in slavery. I have changed my opin- 
 ions ; rather, new and purer light has changed them. 
 " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is 
 for the eyes to behold the sun." 
 
 But I will not denounce the "old masters;" I 
 will not discuss slavery. It is infinitely more im- 
 portant to this generation, infinitely more import- 
 ant for the generations that come after us, that we 
 discuss the negro's freedom. On this subject we 
 want light, clear and steady. We cannot study 
 this lesson by the light of camp fires ; we need the 
 pure white light of the sun. And it is a more diffi- 
 cult subject than slavery; it is in a hundred ways 
 involved and complicated. It is a subject that can- 
 not be mastered in the heats of sectional or party 
 passion. It requires the poise of good sense and 
 the guidance of good conscience following, through 
 a tangled wilderness, the pure light of a fixed star. 
 It is time now that men should study this question, 
 in all its relations, calmly and justly. Nearly half 
 the life of a generation has been lived since the 
 echoes of the last battle of the horrible civil war 
 died away. We are moving out of the century 
 which quarreled and fought and offered up the 
 lives of thousands of its best and bravest in the
 
 The Negro Free. 45 
 
 final settlement of the dispute. The gray light of 
 the dawning of the twentieth century appears in 
 the eastern sky ; there is the song of morning birds 
 in the air ; presently the rosy day will burst upon 
 us. In God's name let us every one men of the 
 North and men of the South get ready for the 
 coming day. 
 
 To the subject of African freedom, then, in all 
 its relations to two races, to two continents, and to 
 the world, I am willing to give my best attention, 
 seeking the fullest truth in the purest light God 
 may give me. And I know, by the authority of 
 Christ, my Lord, that " the truth makes free." I 
 know, also, that nothing else makes free in this 
 world. Arguments, laws, proclamations, amend- 
 ments to constitutions, battles ; these alone make 
 no man free. The truth, and nothing else, makes 
 free the souls as well as the bodies of men. 
 
 There are three parties in this great historic con- 
 flict that need freedom by the truth : the men of 
 the South, the men of the North, and the negroes 
 themselves. Let no man flatter himself that he 
 knows all the truth of this deep and difficult prob- 
 lem. I know that I do not. " I count not myself 
 to have apprehended : but this one thing I do, for- 
 getting those things which are behind, and reach- 
 ing forth unto those things which are before, I press 
 toward the mark for the prize of my high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesus."
 
 46 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PROVIDENCE IN EMANCIPATION. 
 
 T N this discussion I have to do with African 
 slavery only in so far as slavery was used by 
 the mysterious but all-wise and gracious providence 
 of God to prepare the negroes for their freedom. 
 Nay, more than this, for what is of vaster import, 
 to prepare them for their duties and destiny in the 
 right use of their freedom. Is this a fancy? Is 
 this a mere vagary of Southern prejudice? When 
 I say that God used their slavery to prepare them 
 for their freedom, am I only seeking a sort of last 
 refuge for an opinion on the subject of slavery that 
 I have affirmed that I have utterly given up and 
 changed ? Nay, verily, I recognize the obvious 
 facts of the history of the negro race in America. 
 Nor are these facts exceptional. God never gave 
 freedom to any barbarous nation without first sub- 
 jecting them, in some way, to a period and a dis- 
 cipline of preparation. No savage people ever 
 sprang at a bound into the enjoyment of freedom, 
 and held it long, or used it wisely. Most republics 
 have failed because the people were not ready for 
 them. Heaven judged that a period of four hun-
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 47 
 
 dred years was not too long to prepare the Hebrew 
 race for independent national life. The records of 
 Exodus show that even they had not learned too 
 well the providential lessons of their stay in " the 
 house of bondage." 
 
 Let me ask, and let sober people answer, *fl& 
 whether the wild Africans were fitted for freedom 
 when they were first landed from the slave-ships 
 that brought them from their savage homes to the 
 
 R plantations of this country. Were not their 
 American masters, unworthy of their sacred trust 
 as many of them were, better fitted, judged by any 
 test, to prepare these people for freedom than were 
 their African masters and conquerors who sold 
 them to the slavers ? For what is generally forgot- 
 ten should be always remembered most of the 
 egroes sold into slavery in America were bought 
 from slavery in Africa. And surely I do not go I 
 too far when I say, American slavery was freedom 
 compared with the slavery from which they were 
 
 taken. 
 
 - 
 
 Some of them, I know, were not technically 
 slaves in their own country ; some were bought as 
 captives taken in predatory wars ; some of them 
 were stolen from their homes. If slavery in Africa 
 were considered by those who say so much of the 
 evils of American slavery, they would at least find 
 reasons to magnify the Providence that so over- 
 ruled the cupidity and cruelty of wicked men as to 

 
 48 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 bring the divinest blessings, for both worlds, to the 
 helpless victims of their sin. 
 
 The poor Africans were not, as every candid man 
 will admit, as well fitted for freedom when the 
 slave-ships first landed them in America as they 
 were when God gave them their freedom in 1865. 
 Only suppose they had been set free when first 
 they came. Does any rational man suppose there 
 would have been so good an outcome ? We are 
 not lacking in a historic parallel. The red men 
 were here when the " Mayflower " came, and when 
 the Cavaliers first founded their colonies. And they 
 were always free. They have never been subjected 
 to personal slavery. The Indians were never less 
 civilized than were the Africans at their coming to 
 our country. But what blessings has their freedom 
 brought them ? Were they not slain, tribe after 
 tribe ? Have they increased in numbers ? Have 
 they been Christianized ? Has not this " Indian 
 question " been, from the beginning, the shame 
 and perplexity and despair of our statesmanship? 
 Have we mastered this question after two hundred 
 years of blundering experiment ? Let any man 
 imagine, who can and who dares, what would have 
 been the fate of a few thousand Africans, ignorant, 
 debased, and idolatrous, turned loose to freedom 
 when their feet first touched our shores. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in the minds of 
 nearly all of the negroes of this country that very
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 49 
 
 remarkable and historic man, Abraham Lincoln, is 
 loved and revered as their deliverer. They accept 
 and honor him as the " Moses " of their salvation. 
 Never can I forget the countenance of a negro man 
 I saw one day in March, 1875, contemplating a 
 statue of Mr. Lincoln in the Rotunda of the Capi- 
 tol in Washington city. Evidently he was not a 
 resident in the city. Like myself, he was a visitor, 
 seeing what he could. It may be counted a weak- 
 ness or a want of taste in me, but no matter ; of 
 all things I saw in Washington city, that negro's 
 countenance most impressed me, and it is now my 
 most vivid remembrance. He stood still and silent 
 before the voiceless marble, gazing at it as if he 
 would read the very soul of the man it represented. 
 His face and attitude moved me deeply. It was 
 plain that the negro wanted to talk to the statue ; 
 C that he longed to bless with loving thanks the man 
 who made him free. I was not mistaken in his 
 feeling.' I know the negro face. There was some- 
 thine almost worshipful in the man's manner and 
 
 o *> 
 
 expression as he stood in silent contemplation. 
 He looked as if the sight of that marble statue was 
 the fruition of a pilgrimage, and as if he felt^ that 
 he stood on "holy ground." That man repre- 
 sented the feeling of his race. All over the South 
 the name of Abraham Lincoln is, to the negroes, 
 the name of a saint and martyr of God. They are 
 in singular ignorance of the men and women who 
 4
 
 5o OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 nobly fought their battles. Garrison, Sumner, 
 Seward, and Greeley are names that, to the mass 
 
 of them, are unknown. But the name of Abraham 
 Lincoln is engraved on all their hearts. It is not 
 surprising that they should know him only, or that 
 they should almost worship his memory. 
 
 Many of the negroes look beyond Mr. Lincoln 
 for the gift of their freedom ; they look upon him 
 as the instrument of the divine Providence. But 
 
 /the majority of them do not look beyond the in- 
 strument. It seems to me a matter of vast mo- 
 ment to both races that the hand of God should be 
 recognized in this whole history one of the most 
 remarkable that belongs to the annals of any nation. 
 It is important to the emancipated negro to see 
 God in his freedom, that there may be in his heart 
 and life a right conscience in the use of his freedom. 
 This lesson a few of them very few, I fear have 
 learned. The majority accept the fact, in a blind 
 sort of way, as deliverance from restraint, as li- 
 cense to do what they will. But their freedom can 
 never bring them its fullness of blessing till the 
 heart of the emancipated race is penetrated and 
 saturated with this conception : " The good hand 
 of God is in all our history ; he overruled the 
 slavers who brought us here ; he overruled slavery ; 
 he gave us our freedom." 
 
 I would not diminish their gratitude to Mr. 
 Lincoln or to the party he represented ; I would
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 51 
 
 be glad if I could deepen their gratitude to 
 God. 
 
 It is equally important, so far as their duties to 
 the negroes are concerned, that the people of the 
 North and of the South recognize God's hand in 
 his providential dealings both with slavery and its 
 termination. 
 
 There has been, I must believe, much sin and 
 unbelief, as well as confusion of thought, on both 
 sides in our attitude toward this subject of the 
 emancipation of the slaves. In the North, with 
 many notable exceptions, there has been much 
 boasting and self-laudation. Where men ought to 
 feel humbly that God has used them used them 
 in their weakness and folly, as well as in their 
 strength and wisdom as unworthy instruments to 
 accomplish a great design, they have boasted over- 
 much in their triumph over their late antagonists 
 in a fierce and bloody war. Sometimes, alas ! there 
 has flamed out in sermons and orations and essays 
 somewhat of the fatal pride of Nebuchadnezzar, in- 
 toxicated with his greatness : " Is not this great 
 Babylon, that I have built for the house of the 
 kingdom by the might of my power, and for the 
 honor of my majesty?" Proud and weak man, he 
 had forgotten his vision of the great tree and of 
 the warning cry of "the watchers and the holy 
 one." 
 
 The men of the North can never realize the vast
 
 52 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 import of the freedom of the negroes in America so 
 long as they indulge a spirit so boastful and proud 
 of their own relations to emancipation. Nor can 
 they realize their high duties to this race, whose 
 preparation for a great future has been only begun. 
 We of the South have not been without folly 
 and unbelief and sin in our attitude toward this 
 fact of emancipation. We have been slow to ac- 
 cept its full significance, even when we fully and 
 finally accepted the fact. It was not unnatural that 
 \ve felt bitterly the humiliations of our overthrow, 
 nor that we writhed in agony when we looked upon 
 the poverty and desolation of our land when it was 
 all over. It was not unnatural that our people were 
 slow to accept the issues of the war. (I am not 
 speaking of what was wise, but of what is natural.) 
 It was not unnatural that we felt ourselves goaded 
 to desperation by many of the requirements and 
 events of reconstruction. History will not deny 
 that there were unnecessary exasperations in many 
 of the methods employed to settle the questions 
 that grew out of the war. Rarely have a brave 
 and high-spirited people endured such trials of 
 their patience, their wisdom, and their faith. For 
 many follies we committed, for many wrongs that 
 were done by some people of the South, there is no 
 defense to be made. Nor can defense be made for 
 many of the acts of the conquerors that drove 
 Southern men to desperation. Earth and Heaven
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 53 
 
 know there were wrongs and sins enough on both 
 sides to leave small room for boasting to either. 
 
 When all the facts are considered, those who 
 know human nature will feel no surprise that the 
 South has been slow and reluctant to adjust itself 
 to the new order of things. As it seems to me one 
 of the many sad effects of our unhappy experience 
 has been that the light has been dimmed in which 
 we ought to have seen the hand of God, and read 
 the lessons of his providence. As a wise and saint- 
 ly man, whose calm soul has been lifted above the 
 passions of the hour, recently wrote to me : " Our 
 new position has been forced upon us, and in sev- 
 eral respects tyrannically forced, so that we have 
 come slowly to see Providence in the change. 
 With bayonets between Providence and ourselves 
 it was very hard to see the good in and through 
 the evil. Large allowance should be made for 
 this." I believe God does make allowance, and so 
 ought men. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is our sacred duty to see God 
 wherever God is. How can the people of the 
 South ever understand this "negro question" 
 both slavery and emancipation until they recog- 
 nize God's hand in this long and troubled his- 
 tory ? I do not mean recognize God's approval 
 of all things, but God's providence in all things 
 masterful, comprehensive, overruling, all-wise, and 
 good.
 
 54 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 This much to me is clear; until God's hand in 
 this whole history is recognized, neither the men 
 of the North nor the men of the South will or can 
 make the right use of the negro's freedom. 
 
 There can be no question, I think, but that 
 emancipation was set down in the order of divine 
 Providence. Had the white people realized, both 
 in thought and act, their relation to the slaves, 
 emancipation might have come sooner, it might 
 have come later, but it would have come peaceably, 
 and when both masters and slaves were better pre- 
 pared for the change. It is to me a very painful 
 thought that, while there were very many noble 
 exceptions, the majority of masters never under- 
 stood the solemnity of their trust in the temporary 
 guardianship of these negroes in course of training. 
 Many of them, I fear the larger number, recognized 
 chiefly a property interest in the negroes. Men 
 with this feeling uppermost could not do their duty 
 to the slaves. But God's plans must not be marred 
 by human ignorance or cupidity. So it came to 
 pass that God used a great war to set free the 
 negroes. 
 
 If the hand of God were fully and devoutly rec- 
 ognized by all parties by the people of the North, 
 by the people of the South, and by the negroes 
 only the happiest results would follow. When this 
 truth shines clearly upon us all there will be peace 
 and brotherhood. This truth will drive out passion
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 55 
 
 and prejudice. The man of the North will be less 
 boastful and imperious, less self-satisfied and Phari- 
 saical in his attitude toward the South. No offense 
 is intended by the use of this word Pharisaical. 
 Its application is not meant for all Northern men, 
 for many have seea too much of the true light to 
 indulge the spirit of self-complacency. I use the 
 word because I know of no other that so truly ex- 
 presses the spirit of many Northern men of many, 
 too, who hold high place and mold public opinion 
 in their long-indulged habit of looking upon the 
 South as a sort of national Nazareth. I put it to 
 their consciences whether they have not overmuch 
 and over-often indulged the spirit and used the 
 words of him who went not " down to his house 
 justified :" " God, I thank thee, that I am not as 
 other men are, ... or even as this publican ?" 
 
 I would not do the North injustice, nor would I 
 claim overmuch for the South. Southern faults I 
 do not deny ; Northern excellencies I do not dis- 
 parage. I know the faults of the Southern people 
 better than men of the North know them, and I feel 
 them more keenly, because, alas ! part of them are 
 my own. 
 
 If all of superiority they of the North claim be 
 granted, (and they are superior to us in many 
 things, though not in all,) and their theory of the 
 evils of slavery be true which I accept for the most 
 part then where is there occasion for boasting?
 
 56 OUR BROTHER ix BLACK. 
 
 Had slavery been fastened on New England for 
 generations, are the men of New England prepared 
 to prove, beyond all question, that they would now 
 be so much better than they think the South is? 
 Should they not, in gratitude for deliverance from 
 the curse of slavery long years before the South got 
 its release, be less impatient with those who, ac- 
 cording to their qwn view of the evils of slavery, 
 could not be much better than they are? What 
 would we think of the wisdom, to say nothing of 
 his spirit, of a missionary who should begin his la- 
 bors in a heathen land by not only proving idolatry 
 to be a lie, but by denouncing the low estate of 
 the people whom that idolatry had degraded? 
 Have they ever considered fairly that, had the rela- 
 tions of the sections to slavery been changed, had 
 the South been freed from slavery in 1790, and 
 New England burdened with it till 1865, they 
 might have been as deficient in the virtues of the 
 best civilization as they believe that the South is, 
 and the South might have excelled as they be- 
 lieve that they have excelled ? In such a case, what 
 would the golden rule require of the South ? 
 
 When we of the South recognize, as we ought, 
 the providence of God in the emancipation of the 
 negroes, most gracious results will follow in us. 
 The spirit of resignation to God's will in this mat- 
 ter will go further than any thing conceivable by 
 me to reconcile us to the instrument employed by
 
 Providence in Emancipation. 57 
 
 that Providence. Such a spirit would go far to 
 banish whatever " wrath and bitterness " there may 
 be in us. It will broaden our views ; it will lift us 
 up to a higher plane of thought and sentiment and 
 conduct. 
 
 When the negroes come to see, as I trust they 
 may, that God set them free, only using men and 
 their counsels as his instruments, then a new and 
 holier feeling will come into their hearts. They 
 cannot realize the solemn significance of their free- 
 dom so long as they forget their great Deliverer in 
 their over consideration of the instrument he em- 
 ployed. 
 
 The emancipated negro can never have the right 
 conscience in his freedom, can never realize in his 
 inmost soul the responsibilities of his freedom, 
 can never perform aright the duties of free citizen- 
 ship, can never work out the divine plan of his des- 
 tiny, until he sees clearly and feels profoundly that 
 God, the Father and King of men, bestowed upon 
 him this fearful but glorious gift of freedom.
 
 58 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 
 
 " I "HAT Mr. Lincoln was truly opposed to slavery, 
 A and that he wished and sought its abolition, 
 cannot be doubted. That he issued his Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation simply or chiefly in the interests 
 of the slaves, and in order to set them free, his 
 own words deny. His grand aim was to "save the 
 Union," and he issued his proclamations to help in 
 saving it. This subject is brought forward here 
 only because it should, when fully understood, deep- 
 en and fix the conviction that God, and not man, 
 gave freedom to the slaves. 
 
 In the " North American Review " for February, 
 1880, is an interesting and instructive article on the 
 Emancipation Proclamation from the pen of Presi- 
 dent James C. Welling, who was, at the time it was 
 issued, one of the editors of the " Intelligencer," 
 Washington city, and whose opportunities for full 
 information were complete. Commenting on this 
 article in the " North American Review " for Au- 
 gust, 1880, Mr. Richard H. Dana commends it very 
 highly, and says : " It presents the subject with 
 great ability and fullness of detail, and, as far as my
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 59 
 
 memory goes, it is the first article in an American 
 periodical that has taken up the subject on prin- 
 ciple." 
 
 Of the Proclamation itself President Welling says: 
 " The Emancipation Proclamation is the most 
 signal fact in the administration of President Lin- 
 coln. It marks, indeed, the sharp and abrupt be- 
 ginning of ' the Great Divide ' which, since the 
 upheaval produced by the late civil war, has sepa- 
 rated the polity and politics of the ante-bellum pe- 
 riod from the polity and politics of the post-bellum 
 era. No other act has been so warmly praised on 
 the one hand, or so warmly opposed on the other; 
 and perhaps it has sometimes been equally misun- 
 derstood, in its real nature and bearing, by those 
 who have praised it and by those who have de- 
 nounced it. The domestic institution against which 
 it was leveled having now passed as finally into the 
 domain of history as the slavery of Greece and 
 Rome, it would seem that the time has come when 
 we can review this act of Mr. Lincoln's in the calm 
 light of reason, without serious disturbance from 
 the illusions of fancy or the distortions of preju- 
 dice." 
 
 In the latter part of August, 1862, Mr. Horace 
 Greeley, editor of the " New York Tribune," wrote an 
 editorial in his paper in which, as President Welling 
 says, "assuming to utter the prayer of twenty mill- 
 ions, Mr. Greeley called on the President with
 
 60 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 much truculence of speech, to issue a proclamation 
 of freedom to all slaves in the Confederate States." 
 On the 22d of the month Mr. Lincoln replied to 
 Mr. Greeley's editorial through the "Intelligencer," 
 published in Washington city. It is a remarkable 
 and interesting document. It was written about 
 one month before the appearance of Mr. Lincoln's 
 preliminary Proclamation, in which he gave the 
 Confederates notice that if they did not, in one 
 hundred days, lay down their arms and give up 
 their cause, he would proclaim freedom to all the 
 slaves in the States at war with the Union forces. 
 The "North American Review" gives us an en- 
 graved copy, a fac-simile of Mr. Lincoln's letter to 
 Mr. Greeley, just as it appeared in the " Intelli- 
 gencer." It is straightforward, unmistakable ; it 
 tells exactly what the great war President thought 
 and felt and purposed in the Proclamations of Eman- 
 cipation that appeared soon after. It is a most read- 
 able letter, aside from its historical interest. Com- 
 paratively few of the present generation, especially 
 in the Southern States of the Union, have read it. 
 It may not be out of place to reproduce it here. 
 I give it in full, using Mr. Lincoln's italics : 
 
 "EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, 1862. 
 
 "HON. HORACE GREELEY: 
 
 " DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the iQth, 
 addressed to myself through the " New York Trib-
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 61 
 
 une." If there be in it any statements or assump- 
 tion of facts which I may know to be erroneous, I 
 do not, now and here, controvert them. If there 
 be in it any inferences which I may believe to be 
 falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against 
 them. If there be perceptible in it an imperious 
 and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an 
 old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to 
 be right. 
 
 "As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you 
 say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 
 
 " I would save the Union. I would save it the 
 shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner 
 the national authority can be restored the nearer 
 the Union will be ' the Union as it was.' [Here is 
 a sentence marked out in the engraved copy, be- 
 cause the editors of the "Intelligencer" insisted 
 that it was not dignified enough for such a paper: 
 " Broken eggs can never be mended, and the longer 
 the breaking proceeds the more will be broken."] If 
 there be" those who would not save the Union, un- 
 less they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do 
 not agree with them. My paramount object in this 
 'struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to 
 save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the 
 Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if 
 I could save it by freeing #//the slaves I would do it ; 
 and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving 
 others alone I would also do that. What I do about
 
 62 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe 
 it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear I 
 forbear because I do not believe it would help to 
 save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall 
 believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall 
 do more whenever I shall believe doing more will 
 help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when 
 shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views so 
 fast as they shall appear to be true views. 
 
 "I have here stated my purpose according to my 
 view of official duty; and I intend no modification 
 of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, 
 every-where, should be free. 
 
 "Yours, A. LINCOLN." 
 
 This is, in many respects, a very notable letter. 
 It is wholly characteristic of its remarkable author, 
 whose assassination has been mourned by millions 
 of Southern people, not only on account of the das- 
 tardly crime of his murder, but because the wiser 
 ones among them have long ago settled down into 
 the belief that, in the death of Abraham Lincoln, 
 they lost one who would have dealt with them in 
 the spirit of his own beautiful words, " With malice 
 toward none, with charity for all."' 
 
 This is clear : the man, Abraham Lincoln, wished 
 all slaves to be free ; the President put the Union 
 before all things. If freeing them would help to 
 save the Union, he would free them ; if to save the
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 63 
 
 Union it had been necessary to keep all of them, 
 or part of them, in slavery, he would keep them in 
 slavery. And in point of historic fact the Emanci- 
 pation Proclamation, when it came, did not propose 
 to set all the slaves free; in Maryland and Ken- 
 tucky, and in all the slave States not recognized 
 officially as being in rebellion, the slaves were left 
 slaves. The Proclamation was hurled at " rebellion," 
 not at slavery. Nothing can be plainer than this. 
 On the loth of March, 1862, President Welling says, 
 " Mr. Lincoln had said that as long as he remained 
 President the people of Maryland (and, therefore, 
 of the Border States) had nothing to fear for their 
 peculiar domestic institution, ' either by direct ac- 
 tion of the government or by indirect action, or 
 through the emancipation of slaves in the District 
 of Columbia, or the confiscation of Southern prop- 
 erty in slaves.' ' 
 
 Mr. Lincoln had little faith in the Proclamation's 
 bringing any deliverance to the slaves. On the I3th 
 of September, 1862, nine days before the " Prelimi- 
 nary Proclamation" was issued, a delegation of 
 Chicago clergymen waited upon the President, urg- 
 ing him strenuously to issue a proclamation freeing 
 the slaves. He answered them : " What good would 
 a proclamation of emancipation from me do, espe- 
 cially as we are now situated ? I do not want 
 to issue a document that the whole world will see 
 must be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against
 
 64 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the comet. Would my word free the slaves when 
 I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel 
 States?" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was in great straits ; the border 
 States, and the party more or less in sympathy 
 with them, were pressing him for pledges that slav- 
 ery should not be interfered with ; the " Greeley 
 faction" of the Republican party were urging im- 
 mediate emancipation. President Welling says 
 and it shows us Mr. Lincoln's agony: 
 
 " It is true that only a few days previously, [to 
 the meeting with the Chicago preachers,] 'when 
 the rebel army was at Frederick,' [September 6,] 
 he had registered a vow in heaven that he would 
 issue a proclamation of emancipation so soon as 
 the Confederates should be driven out of Mary- 
 land ; but this was the conduct of a man who, in a 
 perplexing state of incertitude, resolves his doubts 
 by ' throwing a lot in the lap,' and leaving ' the 
 whole disposing thereof to be of the Lord;' or, as I 
 prefer to believe, it was that prudent and reverent 
 waiting on Providence by which the President 
 sought to guard against the danger of identifying 
 the Proclamation in the popular mind with a panic 
 cry of despair in which latter case the hesitation 
 of Mr. Lincoln only serves to set in a stronger light 
 the significant fact that other than considerations 
 of military necessity were held to dominate the 
 situation ; for, if they alone had been prevalent, the
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 65 
 
 Proclamation could never have come more ap- 
 propriately than when the military need Was 
 greatest." 
 
 The Proclamation was not simply " a war meas- 
 ure," but " a political measure ;" it was absolutely 
 necessary to Mr. Lincoln to satisfy that element of 
 his party that Mr. Greeley fairly represented in order 
 to carry on the war at all. For its interest and im- 
 portance I make another and longer extract from 
 President Welling's article : 
 
 " The proximate and procuring cause of the 
 Proclamation, as I conceive, is not far to seek. It 
 was issued primarily and chiefly as a political ne- 
 cessity, and took on the character of a military 
 necessity only because the President had been 
 brought to believe that if he did not keep the 
 radical portion of his party at his back he could 
 not long be sure of keeping an army at the front. 
 He had begun the conduct of the war on the 
 theory that it was waged for the restoration of the 
 Union under the Constitution, as it was at the out- 
 break of the secession movement. He sedulously 
 labored to keep the war in this line of direction. 
 He publicly deprecated its degeneration into a re- 
 morseless revolutionary struggle. He cultivated 
 every available alliance with the Union men of the 
 border States. He sympathized with them in their 
 loyalty, and in the political theory on which it was 
 
 based. But the most active and energetic wing of 
 
 6
 
 66 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the Republican party had become, as the war 
 waxed hotter, more and more hostile to this ' bor- 
 der-State theory of the war,' until, in the end, its 
 fiery and impetuous leaders did not hesitate to 
 threaten him with repudiation as a political chief, 
 and even began in some cases to hint the expe- 
 diency of withholding supplies for the prosecution 
 of the war, unless the President should remove 
 'pro-slavery generals' from the command of our 
 armies, and adopt an avowedly antislavery policy 
 in the future conduct of the war. Thus placed 
 between two stools, and liable between them to fall 
 to the ground, he determined at last to plant him- 
 self firmly on the stool which promised the surest 
 and safest support. 
 
 " I am able to state with confidence that Mr. 
 Lincoln gave this explanation of his changed policy 
 a few days after the Preliminary Proclamation of 
 September 22 had been issued. The Hon. Edward 
 Stanly, the Military Governor of North Carolina, 
 immediately on receiving a copy of that paper, has- 
 tened to Washington for the purpose of seeking an 
 authentic and candid explanation of the grounds 
 on which Lincoln had based such a sudden and 
 grave departure from the previous theory of the 
 war. Mr. Stanly had accepted the post of Military 
 Governor of North Carolina at a great personal 
 sacrifice, and with the distinct understanding that 
 the war was to be conducted on the same constitu-
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 67 
 
 tional theory which had presided over its inception * 
 by the Federal Government, and hence the procla- 
 mation not only took him by surprise, but seemed 
 to him an act of perfidy. In this view he hastily 
 abandoned his post, and came to throw up his com- 
 mission and return to California, where he had pre- 
 viously resided. Before doing so he sought an 
 audience with the President in fact, held several 
 interviews with him on the subject ; and knowing 
 that, as a public journalist, I was deeply interested 
 in the matter, he came to report to me the sub- 
 stance of the President's communications. That 
 substance was recorded in my diary as follows : 
 
 " ' September 27. Had a call to-day at the " In- 
 telligencer" office from the Hon. Edward Stanly, 
 Military Governor of North Carolina. In a long 
 and interesting conversation Mr. Stanly related 
 to me the substance of several interviews which 
 he had with the President respecting the Proc- 
 lamation of Freedom. Mr. Stanly said that the 
 President had stated to him that the Proclama- 
 tion had become a civil necessity to prevent the 
 radicals from openly embarrassing the govern- 
 ment in the conduct of the war. The President 
 expressed the belief that, without the Proclamation 
 for which they had been clamoring, the radicals 
 would take the extreme step in Congress of with- 
 holding supplies for carrying on the war, leaving 
 the whole land in anarchy. Mr. Lincoln said that
 
 68 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 'he had prayed to the Almighty to save him from 
 this necessity, adopting- the very language of our 
 Saviour, " If it be possible, let this cup pass from 
 me ;" but the prayer had not been answered.' " 
 
 Of the Preliminary, or warning, Proclamation of 
 September, 1862, the following is the important 
 portion : 
 
 " That on the first day of January, in the year of 
 our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
 three, all persons held as slaves within any States, 
 or designated parts of a State, the people whereof 
 shall then be in rebellion against the United States, 
 shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free ; and 
 the Executive Government of the United States, 
 including the military and naval authority thereof, 
 will recognize and maintain the freedom of such 
 persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such 
 persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may 
 make for their actual freedom. 
 
 " That the Executive will, on the first day of 
 January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the 
 States and parts of States, if any, in which the peo- 
 ple thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion 
 against the United States ; and the fact that any 
 State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in 
 good faith represented in the Congress of the 
 United States by members chosen thereto at elec- 
 tions wherein a majority of the qualified voters of 
 such State shall have participated, shall, in the ab-
 
 TJie Emancipation Proclamation. 69 
 
 sence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed 
 conclusive evidence that such States, and the peo- 
 ple thereof, are not then in rebellion against the 
 United States." 
 
 What if the Confederate leaders had given up 
 their struggle before January I, 1863? 
 
 January I, 1863, Mr. Lincoln issued the Procla- 
 mation, declaring all slaves as free in certain States, 
 and parts of States, which he designated, as he had 
 set forth in the warning of September 22, 1862. 
 
 This Proclamation did not touch such States as 
 Maryland and Kentucky. The slaves in the other 
 Southern States were practically set free as the 
 Union armies advanced, conquering the country. 
 But emancipation needed more than the President's 
 Proclamation, as he had said before it was issued, 
 and as he showed afterward in urging an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, forever abolishing and 
 prohibiting slavery in the United States. 
 
 Mr. Dana, who was the devoted friend and the 
 earnest champion of Mr. Lincoln through all the 
 " storm and stress " of those eventful days, states 
 the truth of the case in his review of President 
 Welling's paper: "No doubt the proclamation of 
 January i, 1863, though such were not its terms, 
 brought about a system of progressive military 
 emancipation, taking effect as we advanced. But 
 for the prohibition of slavery thereafter in the con- 
 quered States, under their Constitutions, as well as
 
 70 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 in the loyal States, very different action was, re- 
 quired. The abolition of the slave system, as it 
 stood in the Constitutions of so many States, was 
 beyond the reach of the military power of the Pres- 
 ident, or of Congress. It called for the ultimate, 
 sovereign legislative action of ' we, the people of 
 the United States,' in the form of an amendment 
 to the Constitution ; and this, when adopted, pre- 
 cluded all question as to attempted past emancipa- 
 tion or abolition by proclamation." 
 
 No man knew better than Mr. Lincoln that his 
 Proclamation did not secure freedom to the slaves. 
 On this point President Welling says : " With a 
 candor which did him honor he made no pretense 
 of concealing its manifold infirmities either from 
 his own eyes, or from the eyes of the people, so 
 soon as Congress proposed, in a way of undoubted 
 constitutionality and of undoubted efficacy, to put 
 an end to slavery every-where in the Union by an 
 amendment to the Constitution. Remarking on 
 that amendment at the time of its proposal, he 
 said, [President Welling here quotes Raymond's 
 "Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln:"] 
 'A question might be raised as to whether the 
 Proclamation was legally valid. It might be added 
 that it aided only those who came into our lines, 
 and that it was inoperative as to those who did not 
 give themselves up; or that it would have no effect 
 upon the children of those born hereafter ; in fact,
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. > 71 
 
 it could be urged that it did not meet the evil. 
 But this amendment is a king's cure for all evils; 
 it winds the whole thing up." 
 
 The negro's title to freedom does not rest in Mr. 
 Lincoln's Proclamation, but in the Amendment to 
 the Constitution of the United States. No doubt 
 the " logic of events," the triumph of the Union 
 armies, and the complete and final overthrow of the 
 Confederate Government, gave tremendous potency 
 to Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation ; but the negro's 
 ricrht to his freedom is found in the amendments 
 
 & 
 
 to the Constitution of the United States, which 
 were first adopted by Congress, and made complete 
 by the ratification of the several States. 
 
 This is the language of the " amendment " which 
 gives legality to the negro's freedom, and guaran- 
 tees it to him and to his children forever : 
 
 "ARTICLE XIII. Section i. Neither slavery nor 
 involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for 
 crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
 victed, shall exist within the United States, or any 
 place subject to their jurisdiction. 
 
 ''Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce 
 this article by appropriate legislation." 
 
 Whether the human instruments, used by God's 
 providence to effect the emancipation of the negroes, 
 were wise or just in their methods, I do not discuss. 
 Best or worst, it was done in this way, and it is done 
 forever. That Mr. Lincoln was truly opposed to
 
 72 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 slavery I do not doubt ; that his Proclamation re- 
 ceived the approval of the majority of the Christian 
 world, I do not doubt ; that the fact of emancipation 
 if not the mode now receives the approval of 
 those whom it made poor for a time, I do not doubt. 
 Whatever may have been the secret thoughts and 
 struggles of Mr. Lincoln's mind ; however his Proc- 
 lamation may have been precipitated by the e,xi- 
 gencies of a colossal war and by the urgency of the 
 most vigorous section of the party that put him in 
 power; however emancipation might have been de- 
 layed had the great question 'in dispute of battle been 
 compromised while the war was still in progress ; 
 however pleasing Mr. Lincoln's course may have 
 been to the majority of the Northern people ; and 
 however displeasing it may have been to the South- 
 ern people, this much at least is clear, the slaves 
 are all free, and their freedom is recognized by all 
 men every-where. And to me it is unthinkable 
 that the providence of God, overruling all things 
 the good and the evil, the wise and the unwise 
 methods and purposes of men on both sides of the 
 contest did not give freedom to the slaves, for 
 their own good, for the good of the white race, for 
 the good of two continents, and for the glory of his 
 Son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men.
 
 The Frecdinan Made a Citizen. 73 
 
 CHAPTER Vlli. 
 
 THE FREED MAN MADE A CITIZEN. 
 
 r I "'HE emancipated negroes are citizens. They 
 -A- were made citizens by amendments to the 
 Constitution of the United States. The amend- 
 ments were ordained by the conjoined action of 
 Congress and of a sufficient number of States to 
 meet the constitutional requirement in such a case. 
 
 The vital points in these amendments, so far as 
 the negro's citizenship is concerned, are found in 
 the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The 
 Fourteenth reads : 
 
 " Section I. All persons born or naturalized in the 
 United States, and subject to the jurisdiction there- 
 of, are citizens of the United States and of the State 
 wherein they reside. No State shall make or en- 
 force any law which shall abridge the privileges or 
 immunities of citizens of the United States; nor 
 shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, 
 or property, without due process of law, nor deny 
 to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- 
 tection of the laws." 
 
 The Fifteenth Amendment reads : 
 
 "Section i. The right of citizens of the United
 
 74 
 
 States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by 
 the United States or any State on account of race, 
 color, or previous condition of servitude. 
 
 " Section 2. The Congress shall have power to 
 enforce this article by appropriate legislation." 
 
 The negroes are not only citizens in that they 
 are entitled to complete protection under the laws 
 in all their rights of person and property, but also 
 citizens in that all males, twenty-one years old, 
 not disqualified by crime or other conditions that 
 would disqualify a white man, are entitled to vote. 
 Every negro man of lawful age, if otherwise quali- 
 fied, has the same legal right to vote that the Pres- 
 ident of the United States has. 
 
 It is now practically too late, in this country, to 
 argue the advantages or disadvantages of universal 
 suffrage. Much has been said for and against the 
 doctrine of universal suffrage " manhood suffrage," 
 as the phrase is. But the time is past for such argu- 
 ments ; facts and not theories must be considered 
 now. The people, acting through their represent- 
 atives, some because they thought it wise, some as 
 a means of political power, and others because 
 they were obliged to do it, have adopted universal 
 suffrage as a fundamental principle and have in- 
 corporated it into our entire political system. We 
 must now make the best of it. After all, it may be 
 best as it is; such matters are only determined by 
 experiment ; we are now making the test. Such
 
 The Frecdman Made a Citizen. 75 
 
 experiments cannot be worked out in a year, or 
 even in a generation. We know too little of such 
 matters to dogmatize about them; after all the 
 experience and wisdom of the past, what we call 
 statesmanship is but a complicated, difficult, and 
 uncertain experiment. But common sense teaches 
 at least this much : when we cannot have what we 
 prefer we should do the very best we can with 
 what we have. 
 
 Whether the wholesale enfranchisement of the 
 negro was a party measure, as his sudden and un- 
 conditioned emancipation was a war measure urged 
 on by a political necessity ; whether it was done 
 in a paroxysm of feeling and sentimentalism ; 
 whether it was designed, in part at least, as a re- 
 pression of any reactionary tendencies in the " old 
 masters," we need not discuss at this time. When 
 there is less noise of men running to and fro with 
 dim lanterns or flaming torches in their hands ; 
 when there is less outcry and dissonance of fiercely 
 contending passions ; when there is less sensitive- 
 ness and prejudice, philosophical historians may 
 discuss, with whatever ability and insight may be 
 given to them, these difficult subjects that are now 
 entangled in a hundred folds of warring interests 
 
 O -* 
 
 and ambitions. But we must deal with the facts as 
 we find them. A wise man who proposes to rebuild 
 a burned house will not quarrel witW his neighbors 
 or workmen about the origin of the fire, nor ex-
 
 76 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 haust his time and energies in fruitless lamenta- 
 tions over the unsuitableness of his materials. He 
 cannot live with his family under the open sky. 
 unless he proposes to be a savage. A house he 
 must have ; he will use his materials to the best 
 possible advantage ; if he cannot procure the best 
 . stone out of the quarries, he will use the best 
 he has. If he can do no better he will build 
 of sun-dried bricks, or of bricks that have twice 
 known fire. Even an adobe house is better than 
 none. 
 
 At this time the people of the South may read 
 with profit the life and labors of Nehemiah. His- 
 tory does not record a fairer, truer patriotism than 
 his. He gave up a pleasant and profitable office 
 " in Shushan the palace" to rebuild Jerusalem, that 
 had been laid waste in bitter wars and relentless 
 sieges. There are few more pathetic passages in 
 the lives of patriotic men than we see in Nehe- 
 miah when he "went out by night . . . and viewed 
 the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and 
 the gates thereof were consumed with fire." For 
 his great task of rebuilding the sacred city he had 
 small resources and manifold discouragements. 
 His friends were dispirited and unorganized; his 
 enemies were strong, bold, scoffing. He had to 
 build the new out of the ruins of the old city. 
 When, after incredible exertions, he had rallied a 
 small but united and determined company for the
 
 The Freedman Made a Citizen. 77 
 
 work of restoration, there was not lacking a San- 
 ballat to mock their patriotic efforts. No doubt 
 many of those Jews who held their brethren down 
 under " mortgages and bondage," were more in 
 sympathy with Sanballat than with Nehcmiah. 
 Which was harder for the brave and great-hearted 
 patriot to bear, the jeers of his enemies or the apa- 
 thy or secret hate of those who ought to have been 
 his helpers, it would be hard to say. There were 
 not lacking Jews who said, " O, you can't do any 
 thing with the ruins of the old Jerusalem." As for 
 Sanballat, this describes him, and not only him, but 
 some of our own times who have for the strug- 
 gling South only jeers and contempt: 
 
 " But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard 
 that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took 
 great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he 
 spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria, 
 and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they 
 fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they 
 make an end in a day ? will they revive the stones 
 out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned." 
 
 The South has heard this Sanballat voice many 
 times since Appomattox. And Sanballat has had 
 to help- him a class of Southern men, as greedy as 
 vultures and as remorseless as death, who have 
 done nothing to rebuild our broken walls and our 
 burned gates, who have used their power and op- 
 portunity only to hold faster the poor and the
 
 78 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 helpless of their own brethren. In this old history 
 there is one other character who still survives to 
 play his little part of imitation. There was one 
 Tobiah, small echo of Sanballat, and this is the 
 picture of him : " Now Tobiah the Ammonite was 
 by him, and he said, Even that which they build, 
 if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone 
 wall." 
 
 But Sanballat's prophecies came to naught, and 
 Tobiah 's mean jests came back to him. Nehemiah 
 and his patriotic band did rebuild Jerusalem, its 
 walls and its gates. Let the men of the South 
 take courage, and out of the ruins of their old sys- 
 tem and out of the very difficulties of the new era, 
 build up a better civilization than they ever knew. 
 They can if they will ; " the eternal powers " will 
 help them. 
 
 Let us consider the difficulties of our position, 
 as Nehemiah, before he began to rebuild, surveyed 
 the ruins of the city of his fathers, recalling its van- 
 ished glories that he might strengthen his heart for 
 the work of restoration. We find ourselves face 
 to face with as difficult a problem as was ever com- 
 mitted to any people of any age. Take any view 
 possible of the history of the emancipation and 
 enfranchisement of the negroes, and this portentous 
 fact remains : nearly a million of men, who had 
 been slaves, were made voters before they could 
 read. They were told to vote upon the most diffi-
 
 The Freedman Made a Citizen. 79 
 
 cult and complicated of all questions, questions of 
 public policy, involving the interests of half a con- 
 tinent and of nearly fifty millions of people, before 
 they could read or understand the Constitution 
 under which they were governed. 
 
 Such an experiment was never made before by 
 any people. There is something impressive in the 
 very audacity of the measure, and in the greatness 
 of the danger which it involves. Those who pro- 
 posed and carried it through had either a sublime 
 confidence in the government they put in jeopardy, 
 or an amazing indifference to the dangers to which 
 they exposed its institutions, or a great passion that 
 blinded their eyes. Those who wonder that con- 
 fusion came into our politics are not read in his- 
 tory ; they are not wise in the knowledge of human 
 nature. The wonder is not that disorders, corrup- 
 tions, violence, followed the introduction of this 
 new and strange element this fearful combination 
 of power and ignorance but that utter chaos did 
 not follow. It is, perhaps, not too much to say 
 there was never any other government, there is not 
 to-day any other government in the world, capable 
 of enduring such a strain as the American people 
 put upon their civil institutions between 1865 and 
 1870. Surely there is in the American system of 
 government, there is in this -Republic of ours, a 
 vitality never manifested by any other system in 
 any nation or time.
 
 8o OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 What is the explanation of this, the most won- 
 derful fact in our history the fact that placing the 
 ballot in the hands of nearly a million of men, of 
 alt others the least qualified to perform this high 
 function of citizenship, has not before this time de- 
 stroyed the Republic ? And what reasons have we 
 for the hope that our institutions may continue to 
 survive -such trials of their stability? Statesmen 
 and philosophers can, no doubt, give us learned 
 and profound answers. There are some that will 
 occur to plain people who reflect on these subjects: 
 I. Ours is a new country; it offers large oppor- 
 tunity, outside of politics, for the expenditure of 
 restless energy. 2. The American people are, as a 
 class, intensely practical. They are not swept away 
 by a craze. Emotional revolutions, like some that 
 have occurred in France, are impossible in this 
 country. 3. The form and genius of our govern- 
 ment make it capable of vast adjustability. 4. The 
 preponderance of Christian principle and sentiment 
 has done more to save us than any other character- 
 istic of our people or government. 5. Above all, 
 the providence of God. 
 
 Whether the next generation shall witness the 
 continuance of good government depends largely 
 upon a condition not now satisfied, namely, the 
 education of these untaught voters. (I do not for- 
 get the great and sore need of the education of all 
 white voters, also, wherever found.) If we of to-
 
 The Freedman made a Citizen. 81 
 
 day take the matter in hand as we ought, and teach 
 these new citizens and voters all that we can teach 
 them of their duties, and prepare them for their 
 performance as well as we can prepare them, our 
 children will " rise up and call us blessed." But is 
 it irreverent to ask, Whether we may rely upon 
 divine Providence to continue to bless us if we are 
 unfaithful to the plain duties that are pressing 
 upon us ? Providence blesses the use of right 
 means to good ends. 
 
 The fact that the emancipated negro was a voter, 
 and that practically his vote was not his own, made 
 the struggle hard for the new citizen from 1865 to 
 1880. It will never be, in some respects, at least, 
 so hard for him again, unless there is unexampled 
 stupidity somewhere. For now his vote is sought 
 in the South. It has been divided once, in some 
 States, at least. Henceforth it will be divided 
 many times ; it is almost certain that it will never 
 be " solid " again. It may be, in some localities, 
 better for the new citizen's personal safety; per- 
 haps it will be worse for his morals. Wise men 
 will see danger here ; would that they knew how to 
 meet it ! 
 
 Free man and citizen our colored brother is, and 
 so he will remain. He will never be re-enslaved ; 
 he will never be disfranchised. It may come about 
 some day that the South will be exceedingly zeal- 
 ous in defending his right to vote, and that the
 
 82 ' OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 North will realize, in ways not agreeable, the tre- 
 mendous power of the black man's ballot. The 
 time may come when the North will have sore 
 need of patience with this voter, as the South has 
 had sore need for these years. Will the North be 
 Wiser or more patient ? They think so. May they 
 not be disappointed in themselves! May great 
 grace be given to our brethren of the North when 
 the trial of their faith comes! They will need it 
 as the South has needed it. 
 
 This vote will be "counted;" the North may 
 depend on this. There may, for a long time, or for 
 all time, be local exceptions, as there may be, and 
 as there have been, exceptions in New York, and in 
 other great cities ; but, in the long run, and as a 
 rule, the black man's vote will be counted. On 
 this point our Northern friends may dismiss their 
 fears. What they say ought to be done the 
 Southern whites will soon say must be done. 
 While I am writing this chapter an active canvass 
 is going on in my own county, Newton, for county 
 officers. Our men are patriotic and willing to 
 serve their country in office. There is no lack of 
 candidates ; I suppose there never will be. All 
 told, there must be more than twenty men inter- 
 ested in the result. Parties are confusedly mixed. 
 The candidate for Clerk of the County Court has 
 no opposition, and he is the leading Republican in 
 the county. One of the candidates for sheriff was
 
 The Frccdman made a Citizen. 83 
 
 in the old days a slave-holder, and he will secure 
 the largest negro vote, although he is rated as a 
 " stalwart " Democrat.* All these candidates are 
 courting the negro vote. In their eyes, as to this 
 election at least, " a negro is as good as a white 
 man," if not somewhat better. Nothing is more 
 certain than that every negro vote deposited in 
 Covington and at other precincts in this county, day 
 after to-morrow, January 5, 1881, will be counted. 
 And on that day the negro vote will be courted and 
 divided and counted all over Georgia. 
 
 North and South, those who are jealous of the 
 purity of the ballot-box will, in the management of 
 the intricate and difficult questions involved in our 
 elections, need all the sense and virtue and patience 
 and courage that are in them. 
 
 * He was elected, the majority of negroes voting for him, as was 
 anticipated.
 
 84 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TIME ELEMENT IN THIS PROBLEM. 
 
 TO my purpose, not to discuss " dead issues " 
 here or elsewhere, I adhere. If history feels 
 obliged to exhume the dead, let those do the work 
 who find pleasure in it. But to know what the 
 living issues are, to get fairly hold of the problems 
 of to-day and of to-morrow for our children's chil- 
 dren will not see the end of it it is needful to look 
 back a little at events since the war. 
 
 Of all parties, especially of two, the Northern and 
 the Southern whites, some things should be said in 
 perfect good temper and fairness. 
 
 First of all, to go no further back, there has been, 
 since April, 1865, a great folly and a great heat on 
 both sides. The North has gone too fast, the 
 South too slow. The conquerors have been impa- 
 tient, after the manner of conquerors ; the con- 
 quered have been sore under their yoke, and re- 
 luctant to " accept the situation," after the manner 
 of conquered people. Sometimes, when it would 
 have been wiser to have pulled up the steep hill 
 the heavy loads put upon us, we have pulled rather 
 against both " yoke and bows," hurting our galled
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 85 
 
 and bleeding necks all the more. Power, riches, 
 " fullness of bread " in the North have not minis- 
 tered to forbearance and patience ; overthrow, pov- 
 erty, want, and the constant pressure and menace 
 of power have not ministered to political or other 
 resignation in the South. Moreover, Northern im- 
 patience has very largely increased Southern re- 
 luctance. - 
 
 Our Northern fellow-citizens never put them- 
 selves in our place. I cannot blame them; they 
 could not. It is a feat impossible even to imagina- 
 tion. But they could at least have made the at- 
 tempt wjth more painstaking care. If the relations 
 of the two sections to slavery and the other ques- 
 tions in dispute had been the same, they should 
 remember the differences between victory and de- 
 feat. And as they conquered us " for the Union," 
 the obligations of magnanimous patience are all the 
 greater ; we were not a foreign nation ; three to 
 one they conquered their brothers. 
 
 One night, in Atlanta, Georgia, toward the close 
 of the war, I heard an eccentric old Frenchman, 
 Dr. D'Alvigney, a surgeon in the Confederate Ar- 
 my, make a speech to a meeting of citizens at the 
 City Hall. It was brief, but pointed, and easy to 
 remember. His introduction was personal ; a few 
 nights before he had " veree bad luck." " The 
 storm." he said, " blew down the buggy house, and 
 smashed my buggy, somebody stole my horse, and
 
 86 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 my cow runned away." He had our sympathies at 
 once. The old doctor then proceeded to tell us 
 why it was necessary for us to succeed in the strug- 
 gle. He had known war and political convulsion 
 in France. This was his peroration : 
 
 " Fellow-citizens, I have been in two revolutions 
 before this. One time I was conquer-er, one time 
 I was the conquer-ed. I tell you dere is one great 
 deeferance in dose two leetle lettare." 
 
 No doubt the game old Frenchman was right ; 
 we know the " d, M the North knows the " r." If 
 they could put themselves on the other side, only 
 in imagination, and only for a moment, (I have not 
 the heart to ask it longer,) they would recall many 
 words they have spoken, and undo some things 
 that they have done. I am willing to apply the 
 doctrine of repentance fairly; a philosopher on the 
 " conquered " side should make allowance, consid- 
 ering the weakness of our nature, for even the pride 
 and impatience of conquerors. Although not a 
 philosopher, I am doing my best. 
 
 There are differences in the circumstances of the 
 two parties, not merely in the issues of the strug- 
 gle, but in their past relations to the matters in 
 dispute. Slavery ceased in the Northern States 
 (unless I should except the few hundred negroes 
 who were held in bondage in the orderly and excel- 
 lent State of Connecticut till 1840 poor, lonesome 
 creatures that they were) before any of the present
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 87 
 
 generation were born. The people of the South 
 had never known the negro except as a slave. 
 When Northern slave-holders let go their grip on 
 the negroes there were so few that their influence 
 was inconsiderable. When Southern slaves were 
 set free and made citizens, many thousands of white 
 men being, for a time, disfranchised, they were 
 strong enough in numbers and outside help to 
 control things. 
 
 Our Northern friends will think better of us at 
 least less of themselves in this matter if they will 
 read their own history. Most of them seem to 
 have forgotten that there are men still living who 
 have been mobbed in Northern cities for preaching 
 abolitionism. The cause of African freedom had 
 its martyrs in the North, also. These facts they 
 should call to mind in justice to their dead and to 
 our living. Their present attitude on this question 
 they did not reach at a bound. Let Greeley, Gar- 
 rison, and the rest tell how they struggled through 
 the life-time of a generation, and how slowly the 
 mass of the people rallied about them. Let them 
 call up the records of elections a generation gone, 
 and count the votes they gave to presidential can- 
 didates, braving the world and certain defeat on 
 this question of negro slavery. Let it be remem- 
 bered, also, that it was not simply the force of 
 what they believed to be the pure truth of God on 
 this question, but the firing on Fort Sumter and
 
 88 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 " the old flag " that made the millions of the North 
 practically "solid" for abolitionism in 1861. 
 
 Forgetting these things in their own history, as 
 well as overlooking the relations of the South to 
 the subject, the mass of the Northern people have 
 judged us hardly and harshly. They have often 
 been censorious and impatient because the South, 
 which had owned slaves from the beginning, and 
 had just lost them after a bloody and disastrous 
 war, was not " born in a day ! " Forgetting their 
 own history as to the evolution, through two or 
 three generations, of their advanced views, they 
 have been impatient that the South should, not 
 only formally, by solemn constitutional enactments, 
 accept the negro as a freeman and a voter, but 
 heartily fall in love with the new system that, in 
 every Southern State that had gone fully into the 
 war, put the government in the hands of strangers 
 and of the slaves of yesterday, disfranchised thou- 
 sands of the former leaders and rulers of the peo- 
 ple, and left them nothing to do with government 
 except the burden of new and heavy taxation. All 
 this was " a weariness to the flesh," but not so ex- 
 asperating as were the demands of certain doctri- 
 naires, more zealous than wise, who strenuously 
 insisted that the South should accept the " ad- 
 vanced views " as well as the " new facts." 
 
 Some of the absurdest things in the world were 
 talked by these zealots. For instance, in 1867, in a
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 89 
 
 crowded car, a Federal judge said to me, " You peo- 
 ple must accept emancipation, negro suffrage, social 
 equality, amalgamation, and all." My answer was: 
 " Judge, I beg of you to leave out the coloring mat- 
 ter." He hardly forgave me for the laugh which fol- 
 lowed at his expense ; some of his hearers, brooding 
 over their troubles, and suspicious of troubles yet to 
 come, and not well enough acquainted with the 
 "wild" judge to appreciate his exquisite absurd- 
 ities, never forgave him at all. Some may say, 
 " People were very silly to care for such absurd 
 speeches." Very true ; but what of the United 
 States judge, backed by " the troops," who could 
 so far forget himself as to say such things? Such 
 absurdities as the judge's talk amused a few, dis- 
 gusted many, startled and alarmed hundreds and 
 thousands all over the South. People could not 
 tell how far the new ideas might be pressed. 
 
 Many little occurrences in every community where 
 the troops were quartered added to the wide-spread 
 feeling of distrust and alarm. One of the least irri- 
 tating I mention. It will suggest to sensible people 
 some of the difficulties in the way of our "regen- 
 eration " of opinion and feeling on this whole ques- 
 tion. As if one should collar with a strong hand a 
 sinner truly " convicted," drag him to the altar, force 
 him upon his knees, beat him as well as lecture him 
 for his sins, and yet expect him to be " converted " 
 within the hour! One day, in the autumn of 1865,
 
 90 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 I was superintending the erection, out of the debris 
 of a torn-down house, of a little cottage on Crew- 
 street, Atlanta. Three or four negro men were at 
 work, one of them being a carpenter. While we 
 were busy at work one morning, a very young lieu- 
 tenant, commanding a small squad of soldiers, drew 
 up on the sidewalk. The lieutenant, drawn sword 
 in hand, without so much as saying, " Good morn- 
 ing," demanded of me, " Are you carrying on this 
 work?" I answered, "Yes, sir." "What do you 
 pay these men?" I confess that he did not ap- 
 pear lovely in my eyes, but I did not want to have 
 my work stopped while being marched to " head- 
 quarters." So, with all the meekness possible to 
 me, I answered, " I pay the carpenter $3 a day, the 
 laborers $r 50." His serene highness "approved" 
 me, and marched on to inquire into other people's 
 business. I understood well enough that his supe- 
 riors were intent on preventing us from "cheating 
 the negroes." It did not seem to occur to them 
 that we would hardly be silly enough to do this, 
 even granting that we were thieves, seeing that 
 there was not enough labor in Atlanta to meet the 
 constant demand. 
 
 Every Southern man knows that my illustration 
 of our " temptations to fret " is taken from the 
 mildest of our experiences. Most farmers in 1865 
 could give an "experience." 
 
 It was a Dutchman who flogged his son for curs-
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 91 
 
 ing ; then flogged him for crying ; then flogged him 
 for silence, resenting that as sullenness. Rod in 
 hand, he fell upon his son the third time, saying, 
 " Hans, you dinks cuss; I flogs you for dat." This 
 administrator of "paternal government" was not 
 wise to stop at wisdom. If " Hans" had no more 
 grace than his father had sense it is much to be 
 feared that he did curse after the third flogging. 
 
 I have no disposition to set in order the facts and 
 experiences of the " Reconstruction Period." This 
 I may say: in those days a degree of divine grace 
 was needed by Southern people not often experi- 
 enced in this sinful world. And if those days had 
 not been shortened 
 
 Living in Atlanta during that chaotic time, and 
 knowing that I was seeing with my eyes and hear- 
 ing with my ears a most unique chapter in our 
 national history, that could never be written, I at- 
 tended almost constantly the sessions of the " Con- 
 ventions" and "Legislatures" held in that city 
 under military authority, and that which immedi- 
 ately succeeded it. Those assemblies were never 
 matched outside the " conquered territory." Look- 
 ing back at these times, in the calm of this winter 
 night I give it as my solemn judgment great 
 grace was given to the Southern people. I grant 
 that they did not " live up to their privileges." But 
 candor will say, if the. South failed in patient sub- 
 mission, the North failed in wise forbearance.
 
 92 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Is it any wonder that the great caldron boiled 
 fiercely, and that it sometimes boiled over? 
 
 At this point a delicate subject needs some con- 
 sideration. The present difficulties of our hard 
 and tangled race-problem cannot be understood or 
 mastered without some knowledge of the blunders, 
 follies, and sins of both sides, as connected with 
 various enterprises set on foot in the North, and 
 designed to teach and to evangelize the negroes. 
 
 No doubt the various missionary and educational 
 societies that, soon after the war closed, moved 
 down upon the South, had, at bottom, a good im- 
 pulse and a good spirit. These enterprises were 
 backed by the brains, money, and prayers of some 
 of the best people who ever lived. Of this I never 
 had a moment's doubt. Moreover, many of the 
 men and women who came South to teach and to 
 preach were among the saints of the earth. 
 
 But all saints are not wise, and some who were 
 not saints " came also among them." (See Job i, 6.) 
 It would have been a marvel indeed, if, among so 
 many, some impostors had not thrust themselves, 
 making a " gain of godliness," pushing their for- 
 tunes, and watching their chances in the conquered 
 provinces, as did the hangers-on who went out with 
 Roman consuls to see what spoils they could win. 
 A few wild people, not generally of the teaching 
 and preaching company, I must believe, swept away 
 by fanaticism, told the negroes that their labor
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 93 
 
 had made the wealth of the South, and that they 
 were entitled to divide it. I myself heard one 
 preacher use language the most inflammatory, be- 
 fore a crowd of excited negroes, a few months after 
 the Southern surrender, at a Sunday evening meet- 
 ing in one of their churches, about the parallels be- 
 tween the bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt 
 and Southern slavery. I will never forget the frenzy 
 in his eyes, and the hoarse passion in his voice, 
 when he dwelt upon the " spoiling of the Egyp- 
 tians" by the departing Hebrews. I believe the 
 man really thought that the freed people were en- 
 titled to divide, on a pretty communistic basis, with 
 their ex-masters. I am sure the missionary society 
 he represented never indulged such madness ; but 
 how could the mass of Southern people know the 
 real inspiration of a movement that, by some un- 
 lucky accident, had made a spokesman and repre- 
 sentative of this man ? One such man was enough 
 to excite prejudice, unrelenting and invincible, 
 against a dozen men of sense and genuine mission- 
 ary zeal. This man was thoroughly "ostracised;" 
 that is, every Southern man suspected him of being 
 an incendiary, and no Southern man would have 
 any thing to do with him when it was possible to 
 avoid him. 
 
 Some of the most zealous and devoted greatly 
 lacked in common prudence. Some had a fierce 
 and hot zeal that was near akin to fanaticism. Some
 
 94 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 acted as no missionary in any land ever acted and 
 succeeded in doing good. More than once I have 
 heard harangues to excited negroes that would have 
 issued in fire and blood but for the religious teach- 
 ing and training they had received from Southern 
 preachers long before 1861. As I wish to state 
 things exactly as I believe them to have been, I 
 will add to this and but for their fear of the South- 
 ern man's vengeance. Now and then some appall- 
 ing outrage, followed by appalling vengeance, would 
 occur. Justly or unjustly, it was not unnatural, in 
 the excitements, passions, and prejudices of such a 
 time, that outrages by negroes, as rape and arson, 
 were, in many instances, in popular suspicion, con- 
 nected with the teaching and influence of people, 
 some, at least, of whose representatives were capa- 
 ble of making such speeches as have been men- 
 tioned above. This may have been an unjust sus- 
 picion in every instance ; it certainly was in nearly 
 every case. But it was not unnatural that all con- 
 nected with these enterprises were, at the beginning, 
 more or less thrown into false positions, in the judg- 
 ment of Southern people by the arrant folly and 
 madness of a few ; for the simple reason that these 
 wild fanatics were very soon known to and by our 
 people they were noisy, voluble, self-assertive, ob- 
 trusive ; while those who really did what they were 
 sent to do were quiet, and, confining their labors to 
 their teaching and their preaching, were, for a long
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 95 
 
 time, unknown to their Southern neighbors. It was 
 natural and inevitable that there should, for a long 
 time, be little communication between the " mis- 
 sionaries" and the Southern whites. And a few 
 of us .who tried to know something of the better 
 ones were, ever and anon, given to understand that 
 we had " never done any real good Christian work " 
 in these States, and the result was we were " dis- 
 couraged with them." 
 
 I grant that we of the South were over-suspicious ; 
 but this weakness of our common humanity we 
 shared with the people of the North. There were 
 differences in our suspicions, it may be ; ours the 
 suspicions natural to the defeated, theirs the sus- 
 picions natural to the victorious. As to this mat- 
 ter neither side has shown any great superiority 
 of temper or penetration. North and South, we 
 may well afford to strike a fair balance with mutual 
 confessions, apologies, and amendments. 
 
 Since January I, 1881, I have been seriously 
 asked by one of the most cultivated, liberal, and 
 best known of Northern men " whether it is really 
 true that Southern women, as a class, teach their 
 children to hate Yankees." He knew better, but 
 he told me that thousands of people, all over the 
 North, believe it. Why? Because some foolish 
 man, as a sort of last shriek of baffled passion, in 
 some absurd speech had said as much ! I told him, 
 " No, sir; I have never seen nor heard of a Southern
 
 96 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 woman doing so wicked a thing." It would be as 
 wise in the South to believe that the wild and 
 rattle-brained Federal judge who declared to me in 
 the presence of a large company that " the South 
 must accept amalgamation," represented the con- 
 stant thought, fixed purpose, and intense longing 
 of every Northern man and woman. 
 
 Among sane people, capable of attending to the 
 ordinary business affairs of every-day life, this sort 
 of folly should have an end. Common sense, as well 
 as Christian charity, may make large allowance for 
 the waves that continued to roll over us all, long 
 after the furious tempests of a four years' war had 
 spent their force. But evea the waves sink to rest 
 at last. Will Christian men and women never hear 
 the voice of their Lord and Christ, saying, " Peace, 
 be still?" 
 
 I mention the case of one man in a prominent 
 and important position. With my own eyes I saw 
 him (he was a teacher employed by one of the 
 missionary associations) soon after his appearance 
 in a Southern city, work all day a detachment of 
 United States troops being on the ground persuad- 
 ing the recently enfranchised negroes to vote down 
 the ticket that represented nearly all the intelli- 
 gence and property of that city, and against the 
 men who, under any administration, had to bear 
 the expenses of government, even the relief of the 
 sick and indigent of the very people who were ar-
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 97 
 
 rayed against them. The legal right of this zeal- 
 ous man to do such things is not in question ; but 
 his course was exasperating. To say the least of 
 it, it did not commend his " mission " to those 
 whose influence could have greatly helped him to. 
 fulfill it. Such conduct would, I suspect, have been 
 a trial of faith and love in Boston itself. It is not 
 impossible that the spirited young men of that city 
 would, but for the bayonets, have pitched him into 
 the bay, after the tea-chests of 1774. 
 
 Long ago this teacher has learned his business 
 after a better method and spirit. He would not, 
 with his experience, repeat his unwise and unnec- 
 essary provocations. Long ago the men who, at 
 the beginning, " ostracised " him, that is, let him 
 alone, have recognized his true worth, and have 
 given him what help they could. 
 
 But there were not a few like this over-zealous 
 man ; he was young then, and mightily persuaded 
 that he was right, and ready to follow his " views," 
 even to martyrdom. He seemed to long for it. 
 Thank Heaven ! he missed his crown. As much 
 politician as preacher, as much partisan as teacher, 
 and known to the people only in his most unlovely 
 and undesirable characters, it is not surprising that 
 he did not, at first, command either the confidence 
 or co-operation of those who, from their stand-point 
 and from their knowledge, could only look upon 
 him as an enemy and a dangerous man.
 
 98 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Such mistaken people did incalculable harm. 
 And as most of them were ready writers, they gave 
 their " experience " omitting ours to the North- 
 ern press from week to week. For example, the 
 teacher whose performances I have mentioned told 
 the world how he was "ostracised," but omitted 
 to tell how he had left his teaching for the conflicts 
 of the hustings. When they came to make up 
 their Southern letters for Northern papers they 
 added to their own experience whatever they could 
 hear from others. So it came to pass that the 
 whole South was covered by a corps of volunteer 
 " reporters " to the Northern press, both secular 
 and religious. Many of them were " writing up a 
 line of things," as a distinguished minister called it 
 in an interview I had with him in Cincinnati, in May, 
 1880; and all our worst points, and I grant that 
 there were and are many, went into their letters. 
 Alas ! our better points, and I am sure we have 
 many, were left out. Nor could these people com- 
 prehend, at first, the problem they were dealing 
 with. These letters, or extracts from them, some- 
 times garbled, found their way back to the South- 
 ern press. The Southern press answered with just 
 denunciation of those who misrepresented us, and 
 very often with unjust denunciation of a whole 
 class. The Northern press replied with fresh re- 
 ports ; the Southern press rejoined with an array 
 of Northern criminal statistics. They said, " You
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 99 
 
 are a nation of cut-throats ;" we pointed to the ap- 
 palling number of divorces in some Northern States, 
 and said, " You are a nation of adulterers." And 
 thus for fifteen mortal years we have gone on 
 throwing mud at each other, to the wrath of God, 
 the disgust of good men, and the delight of the 
 devil. 
 
 I do not say, I have never said, the Southern 
 people came out of their " fiery furnace " without 
 the " smell of fire upon their garments." It is easy 
 to say they ought to have seen the humble preacher 
 in the ardent politician, the devoted teacher in the 
 fierce partisan. Perhaps. But it was not in human 
 nature, in the South or anywhere else. 
 
 Frankly I admit that Southern people as a class 
 I bear my part of the blame did their cause 
 much damage by themselves taking extreme posi- 
 tions. For example, I chanced to know a cultivated 
 
 and pious New England woman, Miss , who 
 
 came to a Southern village to teach a negro school. 
 As I became well acquainted with her I respected and 
 admired her. I showed her what kindness I could. 
 She bore herself admirably in a most trying posi- 
 tion. She made few mistakes, and never showed a 
 bad spirit. But the community never knew her ; 
 she received no social recognition, except the com- 
 monest courtesies. She received no hurt ; she was 
 simply let alone. Could she have remained longer 
 she would have won confidence and love, for she
 
 ioo OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 deserved both. I do not defend the coldness and 
 suspicion of these villagers toward this lovely New 
 England lady, but they should not be hastily de- 
 nounced as utterly lost to " chivalry " or charity by 
 those who can never know how much reason they 
 had to suspect the spirit and fear the influence of 
 many who came on such errands. 
 
 The impatient, the censorious, the partisan peo- 
 ple who got themselves mixed up with these mission- 
 ary movements southward especially the "ready 
 writers," who rushed into print to tell all the bad 
 that was in us, and who, from their stand-point and 
 in their light, could never see our better character- 
 istics shut, for years, most doors against the whole 
 class. 
 
 Let both sides look calmly at these facts ; it is 
 time to cool off and recognize the truth of things. 
 Was it not inevitable, human nature being what it 
 is, that many persons should come South after the 
 war, consumed with zeal to do good, to lift up the 
 ignorant and degraded, but, by their constitution, 
 unfitted to work in such a field at such a time, and 
 by their methods doomed to failure ? Was it not 
 equally inevitable that what has been properly 
 enough called " ostracism " should soon manifest 
 itself shutting them out from the houses of many 
 people who thought them bad and dangerous ? 
 Was it not inevitable that those who in nowise de- 
 served " ostracism " suffered what some undoubt-
 
 The Tims Element in this Problem. 101 
 
 edly did deserve ? Was it not inevitable that there 
 should be mistakes, misjudgments, and heart- 
 burnings on both sides ? When wiser people came 
 there was good sense and relenting on both sides, 
 and the worst is now over. 
 
 But, after all, does history record an example, in 
 any race or age, where a people of strong charac- 
 ter went so far in fifteen years as the Southern 
 people a race of Anglo-Saxon blood have gone 
 since 1865 in the modification of opinions, in the 
 change of sentiments that had been, through gen- 
 erations, firmly fixed in all their thinking and feel- 
 ing ? The change in the opinions and sentiments 
 of the Southern people since 1865 is one of the 
 most wonderful facts of history. It far surpasses 
 the remarkable material recuperation of the South 
 after complete overthrow, and what, at the time, 
 seemed to be remediless disaster. Had the South 
 made more rapid progress in adopting the ideas of 
 the New Era the world might well have doubted 
 her sincerity. 
 
 One of the overlooked but most needful lessons 
 for both the North and the South is this : in many 
 processes of development the time-element is a con- 
 dition absolute. Some processes require a great 
 deal of time. In many cases we are most impatient 
 of delay when delay is most essential. The general 
 analogy of nature is that the finest growths are 
 slowest. Nature will not be greatly hurried. Veg-
 
 io2 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 etable growths may be hastened by skillful treat- 
 ment, but no hot-house devices can create even 
 Jonah's gourd in an hour or a day. A lady friend 
 of mine killed her geraniums by forcing them 
 overmuch. Time is an essential condition in the 
 growth of most opinions, and of all the established 
 sentiments. There is a class of opinions that may 
 be changed without violence upon the instant of re- 
 ceiving new evidence. A man on a journey will 
 change his route upon receiving new information. 
 An opinion about the rights and wrongs of things 
 that is " bred in the bone " can hardly be changed 
 on the instant of hearing new argument. If the 
 new view be the truth, its seed must germinate and 
 grow till it displaces the old. Opinions that are 
 rooted in race-sentiments cannot be changed to 
 order, under any logic or any pressure whatever. 
 But time and the silent power of the " leaven " of 
 truth does wonders sometimes works miracles. If 
 the South was as civilized in 1865 as her warmest 
 champions and eulogists declared her to be, she 
 could not reverse her cultured sentiments in a day ; 
 if she was as ignorant and barbarous as her harshest 
 critics affirmed that she was, she had at least to 
 learn their wisdom before she could imitate their 
 example or emulate their graces. In any case time 
 was as needful as the light of knowledge, and far 
 more needful than the pressure of power. 
 
 If any suppose that I have written this chapter
 
 The Time Element in this Problem. 103 
 
 or this book to defend any real fault or real wrong 
 with which the South is justly chargeable, he is 
 mistaken. This is neither a confession nor a de- 
 fense ; I desire only to state facts and truths as 
 they appear to me. And feeling profoundly that 
 the people of the United States, and not of any one 
 section only, have a vast and difficult race-problem 
 to solve, I seek, by such means as I can command, 
 to help forward, to the best of my ability, a some- 
 what better understanding between two greatly and 
 sinfully estranged sections of our common country, 
 that they may be persuaded and helped, in some 
 measure, to co-operate with each other in a difficult 
 and important task where, without co-operation, 
 failure is inevitable. And now, in closing this chap- 
 ter, I desire to record the opinion that, of all others, 
 the worst misfortune that has befallen the South, in 
 the long train of her disasters, is this painful and un- 
 mistakable fact : The spirit of censoriousness and sus- 
 picion, of criticism and disparagement, of complaint 
 and denunciation, that has so long, so often, and so 
 insistently shown itself in many Northern papers, on 
 many Northern platforms, and in many Northern 
 pulpits, has greatly hindered the South from coming 
 to a knowledge of her own faults. It is an unspeak- 
 ably sadder thing, and in every way more harmful, 
 that a man should be blind to his own faults than 
 that others should condemn him unjustly. And 
 saddT, because blindness to our own faults prevents
 
 104 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 conviction, hinders repentance, and precludes refor- 
 mation. But great is his triumph, who, being un- 
 justly condemned in many things, is yet wise and 
 brave enough to discover his faults and amend his 
 ways. 
 
 The question for a true man to ask is, Not 
 whether I have been accused unjustly in one thing 
 or many, but whether I have done wrong in any 
 thing? Not whether I have in one thing or many 
 been treated unjustly, but whether I have deserved 
 censure in any thing ? Not whether by human 
 judgment I have been condemned unjustly in one 
 thing or many, but whether I am condemned by the 
 divine judgment in any thing ? If we ask these 
 questions with an honest heart we will find our an- 
 swer. An honest heart, searching itself, will verify 
 that word of our Lord : " If therefore thine eye be 
 single, thy whole body shall be full of light." And 
 it is a light that will lead men out of all darkness 
 into the " true Light, which lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world."
 
 Canterbury Green in 1831-1834. 105 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 CANTERBURY GREEN IN 1831-1884 
 
 AT this place let us read an editorial, taken from 
 " Scribner's Magazine " for December, 1880. 
 It is presumably from the pen of Dr. J. G. Hol- 
 land. I reproduce it here simply because it is, at 
 this time, useful reading for both sides. Let North- 
 ern people take counsel of recent history in one of 
 their best States, and learn several things. Let 
 Southern people read this ugly chapter, and consid- 
 er that the conduct of the people of Canterbury 
 Green would be just as infamous if perpetrated in 
 a Southern village. Sometimes observant persons 
 break off ridiculous or offensive habits when they 
 see them in other people. If any of us have, at 
 any time or in any way, been unjust, even in our 
 opinions, to those who were trying to do the ne- 
 gro good and some of us, I for one, have been un- 
 just at times and to some let this Connecticut 
 case open our eyes. Never did the maltreatment 
 of a negro, or of a negro teacher, appear more 
 hideous to me than in reading this case Connecti- 
 cut "case I might say, since the Legislature rallied 
 to the help of the town meeting. And this occurred
 
 io6 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 only twenty-seven years before the struggle be- 
 gan that was to drench this land in the blood of 
 brothers. The Canterbury trouble involved, alas! 
 the Congregational Church in the little village. 
 Only twenty-seven years! No doubt there are 
 men and women now living about Canterbury 
 Green who took part in the persecution of brave 
 Miss Crandall. Possibly some of the boys who be- 
 haved so unchivalrously toward her helped right 
 manfully to conquer us of the South into the views 
 they now entertain. 
 
 When our Northern friends read this history, and 
 others like it, then, before they pronounce judg- 
 ment upon their Southern brethren, let them first 
 read what St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Gala- 
 tians : " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, 
 ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the 
 spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou 
 also be tempted. " 
 
 May this Canterbury Green history help North- 
 ern critics of the South to be more moderate and 
 charitable. May it also lead both sides to repent- 
 ance. 
 
 The December " Scribner," in " Topics of the 
 Time," says : 
 
 " We have a lesson at hand which may perhaps 
 give our Northern people a charitable view of the 
 Southern sentiment, and inspire them with hope of 
 a great and radical change. We draw this from a
 
 Canterbury Green in 1831-1834. 107 
 
 work recently issued by the author, Miss Ellen D. 
 Larned, which seems to be a careful, candid, and 
 competent history of Windham County, Connecti- 
 cut. It appears that, in 1831, Miss Prudence Cran- 
 dall, a spirited, well known, and popular resident of 
 the county, started a school for girls at Canterbury 
 Green. The school was popular and was attended 
 not only by girls from the best families in the imme- 
 diate region, but by others from other counties and 
 other States. Among these pupils she received a 
 colored girl. She was at once told by the parents 
 of the white children that the colored girl must be 
 dismissed, or that their girls would be withdrawn 
 from her establishment. Miss Crandall must have 
 been a delightfully plucky woman, for she defied 
 her patrons, sent all their children back to them, 
 and advertised her school as a boarding-school for 
 ' young ladies and little misses of color. ' Of 
 course the people felt themselves to be insulted, 
 and they organized resistance. They appointed a 
 committee of gentlemen to hold an interview with 
 Miss Crandall and to remonstrate with her. But 
 that sturdy person justified her course and stood by 
 her scheme, as well she might. It was her business 
 and it was none of theirs. The excitement in the 
 town was without bounds. A town-meeting was 
 hastily summoned ' to devise and adopt such meas- 
 ures as would effectually avert the nuisance, or speed- 
 ily abate it, if it should be brought into the village/
 
 io8 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 " In 1833 Miss Crandall opened her school, against 
 the protest of an indignant populace, who, after the 
 usual habit of a Yankee town, called and held an- 
 other town-meeting, at which it was resolved : 
 ' That the establishment or rendezvous falsely de- 
 nominated a school, was designed by its projectors 
 as the theater ... to promulgate their disgusting 
 doctrines of amalgamation and their pernicious sen- 
 timents of subverting the Union. These pupils 
 were to have been congregated here from all quar- 
 ters, under the false pretense of educating them, 
 but really to scatter fire-brands, arrows, and death 
 among brethren of our own blood.' 
 
 " Let us remember that all this ridiculous disturb- 
 ance was made about a dozen little darky girls, in- 
 capable of any seditious design, and impotent to do 
 any sort of mischief. Against one of these little 
 girls the people leveled an old vagrant law, requir- 
 ing her to return to her home in Providence, or give 
 security for her maintenance, on penalty of being 
 ' whipped on the naked body.' At this time, as the 
 author says, 
 
 " Canterbury did its best to make scholars and 
 teachers uncomfortable. Non-intercourse and em- 
 bargo acts were put in successful operation. Deal- 
 ers in all sorts of wares and produce agreed to sell 
 nothing to Miss Crandall, the stage-driver declined 
 to carry her pupils, and neighbors refused a pail of 
 fresh water, even though they knew that their own
 
 Canterbury Green in 1831-1834. 109 
 
 sons had filled her well with stable refuse. Boys 
 and rowdies were allowed unchecked if not openly 
 encouraged to exercise their utmost ingenuity in 
 mischievous annoyance, throwing real stones and 
 rotten eggs at the windows, and following the school 
 with hoots and horns if it ventured to appear in the 
 street. 
 
 " Miss Crandall's Quaker father was threatened 
 with mob violence, and was so terrified that he 
 begged his daughter to yield to the demands of 
 popular sentiment : but she was braver than he, and 
 stood by herself and her school. Then Canterbury 
 appealed to the Legislature, and did not appeal in 
 vain. A statute, designed to meet the case, was 
 enacted, which the inhabitants received with peal- 
 ing bells and booming cannon, and ' every demon- 
 stration of popular delight and triumph.' This law 
 was brought to bear upon Miss Crandall's father 
 and mother, in the following choice note from two 
 cf their fellow-citizens : 
 
 " ' MR. CRANDALL : If you go to your daughter's, 
 you are to be fined $100 for the first offense, $200 
 for the second, and double it every time. Mrs. 
 Crandall, if you go there you will be fined, and 
 your daughter Almira will be fined, and Mr. May, 
 and those gentlemen from Providence, [Messrs. 
 George and Henry Benson,] if they come here, will 
 be fined at the same rate. And your daughter, 
 the one that has established the school for colored
 
 no OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 females) will be taken up the same way as for steal- 
 ing a horse, or for burglary. Her property will not 
 be taken, but she will be put in jail, not having the 
 liberty of the yard. There is no mercy to be shown 
 about it. 1 
 
 " Soon afterward, Miss Crandall was arrested and 
 taken to jail. Her trial resulted in her release, but 
 her establishment was persecuted by every ingenuity 
 of cruel insult. She and her school were shut out 
 from attendance at the Congregational Church, and 
 religious services held in her own house were inter- 
 rupted by volleys of rotten eggs and other missiles. 
 The house was then set on fire. The fire was extin- 
 guished, and in 1834, on September 9, just as the 
 family was going to bed, a body of men surrounded 
 the house silently, and then, with iron bars, simulta- 
 neously beat in the windows. This, of course, was 
 too much for the poor woman and girls. Miss 
 Crandall herself quailed before this manifestation 
 of ruffianly hatred, and the brave woman broke up 
 her school and sent her pupils home. Then the 
 people held another town-meeting, and passed 
 resolutions justifying themselves and praising the 
 Legislature for passing the law for which they had 
 asked. 
 
 " All this abominable outrage was perpetrated in 
 the sober State of Connecticut, within the easy 
 memory of the writer of this article. It reads like 
 a romance from the Dark Ages ; yet these people of
 
 Canterbury Green in 1831-1834. in 
 
 Canterbury were good people, who were so much in 
 earnest in suppressing what they believed to be a 
 great wrong, that they were willing to be cruel 
 toward one of the best and bravest women in their 
 State, and to resort to mob violence, to rid them- 
 selves of an institution whose only office was to 
 elevate the poor black children who had little chance 
 of elevation elsewhere. Now this outrage seems 
 just as impossible to the people of Canterbury to- 
 day as it does to us. The new generation has 
 grown clean away from it, and grown away from 
 it so far that a school of little colored girls would, 
 we doubt not, be welcomed there now as a praise- 
 worthy and very interesting institution. The Con- 
 necticut girls who go South to teach in colored 
 schools should remember or recall the time when 
 they would not have been tolerated in their work 
 in their own State, and be patient with the social 
 proscription that meets them to-day. When the 
 white man learns that a ' solid South,' made solid 
 by shutting the negro from his vote, makes always a 
 solid North, and that the solid North always means 
 defeat, it will cease to be solid, and then the negro's 
 vote will be wanted by two parties, and his wrong 
 will be righted. In view of the foregoing sketch of 
 Northern history, we can at least be charitable to- 
 ward the South, and abundantly hopeful concerning 
 the future."
 
 ii2 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A NATIONAL PROBLEM. 
 
 SINCE 1865 we, the people of the United States, 
 have been, for the most part, living " from 
 hand to mouth," in our dealing with our national 
 problem of the Americanized negro. 
 
 Candor requires a distinction here. Some South- 
 ern statesmen and many Northern philanthropists 
 have really sought to lay down, broadly and deeply, 
 the foundations of a permanent work. This is seen 
 of all men, who can see at all, in the vast sums of 
 money to say nothing of personal service that 
 have been given for the education of the negroes in 
 the South ; also, for sustaining the Gospel among 
 them. Most of this money, I am sure, was given 
 " in the name of the Lord Jesus." Many of these 
 gifts meant sacrifice to the giver. The man who 
 would sneer at these gifts for the uplifting of igno- 
 rant negroes would have sneered with Judas when 
 grateful and loving Mary broke her alabaster box 
 of precious ointment and poured it upon the head 
 of her Lord. 
 
 Most of the work that has been done is good it 
 will last. Some " wood, hay, and stubble" has been
 
 A National Problem. 113 
 
 laid upon a good foundation. That some of the 
 foundation-work has been laid in bad mortar and 
 on spongy soil is not surprising to those who know 
 that zeal does not always insure wisdom, or the 
 purest religious experience security against mis- 
 takes of judgment. Good people, undertaking a 
 difficult work, never had more opportunities for 
 making mistakes. Some came with exaggerated 
 ideas both of the degradation of the negro and of 
 his natural capacity and disposition ; others had 
 exaggerated ideas of the depravity of Southern 
 whites, looking at them through lenses, like the 
 horrid things our professor showed us when we 
 were studying "optics" long ago distorting every 
 face into bestial or demoniac shapes. Some, I am 
 sorry to say, came with exaggerated ideas of their 
 own personal excellence, and, very naturally, " fell 
 from grace." All of them entered a work for which 
 they were illy prepared. 
 
 I must now mention what was not creditable to 
 either party. Few of those who came wanted ad- 
 vice from those who w r ere best able to give it ; and 
 few of those who could advise were willing to give 
 the benefit of their wisdom. Mutual suspicion, 
 pride, and folly kept those apart who should have 
 worked together. The secret thoughts of each 
 might be expressed after this fashion, and, in most 
 cases, with not much over-statement : A Northern 
 
 teacher, or preacher, meets a Southern man of fairly 
 
 8
 
 ii4 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 representative character. The Northern man says 
 in his heart : " You are a miserable traitor ; a red- 
 handed rebel ; possibly you are a Ku-Klux ; you 
 hate negroes; you despise me; the 'old flag' makes 
 you furious ; you are waiting your chance to try 
 the fight over ; I will tell on you, and help to keep 
 you down." The Southern man says in his heart : 
 " You are a mean Yankee ; a detestable carpet- 
 bagger ; a lover of negroes, (he was not over-careful 
 of orthography or of orthoepy;) you are a ' Union 
 Leaguer ; ' you are an incendiary ; you mean to 
 teach and to enforce ' social equality;' I must watch 
 you, and keep you from putting me down and the 
 bottom-rail on top." In most cases never were men 
 more mistaken in each other, and partly because 
 each had just enough truth in his notion of the 
 other to make his misconceptions fatal. If angels 
 ever weep and devils ever laugh, these mistaken 
 and suspicious men furnished rich and rare occa- 
 sion. Meanwhile the poor negro suffered from both 
 sides, ground to powder by these two millstones, 
 the upper and the nether, wearing each other out 
 with useless friction and all-consuming heat. 
 
 In heaven's name let us now consider whether we 
 have not had quite enough of this wretched farce 
 which has bordered close upon a mournful tragedy ! 
 
 Both sides made cruel mistakes, meantime con- 
 fusing, perplexing, and frightening the negro ; also 
 spoiling him, for the noise made over him gave him
 
 A National Problem. 115 
 
 an altogether overweening idea of his own impor- 
 tance a state of mind highly unfavorable to his 
 true progress in learning and in experience very 
 needful for him. 
 
 For a time the negro was looking, with the won- 
 der and simplicity of a child watching for Santa 
 Claus to drop down the chimney on Christmas 
 night, for " forty acres and a mule." Hundreds 
 of ignorant white people expected that they, 
 under some form of law, if not by compulsion 
 without form, would be called on to furnish both 
 the mule and the land. When people had been 
 catechised by a "lieutenant with his squad " of sol- 
 diers, they did not know what to expect next. 
 (But I protest I never expected to be called on for 
 a mule; indeed, I had none.) And lieutenants, 
 teachers, preachers, explorers, "developers," Freed- 
 men's-Bureau men, Freedmen's-Aid-Society men, 
 shrewd men " looking about," good women " look- 
 ing around" all, in the common judgment, were 
 carpet-baggers, and all suspected. And, of a truth, 
 some of them, " clothed in a little brief authority," 
 did " cut fantastic tricks before high heaven," that 
 made even wise men mad, whether the " angels 
 wept " or not. 
 
 In a thousand ways both parties have made cruel 
 mistakes mistakes that sometimes issued in crimes 
 due in part to ignorance ; in part to suspicion ; 
 in part to pride ; in part to the exultations of tri-
 
 ii6 OUR BROTHER "IN BLACK. 
 
 umph ; in part to the bitterness of defeat, and 
 always to that truth-hiding prejudice that is born 
 of these ill-favored tempers. 
 
 The Southern people, as a class, have never since 
 the war set themselves fairly and earnestly to the 
 solution of this race-involving problem. Some of 
 us have not, it seems, as yet found out that we 
 have a problem to solve at all. We have, indeed, 
 tried many things, some of them foolish, none of 
 them effective. A few desperate and lawless men, 
 to the dismay and horror of the mass of the South- 
 ern people, have sometimes tried wicked measures, 
 as, for instance, the deviltry of Ku-Kluxism. With 
 few exceptions our best efforts have been tempo- 
 rary expedients. Our work has been tentative ; I 
 might say palliative, much like the work of some 
 " Relief Committees " that issue rations to the hun- 
 gry, but in such a blundering way as to increase 
 pauperism. 
 
 I neither accuse nor defend; I am trying to state 
 facts. Yet, without entering on a- plea of defense, 
 it may be asked, Whether, for at least a decade after 
 the war, "the state of things" existing in the South 
 made it possible for Southern people, who truly 
 desired to know and to do right, to enter upon any 
 broad and permanent work for the solution of our 
 difficult problem ? The plain truth is, we were 
 struggling for existence, and though, with thou- 
 sands of us, the struggle is still at its intensest point,
 
 A National Problem. \ \ 7 
 
 the South has wrought wonders. No people of our 
 times have been called on to make just such an 
 experiment as was given to us. And we have 
 wrought so well, notwithstanding an undeserved 
 reputation for indolence, that no prostrated people 
 of coming times can despair when they consider 
 the material recuperation of our section since the 
 utter disorganization and collapse that followed 
 Appomattox. 
 
 No political party, as such, has dealt fairly with 
 this question of the negro's citizenship. They 
 have considered him almost exclusively as a voter, 
 one party seeking to control his vote, the other 
 seeking to avoid being controlled by it. Neither 
 party has considered him in the fullness of his citi- 
 zenship. The leaders and whippers-in have been 
 far more anxious to count his vote than to prepare 
 him for it. 
 
 The negro's ballot is, indeed, important in every 
 view of the case, but in our dealings with him his 
 importance as a voter has been greatly exaggerated 
 by both parties, and much to his damage as a man 
 and a citizen in the broader sense. In no rational 
 view of the case is this a question that one political 
 party or section of the country can solve alone. 
 If both parties and both sections working together 
 can solve it, they will do well. It would be a mis- 
 fortune to the country if either one of the parties 
 could solve it independently of the other party.
 
 ii8 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 This is not a party Or sectional problem, it is the 
 task of the Nation. 
 
 It is time for all concerned, for the negroes and 
 the whites, to know that Northern people alone, 
 that Southern people alone cannot manage satis- 
 factorily this question of six millions of free ne- 
 groes, a full million of them voters, with millions 
 more to come. Northern people will yet learn, 
 what many of them do not know at this time, that 
 this problem cannot be rightly and happily solved 
 without the help, the cordial and vigorous co-op- 
 eration, of the Southern whites. Neither of the 
 three parties the Northerners, the Southerners, 
 nor the negroes have clearly understood this abso- 
 lute necessity of co-operation, though I do believe 
 the negroes have come nearest to the truth. 
 
 It is essential, if permanent good is to be done, 
 to understand that this national race problem re- 
 quires the intelligent and hearty co-operation of 
 three classes Northern white people, Southern 
 white people, and the negroes themselves. If all 
 the Northern people were doing their best, the 
 Southern people standing aloof in sullen silence, 
 much might be done, but the work would be 
 marred and hindered in all directions ; so if the 
 whole South should do its best, with the North 
 watching with only interest enough to be censori- 
 ous and critical. Neither nor both can do much if 
 the negroes fail to do their own part.
 
 A National Problem. 119 
 
 Time does wonders ; we have nearly come to the 
 place where both sides, the North and the South, 
 can look on this negro question in a dry light. 
 The lava has cooled that so long rushed from both 
 craters. At all events, there are enough men and 
 women on both sides who can be reasonable to 
 begin to clear the ground for mutual understand- 
 ing. As to the " utter irreconcilables " on both 
 sides, (for be it remembered that " Bourbonism " is 
 not exclusively a Southern product,) the wiser and 
 better people must do God's work of to-day and 
 to-morrow without their help, and, if it come to 
 that, in spite of their opposition. The majority 
 hardly ever gets right on any advanced issue till 
 after the fight is won ; the minority has always led 
 the world's progress, carrying meanwhile much 
 dead weight. 
 
 " Stalwarts " we need, but stalwarts for country, 
 not for party. Neither party is worth the country ; 
 possibly both put together are not absolutely essen- 
 tial to its salvation. The platforms upon which 
 presidential campaigns have been conducted for 
 twelve years past read strangely alike, considering 
 the noise and smoke of battle that asseverated 
 their infinite and eternal difference. Really there 
 is not enough in the fight of parties to justify the 
 expenditure of the whole force of a " stalwart " na- 
 ture in the interests of a mere party triumph. It is 
 a good time, surely, for earnest and yet reasonable
 
 120 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 people to agree as to what needs to be done for 
 the whole country, and to work together to accom- 
 plish it. 
 
 The negroes, too, are in better temper to do 
 their part. Several misconceptions as to what 
 freedom meant they have outgrown. For one 
 thing, they have learned, or they are fast learning, 
 that they, as well as white men, are still under the 
 blessed law of labor ; " blessed," although they 
 know it not. They no longer look to the govern- 
 ment for " rations." The dream of " forty acres 
 and a mule" has faded from their imagination.* 
 
 * Just as I had written the first sentence of this paragraph a 
 neighbor, the Rev. Nicholas Graves, a colored local preacher of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, dropped into my office. As he had 
 volunteered to bring my morning's mail before breakfast, and now 
 appeared, though unasked, with an armful of wood, and proceeded 
 to make so hot a fire that I could hardly stay in the room, I knew 
 something was to be " brought forward." Nick, when freedom 
 came, retained the surname of his old master, a wealthy planter in 
 our county. There was much changing of names soon after eman- 
 cipation, the negroes generally taking the most aristocratic name 
 they had ever been connected with. Nick stuck to Graves, as he 
 could not well improve upon it. 
 
 I generally give him " rope," and let him bring up his case in his 
 own way, for his mental methods are an amusing study. But I was 
 too busy to wait this morning. So I laid down my pen and opened 
 the way : 
 
 ' Well, Nick, what is it ?" 
 
 To my amusement, he proceeded to tell me a long story about a 
 " mule trade " he had been trying to make. He wound up by tell- 
 ing me that the mule trade was "off," but that "a tolable chunk of a 
 hoss was offered him for $40." Whereupon I read him the sen- 
 tence I had written, and gave him the others in the paragraph off-
 
 A National Problem. 12 1 
 
 One other thing they were slow to learn, but they 
 have nearly learned it that neither party cares as 
 much for them as it cares for their votes. And 
 this lesson, when fully learned, will tone them up 
 somewhat. 
 
 Patronage has done little for them ; there are now 
 and have ever been enough hungry camp-followers 
 of white blood to appropriate even the " crumbs 
 that fall from the master's table/' It is hard to 
 keep up their interest in politics, seeing that neither 
 party, North nor South, has office for them. Even 
 the Indian lost interest in the hunt when his white 
 partner always took the " turkey " and left him the 
 " buzzard." But, badinage aside, it is a fact most 
 important and encouraging to all who wish the 
 negro well, that the comparative subsidence of his 
 
 hand, and then looked at him. There was a display of ivory only 
 possible to his race. 
 
 "Now, Nick, tell me, did any of them ever tell your people 
 that ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah; Mr. H., who teeched here jest after de wah, told us 
 dat ; I heered him myself." 
 
 " Nick, what did he do it for ? " 
 
 " Dunno, sah, but he said it shore. He said de gubment would 
 gib us forty acres and a mule apiece, and perwisions to last a 
 year." 
 
 " Nick, you all voted on his side, did you?" 
 
 I did not push the subject. Cruikshanks should have seen the 
 droll look that came into his eyes and spread over his face. But he 
 went away happy, having received the little favor "bout de hoss 
 trade " his soul longed for. I have often favored him ; he has never 
 " gone back " on me.
 
 122 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 fierce political fever promises the best results for his 
 true progress in all good things. The negro can 
 now co-operate with his friendly helpers, whether 
 of the North or of the South, as he could not have 
 done even four years ago. 
 
 One other thought as to this race problem, I 
 wish to stress at this point. While its right solution 
 is vastly important to every part of the Republic, it 
 is absolutely vital to us of the South. Its right 
 solution concerns the Southern ^vhite man only less 
 than it concerns the negro Jjlmself. Possibly I 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 ought not to say " only less," for the fortunes of 
 these two races in the South are inextricably mixed. 
 They cannot get away from each other. What 
 might have been if history had been different ; what 
 we would choose if things were not as they are 
 these speculations are idle. Instead of dreaming 
 about the civilization we would build up with mate- 
 rials that we have not, it is the part of men of sense 
 to do the best they can with what they have in 
 hand. If we of the South cannot get on with the 
 negro ; if the negro cannot get on with us ; then we 
 two peoples cannot get on at all. For we are here, 
 both of us, and here to stay. But get on we must, 
 somehow and at some speed. Much we have done ; 
 more we can and will do. When we consider how 
 Providence has blessed our efforts we see ten thou 
 sand reasons for hopefulness. Croaking is ingrati- 
 tude, and it is treason. If our progress, however
 
 A National Prob km. 123 
 
 slow, is only {n the right direction, all will be well 
 by and by. If we cannot go fast, we must go slow, 
 but we must go* 
 
 We white people of the South have more at stake 
 in this race-problem than other white men and 
 women of any nation can have, And it is now full 
 time that we should do our best thinking, working, 
 and praying over this problem of a free negro race 
 in our midst a race that has been, is now, and for- 
 ever will be, an integral part of our industrial, 
 social, and political system; If, for any reasons 
 whatsoever, we of the South refuse to do, or fail to 
 do, our part of this work, there will be loss all round 
 loss that can never be compressed into of ex- 
 pressed by statistical tables. The Southern whites 
 lose, the negro loses, the world loses. But I am 
 deeply impressed that there is a differencei The 
 world can get on without the South much better 
 than the South can get on without the world. This 
 
 * The late venerable and eloquent Dr. Lovick Pierce, who never 
 missed a chance, during a ministry of seventy-five years, to do the 
 negroes good, was preaching once on Christian Progress at a camp- 
 meeting. It was his manner to make astonishing climaxes now and 
 then. On this occasion he laid down the law of life and death in 
 Christian experience : " Brethren, you must grow or die. Progress 
 you must make. If you can fly, fly ; if you can't fly, run ; if you 
 can't run, walk ; if you can't walk, crawl." His voice was rising to 
 its full trumpet tones, and his eye flashing as few eyes ever flashed. 
 His right hand was still high advanced. The congregation trembled 
 for him. What could he say more ? But he was the master of such 
 a crisis. He wound up the sentence with an explosion like thunder : 
 " If you can't crawl WORM IT ALONG !"
 
 124 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 may not be a brilliant discovery ; but a goodly 
 number have not yet made it. 
 
 But there is a lesson the Northern people have 
 never fully mastered, and it is very important to all 
 parties that they should learn it. If the best results 
 are to follow the efforts many Northern people are 
 making to elevate the negro, they must realize, as 
 they never have done, the absolute necessity of 
 Southern co-operation. Would God this might be 
 learned by all sides to this question before it is too 
 late! Millions of money poured forth, and thou- 
 sands of precious lives exhausted upon this problem, 
 will not avail for its full and right solution without 
 Southern co-operation. Many of the North have 
 had glimpses of this truth, but they seem not to 
 understand it fully; else, surely they would have 
 tried harder and more wisely to secure the help they 
 need, and that we only can give. Many in the 
 South have had glimpses also ; but few of us, if any, 
 have had the clear vision of our duty and our oppor- 
 tunity; else, surely, we would have been more 
 ready to help in every " good word and work." 
 Heaven pardon our blindness ! but there has been so 
 much smoke of powder and other things that we 
 could not always see our way. 
 
 Can any thing in the world be plainer? A candy 
 shop cannot succeed in a hostile community. Much 
 less can a school or a Church. 
 
 What must become of all the noble schemes of
 
 A National Problem. 125 
 
 Northern benevolence in the negroes' behalf, if the 
 stronger and more numerous race, in the very midst 
 of which he lives, and moves, and has his being, 
 whose tenant he is, whose influence he can no more 
 escape than he can escape the atmosphere he 
 breathes, if this race is either hostile or indifferent 
 to the efforts that are being made to do him good 
 and to lift him up? Much the Northern people 
 have done with little help from us ; much they can 
 and will do without our help ; but they can and 
 will do unspeakably more with it. What waste of 
 energy, what spoiling of noble schemes of useful- 
 ness, what hinderance to our own progress as well as 
 the negroes', what marring of what ought to be a 
 divinely beautiful and beneficent work, must result 
 from foolish and sinful antagonism in feeling and 
 purpose and method between the white man from 
 the North and the white man in the South ! 
 
 I do not believe that there is any thing insuper- 
 able between these two men. They are not fools, 
 though they exhibit folly upon occasion ; they are 
 not visionary, though they are sometimes impractica- 
 ble ; they are not relentless, though they are some- 
 times hot of temper ; they are not blind, though 
 they are sometimes slow to learn ; they will yet be 
 fraternal, though they have been hard and stubborn 
 fighters through many years and on many fields. 
 These men will yet understand one another. Per- 
 haps not to-morrow. Well, then, after a while,
 
 126 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 when the blindest of us, on either side, are silent 
 in death. 
 
 Let us think on this ! Ten years toward the 
 close of a generation's life makes a great difference. 
 Wise men, in Church as well as State, who have 
 read history, and who know human nature, both in 
 its strength and weakness, will take the fact and 
 law of mortality--most beneficent law it is ! into 
 their estimates for future times and relations. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than this, and yet many 
 leaders, who ought to know and do not " know 
 what Israel ought to do," are forgetful or blind. An 
 impulse of passion or sentiment that carries the 
 policy that prevails through one generation cannot 
 be depended on for the next. If we trust a great 
 policy to such a current, it is as if one should under- 
 take to navigate a little river swollen with a summer 
 flood : such a stream cannot be depended on it 
 runs out. The great ship had better trust the sea 
 so wide and deep. And if we have any great policy 
 for Churches or States, nothing is deep enough to 
 float us above all rocks and shoals but principles 
 that are eternally right. 
 
 The impulses that broke out in war in 1861, 
 having given forth many premonitory mutterings 
 before that time, are already exhausting themselves. 
 The grave is, next to grace, the greatest extinguisher 
 of wrath. Before now the " white rose " of York 
 and the "red rose" of Lancaster have blended their
 
 A National Problem. 127 
 
 colors. A great passion in Church or Nation 
 runs its course, like a fever ; the patient recovers 
 and the fever dies ; or fever and patient die to- 
 gether. The great tidal wave of 1854, tnat over- 
 whelmed the town of Samoda in Japan, had sunk 
 to a few inches when it broke against the firm 
 coast of California. The slight recoil was never 
 felt in the far China Sea. We sometimes forget 
 how wide and deep is the ocean of human life. 
 
 If the spirit of wisdom and grace be in them, 
 these white men of the North and these white 
 men of the South will yet understand each other, 
 they will yet bury their antagonisms in spite of 
 differences that may be beyond their control dif- 
 ferences good " after their kind;" and each working 
 out, as God enables him, his own duty and destiny, 
 they will at last unite to perform a common duty 
 to their dark-skinned brother, brought so strangely 
 to our country and delivered to our care that the 
 great and world-wide plans of the Father of all for 
 the good of all may be fairly and fully accomplished.
 
 128 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE METHODS OF OUR PROBLEM. 
 
 ONE thing I assume as settled forever : such 
 a problem as we have in hand never was 
 solved, never can be solved, on any theory or sys- 
 tem of mere repression. There has been no lack 
 of experiments. History teems with examples, 
 both in ancient and in modern times. As well try 
 to prevent volcanic eruptions by shutting down 
 our little furnace gates upon the fires that burn at 
 the heart of the earth. 
 
 Repression may well be called the Egyptian 
 theory of goverment ; Pharaoh made long trial of 
 it, with what result the world knows. It is the 
 Russian theory now; it has failed notably, and men 
 wait to see what explosions and disasters are yet to 
 come. Repression has failed in Ireland. It has 
 not succeeded with our American Indians. It was 
 tried for generations on Hungary and failed utterly. 
 The method of recognition, of lifting up, has been 
 tried in Hungary only a few years and it succeeds. 
 This method always succeeds ; the other always 
 fails. The system of mere repression fails every- 
 where in the family, the school, the factory, the
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 1 29 
 
 State, the Church. Rome has made every possi- 
 ble use of repression. If it succeeded after a fash- 
 ion, during the Dark Ages, it fails now that all men, 
 as well as Galileo, have found " that the world 
 does move." The repressive system is tyranny. 
 It violates the divine will; it is out of harmony 
 with eternal righteousness ; it subverts the order 
 of nature as well as of grace. Mere repression can- 
 not succeed where there is life, except to destroy. 
 But it is not always that it destroys the proposed 
 victim ; it destroyed Pharaoh ; Israel was delivered 
 out of his hands. There are other such instances, 
 and very instructive they are. 
 
 The problem before us, the Northern and South- 
 ern people together, and the Southern people in 
 particular, is the right education and elevation of 
 our black brother, the free negro, in our midst. Do 
 not, beloved white brother, scare at this word 
 " elevation." Nothing is said about putting the 
 " negro above the white rnari." Let me whisper a 
 secret in your ear: T/tat cannot be done unless you get 
 below him. Think of this, and if you find yourself un- 
 derneath blame yourself. The negro cannot rise sim- 
 ply because he is black ; the white man cannot stay up 
 simply because he is white. A man rises, not by the 
 color of his skin, but by intelligence, industry, and 
 integrity. The foremost man in these excellences 
 and virtues must, in the long run, be also the high- 
 est man. And it ought to be so. Ignorance, in-
 
 130 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 dolence, immorality, have no right to rise. Let the 
 white man rise as high as he can, providing always 
 that he does not rise by wrongs done to another. 
 In such rising there is no real elevation. And let 
 every other man rise to his full stature, the white, 
 the black, the red, the yellow. No honest man, 
 with brains in his head, doubts for one moment that 
 it is God's will that every man he ever made of every 
 race, should make the most of the "talents" his Cre- 
 ator gave him. Therefore are talents given, that 
 every man may be just as much of a man as he can 
 be. The King at his coming will demand his own 
 " with usury." There is no more sacred right than 
 a man's right to be all that God gives him ability to 
 be in all good things. The divine Magna Charta 
 guarantees this right. There is no higher duty than 
 that each human being do his utmost to realize the 
 fullest possibilities of his life. Whatever hinders 
 does infinite damage to all concerned. 
 
 These chapters are not written for philosophers, 
 statesmen, scholars, or for any who imagine them- 
 selves filled with all knowledge, but for my neigh- 
 bors and fellow-citizens who, like the writer, realize 
 somewhat the difficulty as well as the magnitude of 
 this race problem that Providence has given us to 
 work out. No exhaustive discussions are proposed 
 in these pages ; indeed, the fullest statement could 
 not say all that belongs to this many-sided and far- 
 reaching subject.
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 131 
 
 If the question be asked, How may we get our 
 dark brother prepared for his duty of citizenship ? 
 I prefer to change the form of the question. Let 
 us rather ask, How can we help our brother pre- 
 pare himself for his calling and duty of citizenship ? 
 Growth is from within ; no amount of work done 
 upon the negro can make him what he ought to be 
 and can be. He must grow into his right manhood 
 and citizenship. The white race has reached its 
 higher estate by processes of growth. We started 
 low down and it has taken a long time. We are 
 not half grown yet. We also may meditate profit- 
 ably on Isaiah li, I. 
 
 Doing things for. and giving things, to people does 
 not lift them up, if the doing and the giving do not 
 spring a new hope, a new aspiration, a new pur- 
 pose in them, or, in some way, vivify into fruitful 
 life -some dormant good already in their souls. 
 The test of our usefulness to others is to be found 
 in their character. Do we make them wiser, 
 stronger, braver, truer ? Then we have lifted them 
 up by helping them to grow out of their weakness 
 and evil into their strength and goodness. Why is 
 it better to give a poor man a day's work than a 
 day's rations without the work ? The one gift lifts 
 him up, the other pauperizes him. In all our plans 
 and efforts to lift up the negro let us remember that 
 our best help to him is whatever most effectually 
 enables him to help himself.
 
 132 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 We are asking, many of us in the North and in 
 the South, what can we do ? I know not that I 
 can help any to the answer for them. I will be 
 grateful if I can answer for myself. This much is 
 clear to me : common sense and common justice 
 must be our guide. Fine-spun theories are too 
 gossimer for the tough work before us. Pretty sen- 
 timents may grace drawing-rooms, and win ap- 
 plause at " anniversaries," but our work is to be 
 done in smoky cabins, in our own kitchens, in cot- 
 ton and corn fields, in shops, in little school-houses, 
 in humble chapels, in court-rooms, in a word, in 
 whatever places this poor and untaught brother's 
 currents of life and labor carry him. I have said 
 nothing of legislative halls and methods, because 
 it seems clear that neither acts of Congress nor 
 of State Legislatures can reach all the obscure cor- 
 ners of our daily and hourly .relations to each other. 
 
 By every token, the laws must provide for his 
 citizenship, just as they provide for the white man's, 
 no more, no less. But let us not make the fatal 
 mistake of supposing that the mere enactment of 
 good laws will meet the myriad complications and 
 difficulties of this subject. 
 
 No perfect scheme, with finished statement of 
 details, can be drawn out in advance. The experi- 
 ment will, as it proceeds, indicate new needs, while 
 the effort will develop new resources and methods 
 for meeting them. Undoubtedly, the first and main
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 133 
 
 thing is to have the right spirit. If all parties con- 
 cerned really wish to succeed, and thoroughly pur- 
 pose to do their best, success is sure. A thorough- 
 going, honest purpose to do our best will wonderfully 
 sharpen our wits as to the best methods, and as 
 wonderfully multiply our resources for working 
 them successfully. There is no man so dull in in- 
 venting ways and means as the man who feels no 
 interest or conscience in his duties, and whose chief 
 pleasure is in avoiding them. 
 
 This new citizen is a voter, and, unhappily for all, 
 he is not ready for his responsibilities. Voting 
 means choosing, and wise choosing means intelli- 
 gence. Woe to the land where those who hold the 
 balance of power are in ignorance. This tremend- 
 ous engine of political power, the ballot, must be 
 in hands that know what they are doing. This 
 voter must be educated. Nothing can be plainer 
 than this. He who, in 1881, needs to have this 
 proved to him is incapable of reasoning. 
 
 I will not entangle my argument with the ques- 
 tion of the relative capacity of the white and black 
 races, nor will I speculate about the African's ca- 
 pacity for " high culture." My argument has 
 nothing to do with these questions ; let the schools 
 and colleges make out of him the utmost that it is 
 in him to make. Then let the world measure him 
 by what he does. If any fear that he will, when at 
 his fullest growth, be too great a man, let them
 
 134 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 grow, or organize an " exodus," and find a place 
 where they will be free from his overshadowing 
 greatness. My argument concerns his education in 
 the three " Rs." If any thing in this world is set- 
 tled, it is settled that the negro can learn to read, 
 to write, and to " cipher." And he learns well and 
 rapidly. I want no proof beyond what I have seen 
 with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. 
 He can learn a great deal more, but these parts of 
 knowledge he must learn for his safety and ours. 
 These are the keys ; give them to him, and let him 
 unlock all the doors of wisdom he can. This is 
 fair ; it is wise ; it is necessary ; it is right. 
 
 This new power in our social and political system 
 must be educated, and for the same reason that 
 white illiteracy must be educated. The negro's 
 case is the more exigent only because there is a 
 larger percentage of ignorance in his race. An ig- 
 norant voter, of whatever color he may be, is a 
 constant menace and a certain injury to the purity 
 of elections. As a voter, therefore, the negro must 
 be taught. But we must go beyond the mere 
 voter. His wife, his daughter, must be educated 
 also, else the race will not be educated ; the need 
 is to teach the race. 
 
 How can this race be educated ? And how can 
 the work be done most promptly and wisely ? I 
 claim no mastery of this question, for it is very 
 large and very complicated. Perhaps no one man
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 135 
 
 will claim to see all its sides, to see through it and 
 to master it altogether. This I know, some have 
 failed because they thought they had mastered it. 
 Some things that seem clear to me I venture to 
 suggest, feeling my way to the wisdom and truth 
 of the matter with such light as I have, and holding 
 myself ready to follow any who have more light to 
 guide our steps. 
 
 i. The first thing of all to do is the simplest, yet, 
 perhaps, the most difficult clear the way. Remove 
 all hinderances; make the paths straight not strait; 
 give him the best chance possible to him. If all this 
 were done the problem would, by and by, solve itself. 
 To do this, to give him this best chance possible to 
 him, it is not impossible that some of us white peo- 
 ple of the South must, first of all, put ourselves 
 through a course of schooling in right views on this 
 subject. If we have prejudices that prevent us 
 from thoroughly investigating this matter, as if there 
 were contamination in the very subject itself, let us 
 make haste to purify ourselves from such prejudices. 
 For such prejudices there is need of the " hyssop 
 branch." People who give money and send their 
 sons and daughters to convert the heathen over the 
 seas should be ashamed of such nonsense. It is to 
 be hoped that few among us indulge such weak- 
 nesses ; it is to be prayed that there will soon be 
 none among us in so great darkness of mind and 
 badness of heart.
 
 136 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 But let us avoid mere sentimentalism ; we are 
 dealing with very practical things. No amount of 
 correct thinking and of good feeling can meet all 
 the demands of this case. There are some things 
 the white people cannot do for the negro ; it would 
 be a misfortune if they could. For example, they 
 cannot give him leisure for his schooling and his 
 studies ; in some way he must create this for him- 
 self. This race cannot throw down its hoe and take 
 up its spelling-book at the movement of a wand. 
 These people must work, ought to work, for their 
 living. There is no help for it, and there ought to 
 be no help for it. This necessity is not based upon 
 their poverty only, nor at all in the color of their 
 skin, but in their physical, mental, moral, and social 
 constitution as human beings. It is the primal law 
 for all men of every color and condition. An un- 
 working race cannot be truly educated, for labor is 
 itself a part of education. If some power could 
 feed and clothe and shelter them by the distribu- 
 tion of all things needful for their bodies, could dis- 
 miss them from their toils and send the whole race 
 to school for a term of years, the problem of the 
 negro's right education would not be solved, al- 
 though every one mastered a liberal course of 
 studies. Such schooling would create new and 
 harder problems ; under such conditions their moral 
 and social education could not keep pace with their 
 mental development, and thus a new and deadly
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 137 
 
 virus would be introduced into their very blood. 
 One obvious result would be, such education would 
 multiply vagabonds and sharpers by the million. 
 For true education means far more than " book 
 learning ; " there must be education of the instincts, 
 the feelings, the habits, the will, the conscience. 
 But, assuredly, whatever hinderances to his educa- 
 tion there may be that are not rooted in the very 
 necessity and nature of things should be put out 
 of his way. He should have every chance he can 
 well employ. He has no right to ask more ; we 
 have no right to give less. There should be no 
 opposition, active or passive. It is to be hoped 
 that there is now little opposition to his education ; 
 there should be none. 
 
 2. He should be encouraged and cheered to do 
 his utmost. Right motives should be brought to 
 bear upon him. He should be taught how dan- 
 gerous to himself, how hurtful to all, is citizenship 
 with ignorance. He should be taught, as white 
 people who do not know should be taught, that 
 ignorance is always weakness, and that voluntary 
 ignorance is a shame and a sin. He should be 
 taught that he who can secure instruction for his 
 children, and will not, sins against his children, his 
 country, and his God. He should be taught to feel 
 himself branded with infamy when he can and will 
 not save his children from the curse and bondage 
 of ignorance. He should be taught that slavery
 
 138 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 lurks in ignorance ; it may not be slavery to a rec- 
 ognized and responsible master, but, worst of all, 
 slavery to the powers of darkness. (Alas ! there 
 are thousands of white people among us let any 
 deny who will who need to learn these first les- 
 sons of true fatherhood and motherhood.) He 
 should be brought to see the value and blessedness 
 of knowledge not merely the learning of books 
 and of the schools, but of all knowledge that can 
 help to make him wise and good as a man. The 
 negro is more ready to receive this lesson than 
 many suppose. For him, and for all like him, is 
 the promise of that word of Christ, " Blessed are 
 they which do hunger and thirst, ... for they shall 
 be filled." 
 
 3. He should be encouraged to do his utmost to 
 help himself to be a self-supporting man. To 
 make the negro's education, or any other man's, an 
 absolute gratuity is a grievous mistake. The phi- 
 losophy of this principle goes deeper than the skin. 
 It is rooted in the very constitution of human na- 
 ture. One of the most important parts of education 
 is, learning, so that they enter into every fiber of the 
 character, the sentiments and habits of manly and 
 womanly personal independence. How different 
 the case of two fathers, indeed of two families, 
 where in one case the education of a son or daughter 
 costs them nothing; where in the other case they 
 have, at least, done what they could! For example:
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 1 39 
 
 During our last vacation, in the summer of 1880, 
 a Georgia farmer talked with me one day about 
 sending his son to college. This is what he said: 
 " We have one child, this son ; we are poor, but 
 when he was a little boy we determined to send 
 him some day. My wife and I found that, by close 
 economy, we could lay up about $100 each year; 
 we have now $600 in bank for his education. Two 
 years ago, as soon as he was old enough, I gave 
 him a cotton patch that he might make enough 
 himself to meet his incidental expenses. The first 
 year he made $25; the second, $50; this year he 
 may make something more than $50." 
 
 How wise is this father, this mother, this son ! 
 Such a plan worked out is itself an education. If 
 his education go no further, would the best college 
 training that cost no forethought, economy, loving 
 self-denial, be worth as much in making a man of 
 this boy? 
 
 Of course this question of the negro's education 
 concerns, almost exclusively, the children and youth 
 of the race. If the education of these children 
 should be made absolutely a free-gift, three evils, 
 each of them grave, would follow: I. The negro 
 father would not depend on himself as the head of 
 his family ; 2. The process must be kept up indef- 
 initely; 3. Many of the negro's weakest traits of 
 character will be perpetuated. But if the present 
 generation of negroes are encouraged to help them-
 
 140 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 selves somewhat in educating their children it 
 may be but little, but it should be enough for them 
 to " feel it " if they are taught how they may help 
 themselves, the next generation will take up the 
 task more vigorously and more intelligently. Thus, 
 and thus only, will the habit of helping themselves 
 become the habit of the race. How sorely this 
 habit is now needed in them only they can under- 
 stand who know, from experience, how completely 
 the system of slavery provided for all their wants 
 that, under that system, were expected to be met. 
 The slave had nothing to do but work ; every thing 
 shelter, clothes, food, medicine, and support in 
 old age was provided for him. He could not ac- 
 quire any habit of forethought or instinct of saving. 
 He never felt the necessity; he never saw the occa- 
 sion.* 
 
 * A few mechanics among them managed to save handsome sums 
 of money. Sometimes such a man " hired his own time," the master 
 giving him a good " margin." The following incident will illustrate 
 the exceptional cases, and show how singular were some of their 
 views. The father-in-law of one of the professors in Emory College 
 was a Virginian of property. He owned a quick-witted shoemaker 
 rated at $2,500. The master allowed Edmund that was his name 
 to "hire himself" at such figures that, in the course of some years, 
 he accumulated between two and three thousand dollars. His master 
 loved him, and offered to sell him to himself for $1,200 a little 
 less than half price. Edmund took the matter into serious consid- 
 eration, and declined the offer with this statement of the case: "See 
 here, Mars Mack, I can't 'ford to own any $1,200 nigger; s'pose I 
 lay down and die, I lose dis money." It turned out well for Ed- 
 mund. He got his freedom "without money and without price," 
 and saved his own cash. He loaned enough to " Mars Mack" to
 
 . The Methods of our Problem. 141 
 
 4. But the negroes must have help from without 
 for a generation at least. Their poverty makes this 
 a necessity, as poverty utter poverty makes help 
 necessary for not a few white people. When I say 
 help, I mean help, not the transfer of the entire 
 burden to other shoulders. 
 
 It is not simply their need, but it is the economy 
 of all to help them. To put the argument on its 
 lowest plane, it is cheaper to teach them than it is 
 to meet the increased expenses of government that 
 grow inevitably out of ignorance. Surely this state- 
 ment needs neither argument nor illustration. It 
 is very penny-wise and pound-foolish to withhold 
 the help needful to enable them to help themselves 
 to an education. There is no escape for avarice, 
 twist and turn as it may ; if it will not build school- 
 houses and churches it must build jails. Thus 
 reason and justice get their grim revenge. 
 
 Where is the money to come from to help them ? 
 
 i. Partly from the ''public-school" systems of 
 the States, counties, and municipalities. Most of 
 our Southern State systems are appallingly inade- 
 quate. The States do not support their school 
 systems except in a meager manner. I believe the 
 School Commissioners have done all that could be 
 
 start his business again. As to himself, he did not " stick to his last." 
 He went into politics, was elected to the Virginia Constitutional 
 Convention, and became a "leader" of more than average sense. 
 Poor fellow ! he was killed, with so many others, in the crush-in 
 of the Capitol in Richmond.
 
 142 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 done with the pitiful sums of money at their com- 
 mand. 
 
 2. Partly from the Nation, as many wise men 
 urge. (I am not sure of this,) 
 
 3. The people of the North should put a great 
 deal of money in this work. Little more than 
 the South itself can the North afford to bear the 
 burden and peril to free institutions that come 
 through millions of untaught negro citizens. Many 
 of these good people have given to this work with 
 princely liberality. But they should give more, and 
 continue to give. There are at least two reasons 
 that they will recognize: (i.) They made the negro 
 a voter before he was ready, and now, by every 
 token, they should do their best to get him ready 
 as soon as possible. (2.) They have the money. I 
 am glad they have wealth, for many of them make 
 good use of it. I know of no people in the world 
 who give so much money to the cause of education. 
 It is an immortal honor to them. Recognizing 
 their good deeds and great gifts in the past, I say, 
 nevertheless, they should give more abundantly. 
 For they have, by God's blessing, the money. The 
 work to be done is very great, and it cannot wait 
 without grievous loss. Moreover, the North has 
 already invested too much money in this problem 
 to stop now ; they cannot afford to stop, 
 
 4. The Southern people should give money to 
 help educate the negro. I do not mean only give
 
 The Methods of our Problem. 143 
 
 it as States, in the payment of taxes ; but as indi- 
 viduals, they should, when they are able and 
 some are able give money to this cause. If they 
 would help more, perhaps they would be richer.* 
 He was a close observer and a wise thinker who 
 said : " There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; 
 and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, 
 but it tendeth to poverty." 
 
 The details of these ways and means are not to 
 be argued here. But " if there be first a willing 
 mind," ways and means will be found. 
 
 * After this chapter was written I was informed that a citizen of 
 Georgia, an ex-Confederate and ex-slave-holder of high degree, had 
 subscribed or given $5,000 to build a college for colored people, 
 under the patronage of one of the colored Churches in a city in 
 Georgia. His promise is a bond, his paper " gilt-edge " at any 
 bank. All honor to him ; may many imitate his example !
 
 144 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SCHOOLS FOR NEGROES. 
 
 r I "'HERE should be separate schools for negro 
 -* children. It is best for all parties. However 
 it may be in other sections or countries, it is not 
 best to mix the races in Southern school-rooms. 
 Right or wrong, wise or foolish, this is a fact. All 
 but lunatics and visionaries recognize facts.y From 
 our stand-point the Chinaman is silly for sticking to 
 his cue the memorial and badge of his subjection 
 to an alien race with such invincible obstinacy. 
 But the cue is dear to his "celestial" soul, and the 
 wise missionary does not destroy his chance to do 
 him good by stressing an unnecessary issue about 
 hair. Wise reformers will consider even the weak- 
 nesses of the people they would lift up, just as wise 
 doctors consider the peculiarities of their 'patients. 
 I have known a lady thrown into hysterics by the 
 presence of cats. What sort of doctor would he be 
 who would prescribe cats for her hysteria cats tied 
 to her bedstead? If a doctor discovers that the 
 smell of garlic produces nausea in a nervous pa- 
 tient, will he insist that the only chance for a cure 
 is in mixing garlic juice in every drop of water the
 
 Schools for Negroes. 145 
 
 patient drinks ? Not unless he is a quack of the 
 first water. 
 
 Now "the facts" are these: I. Southern white 
 children, as a class, wont sit at the same desks with 
 negro children ; 2. Southern black children, as a 
 class, don't want to sit at the same desks with 
 white children. And this gives trouble to no soul 
 of man, except to a small class of fanatics, who 
 feel that all things human must yield to their 
 fancies. 
 
 Let us grant, if any desire it, that these white 
 children have not been delivered from the spirit of 
 caste, and that these black children do not assert 
 their rights. Neither the pride of the one nor the 
 weakness of the other can be denied as facts as 
 facts that must be considered. But as things are, 
 and as they are likely to continue to be till we are 
 all dead who are troubled about such things, or 
 until it please God to create new and different 
 races of people, this mutual desire and willingness 
 for separation are right. For this race-separation 
 should not cease at the expense of the white child's 
 sincerity or of the black child's self-respect. Sin- 
 cerity and self-respect are more important than 
 sitting together, even granting the advantages that 
 have been claimed for the plan. Practically, North- 
 ern and Southern people are much alike in their 
 feelings on such subjects ; if they had had our his- 
 tory perhaps they would, on this too-much-talked- 
 10
 
 146 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 of matter, be neither better nor worse than we 
 are.* 
 
 The colored schools should have the support, 
 countenance, (there is much in this word counte- 
 nance,) indorsement, and co-operation of Southern 
 white people. Reasonable and good people must 
 
 *In Cincinnati, Ohio, May, 1880, a very "stalwart" gentleman 
 pressed me closely on what he called the wrong of our Southern 
 caste feelings. Said I : 
 
 " Have you none of this feeling ? " 
 
 " None," he answered promptly, looking me straight in the eye. 
 " With us the color of the skin has nothing to do with social recog- 
 nition. It is simply a question of personal culture." 
 
 It occurred to me at once that he had not been tested by experi- 
 ment, the color-culture not, perhaps, reaching the proper standard ; 
 for I had met, in their great hotels and at some of their best homes, 
 no colored people except as waiters ; but I had found the man I 
 had long been looking for, so I ventured one more question : 
 
 " Tell me now, candidly, upon your conscience, if, seeking a place 
 to sleep, you were to be ushered into a room with two double beds 
 in it, with a clean white man in one bed and a clean negro in the 
 other, and you had free choice, which bed would you get in ? " 
 
 He looked so straight at me that I thought he was going to say, 
 "In with the negro." But I was mistaken ; poor human nature 
 put his philosophy to flight. After a moment's silence, looking 
 upon the floor this time, he answered slowly and sadly : 
 
 " I would get in with the white man." 
 
 On that answer we " fraternized." Now, if my Cincinnati friend 
 had been a negro, and equally candid, he would have said : " I 
 would get in with the black man." The true doctrine I suppose to 
 be about this : " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
 mind." This is not contrary to the " Civil Rights' Bill." That bill 
 does not give to any color the right to require any other color to 
 sleep with it, or sit by it. It only, in this respect, grants the privi- 
 lege where both are agreed.
 
 Schools for Negroes. 147 
 
 feel kindly toward schools for negroes ; if they do 
 not, they are ignorant. To do its best work in a 
 community a colored school needs more than money- 
 help and the mere toleration that allows it to exist 
 it needs moral and social support. How this 
 is to be afforded must be determined by sensible 
 people on the merits of each case. 
 
 Some things I may mention as illustrations of 
 many methods of encouragement and help. The 
 school may be visited by proper persons at reason- 
 able hours. The pastor of the white Church close 
 by could do good in this way. Some of them do ; 
 all of us might and ought. Official people might 
 encourage the school by an occasional visit, as the 
 mayor, the village squire, the teacher of the white 
 school, and other persons of influence and local 
 consideration. The teacher should be treated 
 kindly and respectfully, and made to understand 
 that he has the favor and support of all good peo- 
 ple. Any outrage by " lewd fellows of the baser 
 sort " should be taken in hand and punished 
 promptly, certainly, and with such severity as the 
 law provides and the case demands. 
 
 If, on other grounds, the teacher is entitled to per- 
 sonal and social recognition, the fact of his teaching 
 a negro school should be no bar. Think, for exam- 
 ple, of people admiring David Livingstone, and then 
 turning up their noses at a teacher, not because he 
 is bad, or ignorant, or ill-bred, nor yet even because
 
 148 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 he is a negro, but, forsooth, because he teaches a 
 negro school ! There is a very large intimation of 
 " sham " in this distinction without a difference. 
 
 If the work of educating the negroes of the 
 South is ever to be carried on satisfactorily, if ever 
 the best results are to be accomplished, then South- 
 ern white people must take part in the work of teach- 
 ing negro schools. 
 
 There have been some very sad and hurtful mis- 
 takes in the relations assumed by most of us of the 
 South to this whole matter, and especially in the 
 fact that, with very rare exceptions, our people 
 have steadfastly refused to teach negro children, 
 especially since they were made free, for love or 
 money. They have recoiled from negro schools as 
 if there were personal degradation in teaching them. 
 Perhaps the state of things that existed at the 
 South for a full decade after the war, and for which 
 Southern people were not alone responsible a state 
 of things that made it impracticable for Southern 
 white men and women to teach negro schools was 
 inevitable. But so it was ; they could not do it 
 without " losing caste." As I am trying to state 
 facts honestly I should add, the prevailing senti- 
 ment of the South would not even now look favor- 
 ably upon such teachers. (But I must say we are 
 growing in sense as well as grace on this subject.) 
 And this sentiment would feel more kindly toward 
 a Northern man or woman teaching a neg"ro school
 
 Schools for Negroes. 149 
 
 than toward a Southerner. It is much easier to 
 denounce the sentiments that underlie this state of 
 things than to cure them. Let our Northern 
 friends, who are now happily free, as they tell us, 
 from such follies, consider Canterbury Green in 
 1831 and 1834. They were not always so wise and 
 good as they are now; moreover, many of them 
 are not yet " perfect " in this grace ; all have not 
 yet " attained " this height. 
 
 But, in all truth and common sense, there is no 
 reason for discounting, in any respect, a white man 
 or woman simply for teaching negroes. It is ut- 
 terly absurd. May it not, also, be sinful ? Let us 
 consider our attitude for a moment. We have the 
 negroes to cook for us, and if they do not know how, 
 as is often the case, our wives and daughters teach 
 them. We employ them in all sorts of ways. 
 When elections come on we ask not only their 
 votes but their " social influence." Candidates, 
 from governor to coroner, do this, earnestly, in- 
 variably, and without social discredit. We sell 
 goods to them, we buy from them, we practice law 
 for them, we practice medicine for them, and it is 
 all right enough. In all business relations, except 
 teaching, so far as I can remember our ways on this 
 subject, whether as employers or as employe's, we 
 think it is all fair, and so -do our wise neighbors. 
 How utterly and childishly absurd it is to " make 
 an exception " if one teaches a negro child how to
 
 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 spell, to read, and to write ! Will some master in 
 such fine knowledge explain just wherein it is a 
 nice thing to sell goods to a negro or to buy from 
 him, to practice law for him, to give him medicine, 
 but not quite respectable to teach him whatever he 
 can learn that we can teach? 
 
 Some have made a considerable ado about 
 " Yankee school teachers " in the negro schools in 
 the South, and in some cases our heathen have 
 acted much as the heathen of Canterbury Green 
 acted in 1831. Perhaps some of them have not 
 been altogether to our taste ; perhaps some of them 
 have mixed in with the " three Rs " some things 
 not to edification. But what else could be done? 
 Would qualified Southern men and women have 
 taken these places when the Northern teachers 
 came ? Would they do it now ? Not generally, 
 though some of the best would, as a very few of 
 the best have begun to do. Suppose these North- 
 ern teachers had not come, that nobody had taught 
 the negroes, set free, and citizens ! The South 
 would have been uninhabitable by this time. 
 Some may resent this ; be it so, they resent the 
 truth. 
 
 It was St. Paul who asked the fiery and incon- 
 stant Galatians, " Am I therefore become your ene- 
 my because I tell you the truth ? " 
 
 I have had good reason to believe that many of 
 these schools would have been filled, by preference, 

 
 Scliools for Negroes. 1 5 1 
 
 with Southern teachers had they been available. I 
 have reason to know, at this writing, that some 
 good negro schools can be obtained for Southern 
 teachers, and that they are preferred, if suitable 
 persons can be found. 
 
 If, from this showing, our Northern friends con- 
 clude that "it is better to let these unreasonable 
 people go, and furnish all these schools ourselves," 
 then I tell them they will conclude hastily and un- 
 wisely. For it is most important that Southern 
 white men and women take part in the work of 
 teaching the negroes. And some day, assuredly, 
 we will outgrow our childish weaknesses on this 
 subject. May it be soon ! No whim can hold its 
 own against common sense, common interest, and 
 religious principle. 
 
 Leaving the higher ground of duty, I affirm that 
 every consideration of sound policy should lead 
 Southern whites to teach negro schools. I am sure 
 that, other things being equal, Southern teachers 
 can do more for the advancement of negro stu- 
 dents. Here I am driven to theory, for the most 
 part. There has been too little experiment to put 
 the argument on a basis of ascertained and indis- 
 putable facts. But I am reasonably confident of 
 the soundness of the view presented. It ought to 
 be true ; for the Southern whites understand the 
 negroes better than other white people do or 
 can.
 
 152 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Now, if it is certain that these two races, so 
 strangely associated in the providence of God, will 
 remain together ; if. it is desirable that they sustain 
 friendly relations in the future ; if it is important 
 that they sustain mutually useful relations for all 
 time to come, then, I conclude, although with lit- 
 tle experiment and few facts, that Southern men 
 and women have a great opportunity, if they will 
 only be as wise as they are really well-disposed, and 
 teach the children of the negroes whenever and 
 wherever they can. 
 
 If the best man or woman in the South, if the 
 most nobly-connected member of the "oldest and 
 best family," should go into the wilds of Africa, as 
 a missionary, to teach Mteza's people, there is not 
 a human creature, with sense or soul, who would 
 not honor the mission; Who can taboo this man 
 or woman for teaching negro children in a Georgia 
 village, and give a rational reason for the differ- 
 ence ? Does one say, It is the glamour of ro- 
 mance, the heroism, the lofty devotion, of the mis- 
 sionary that commands homage ? This is not the 
 whole case. If this person, instead of going to 
 Africa to teach Mteza's children, should stay in 
 Georgia and teach white children, there would be 
 no social taboo. We must learn better than this ; 
 there is neither sense nor religion in discounting 
 people, otherwise worthy, for teaching negroes. 
 This feeling wont bear the light.
 
 Schools for Negroes. 153 
 
 A large part of this work of educating the black 
 race must be done by negroes themselves. It 
 would be, in many respects, better for them if they 
 could furnish thoroughly-trained and competent 
 teachers for all their schools. Thanks to large- 
 hearted and far-seeing charity north of us, and to 
 the political sagacity of some of our Southern 
 States, many negroes have already received educa- 
 tion enough to make them very useful to their own 
 people. In my own village of Oxford, one of these 
 better-taught negroes, a young woman from one 
 of the Atlanta training-schools, has been teach- 
 ing for several months before the Christmas just 
 passed. And this very morning, a "committee" of 
 colored men met in my kitchen to "settle with the 
 teacher." They had pledged themselves to " add 
 enough " to the State " School Fund " to " make 
 up" a salary of $26 a month. Part of this supple- 
 mental fund was made up by the parents of the 
 colored children ; part of it by contributions from 
 colored men without children. My cook, an old 
 bachelor, a man of fine sense and character, " put 
 in his part." And herein Bristow Maxwell is 
 an " ensample " unto many bachelors of lighter' 
 hue. 
 
 Very often and in many ways these colored 
 teachers of colored schools can be greatly helped 
 by the kind and hearty recognition of persons of 
 influence in a community. Negroes set great store
 
 154 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 by the opinion of the village squire, doctor, or other 
 notables. If their teachers are respected by the 
 white leaders it increases tenfold their own respect 
 for them, and, therefore, their power to do good. 
 As to how such helpful recognition shall be given 
 no rules will answer. Good sense, a kind heart, 
 and a just spirit, will make it easy in every case. 
 It is needless to talk of what we could or could not 
 have done fifteen years ago. It is better to do 
 our duty to-day than to defend the past or to be 
 " consistent " with its mistakes. It is enough to 
 know that we, of to-day, can now help this good 
 work in a hundred ways. Will we do it? Most 
 certainly provided we be wise and have the spirit 
 of Christ within us. 
 
 No doubt this question will take on new phases 
 in the not distant future. It is certain that as col- 
 ored men and women increase in numbers they will 
 be in demand, by their people at least, for various 
 services. After a while there will be many negro 
 lawyers and doctors. And there seems to me to 
 be no sensible reason why there should not be 
 trained men to serve their race in these impor- 
 tant and necessary callings. There is already in 
 Nashville, Tennessee city of universities a good 
 medical school for negroes. There is another in 
 North Carolina, and possibly others. The opening 
 of the " Meharry Medical College," in the spring 
 of 1880, was attended, and the enterprise sane-
 
 Schools for Negroes. 155 
 
 tioned, by many of the first men of the State and 
 city. * 
 
 In all these directions of educated African talent 
 and energy the "supply" will be regulated by the 
 " demand." Whatever new factors in this equation 
 the future develops, let the men of the future adjust. 
 In these respects, at least, let the future take care 
 of itself. 
 
 As for our part, let us observe the wise counsel 
 of Thomas Carlyle, " Do the duty that lies nearest 
 thee ; the next will already have become plainer." 
 We may be sure that we can, in no way, get ready 
 for the future, if we fail to take care of the present. 
 With or without us the future comes, with all its 
 possibilities ; and this good and necessary work of 
 teaching and lifting up the negro race in the South 
 will go on, with or without our help. We may 
 greatly retard we cannot, were we foolish enough 
 to try, effectually or permanently hinder its prog- 
 ress. But this we can do : by neglect and failure 
 in our duty now, we can rob ourselves of vast ben- 
 efits the future will bring to us, if we are faithful 
 to-day. 
 
 There has never been a time when the negro, 
 whether slave or freedman, has not been upon the 
 heart and conscience of thousands of good people 
 
 * One of its chief founders, Mr. Hugh Meharry, died near the 
 close of 1880, at his home in Dement, Illinois, in a good old age, 
 full of faith and good works.
 
 156 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 in the South as good people as live in this world. 
 Multitudes of them have tried, in many ways, to 
 be useful to the negro. They have done unspeak- 
 ably more than they have had credit for. They 
 have not had as many opportunities, since 1865, to 
 be useful to the negro as uninformed persons have 
 supposed. For a long time the negro wanted little 
 that we could give him, except wages for his work, 
 and help when he got into trouble. Then he knew 
 where to go. The negro himself was, for a time, 
 exclusive ; he did not care to have Southern white 
 men in his churches or about his schools. They 
 were taught, by evil persons, to suspect us all. But 
 all this explain it as any please is changing. We 
 are now welcomed to their pulpits as we have not 
 been welcomed in fifteen years. On this point, I 
 speak that I do know, and testify that I have seen. 
 I wish to be truthful. Many of our people have 
 not been as prompt to accept these friendly over- 
 tures as, it seems to me, they ought to have been. 
 Many could have done more than they have done. 
 I think I know my neighbors and the people of the 
 South, and I give it as my opinion that there is 
 among us a wide-spread feeling of awakened con- 
 science as to our relations to the negroes ; thou- 
 sands of us feel, and feel deeply, that we ought to 
 do more ; and thousands of us intend to do more 
 for their social, mental, and religious welfare. We 
 had better excuses ten, even five, years ago than 

 
 Schools for Negroes. 157 
 
 we have now. Indeed, there is little excuse for us 
 at this time, 1881, if we fail to do a great and gra- 
 cious work for the moral uplifting of the negroes. 
 It seems to me far less important that any great 
 scheme of things be devised than that each Chris- 
 tian man and woman do whatever useful thing for 
 the negro there may come to hand. In this way 
 the saving leaven will be diffused " till the whole 
 be leavened." For example, it came to my knowl- 
 edge some time ago that a little boy, in his eleventh 
 year, has been for some time teaching a negro man 
 thirty years old, and a servant in his father's fam- 
 ily, to read and " add sums." Why cannot this 
 little effort be repeated in half a million Southern- 
 families at once, and without the intervention of a 
 "society" or the appropriation of a dollar? What 
 a harvest would follow ! what new inspirations ! 
 what re-awakening of kindly affections ! what ce- 
 menting of friendly ties ! what light and truth and 
 grace, with God's blessings on both races and upon 
 the whole country!
 
 158 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SOME WORK GOOD PEOPLE ARE DOING. 
 
 NO honest man who can read and understand 
 statistics will study the United States Census, 
 or the Annual Reports of the Honorable Commis- 
 sioner of Education, and deny that there is an ap- 
 palling mass of illiteracy in the Southern States, both 
 among the white people and the negroes. As to the 
 illiteracy of the negroes, (who make the vast majority 
 of untaught people in the South,) something may 
 be said in extenuation. As to illiteracy among the 
 white people of the South, I do not know any 
 excuse good enough to offer. / wish I did. 
 
 In the United States Senate, December 15, 1880, 
 the Hon. Joseph E. Brown, one of the senators 
 from Georgia, delivered an able speech on the " Bill 
 to Establish an Educational Fund," etc. A few 
 paragraphs I quote because they state fairly a case 
 not fully understood, it seems. Senator Brown, after 
 describing the processes by which the negro became 
 a freeman and a voter, proceeds to state the attitude 
 of the South toward the question of his education 
 then and now. The senator said : 
 
 " A grave problem arises here for solution. They
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 159 
 
 must be educated ; but we are not able to educate 
 them. Why not? We claimed to be a wealthy 
 people before the war. So we were ; but we lost, 
 according to the best estimates, about two billions 
 of dollars in the value of our slaves. It was that 
 much gold value, our own under the Constitution of 
 the United States, which we lost by the war, and 
 it was gone forever. That impoverished us to that 
 extent, and it was a very heavy draft. Then we 
 had to support the Confederate armies for four 
 years, without a dollar of help, out of our substance. 
 True, we issued Confederate bonds and notes; 
 they were paid out of our substance, but at the end 
 of the war they were repudiated, and they became 
 as ashes in our hands. We lost, then, not only two 
 billions in slaves, but we lost about two billions 
 more in the support of our armies for four years. 
 Then we lost immense amounts in the destruction 
 of property by the armies outside of what was nec- 
 essary to feed and clothe them. 
 
 " But that was not all. At the end of the struggle 
 we had to return to the Union and resume our posi- 
 tion, and take upon ourselves our just proportion, 
 according to our means, of the war debt contracted 
 by the government in the suppression of what is 
 known as the Rebellion. Then, I say, with these 
 drafts upon us we are not able to educate these four 
 millions [now more than six] of people that were 
 turned loose among us. As I have already stated,
 
 160 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 during the period of slavery it was not our policy to 
 educate them ; it was incompatible, as we thought, 
 with the relation existing between the two races. 
 Now that they are citizens we all agree that it is 
 our policy to educate them. As they are citizens, 
 let us make them the best citizens we can. I am 
 glad to see that they show a strong disposition to 
 do every thing in their power for the education of 
 their children. 
 
 " Then I say the provision of the bill that gives 
 for ten years, at least, the advantage to the States 
 where there is most illiteracy is a just and a wise 
 provision, and I thank the senators from New 
 England and the other wealthier States for the 
 sense of justice they exhibit in coming forward and 
 showing a willingness to aid in the education of 
 these people. We all agree that it is important 
 that they be educated. You will agree with me 
 that we in the Southern States are not now able 
 to educate them and our own children. They 
 were set free as a necessity of the Union. You so 
 regarded it. Then it is proper that the Union 
 should come forward, and with its vast resources 
 aid in their education ; and I am glad to see a move- 
 ment made that looks in that direction. 
 
 " I confess I have better hopes for the race for 
 the future than I had when emancipation took place. 
 They have shown a capacity to receive education, 
 and a disposition to elevate themselves, that is ex-
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 161 
 
 ceedingly gratifying, not only to me, but to every 
 right-thinking Southern man. And I wish you to 
 understand that we harbor no hostility to the race 
 in the South. There are many reasons why we 
 should not, no good reasons why we should. They 
 were raised with us ; they played with us as chil- 
 dren. Under the slavery system the relations were 
 kind. When the war came on it was supposed by 
 many that they would rise in insurrection and soon 
 disband our armies. They at no time ever behaved 
 with more loyalty to us, or with more propriety. 
 Since the end of the war, when, as we thought, you 
 very unwisely gave them the ballot, they have 
 exercised the rights of freemen with a moderation 
 that probably no other race would have done. 
 Therefore, I say, it is our duty in the South espe 
 daily, and I think yours in the North as well, to 
 encourage them, and, as they are now citizens, to 
 elevate them and make them the best citizens pos- 
 sible. 
 
 " But, as I stated a while ago, I have given you a 
 reason why there is such a vast preponderance of 
 illiteracy now in our section. It is not only due to 
 the fact that we did not have the common-school 
 systems in the Southern States prior to emancipa- 
 tion, but that the four millions of freedmen were 
 added to our population as citizens, without educa- 
 tion. Then we must appeal to you not only now, 
 
 but in the future, to be liberal toward the South in 
 11
 
 162 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 aiding in the education of these people. I know 
 there have been complaints that they may have 
 been cheated in some instances at the ballot-box. 
 Ignorance may be cheated any where. Doubtless, 
 senators, you have seen the more ignorant class 
 cheated in your own States. If you would guard 
 against this effectually in the future, educate them ; 
 teach them to know their rights, and, knowing them, 
 they will maintain them." 
 
 What Senator Brown says of the prostration of 
 the Southern States at the close of the war goes 
 far to explain the fact that the Southern Churches 
 have done comparatively little in educating the 
 emancipated negroes. The truth is, thousands of 
 Southern whites have been utterly unable to edu- 
 cate their own children. With the colleges of the 
 South since the war it has been one long struggle 
 for existence. There is with the the exception of 
 Vanderbilt University, founded by the liberality 
 of a broad-minded and patriotic citizen of New 
 York hardly one well endowed college or univer- 
 sity in the South. I am speaking of institutions 
 under the care of the Church. Many of them are 
 well officered in every respect. Among their facul- 
 ties are many men who have prepared themselves 
 for teaching by the use of the best opportunities 
 afforded in this country and in Europe. They 
 have nobly undertaken to help the poor young men 
 and women of their section, and have done the very
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 1 63 
 
 best they could, themselves battling with half pay 
 and poverty year after year. 
 
 The worst fault of the Southern people since the 
 war in relation to the negro's education has not 
 been that they themselves have done so little, but 
 that they have not more cordially co-operated with 
 those who were able to do great things and were 
 trying hard to do them. For one, I am sure that I 
 might have done much that I have not done to 
 help those to whom, in God's providence, this 
 work was given. But both sides, so far as rightly 
 understanding each other was concerned, were mov- 
 ing in something like a London fog. God be 
 praised, the blue sky is breaking over us all at last ! 
 
 But, after all, the South has done and is doing a 
 great deal more than some people have thought. 
 The Report of the Commissioner of Education for 
 1878, the last available to me, gives us most en- 
 couraging statements. During 1878 the former 
 slave States expended on their public schools, 
 $11,760,251. But it is fair to state that of this 
 amount the three " Border States," Maryland, Mis- 
 souri and Kentucky, expended $5,129393. In the 
 public schools of the Southern States there were en- 
 rolled 2,034,946 white children, and 675,150 colored 
 children. 
 
 The fullest single statement that I have seen of the 
 work done by States in the education of the negroes 
 in the South mav be found in an able address
 
 164 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 delivered by the Hon. Gustavus J. Orr, LL.D., 
 State School Commissioner of Georgia, before the 
 National Educational Association at its meeting at 
 Chautauqua in the summer of 1880, on " The Educa- 
 tion of the Negro ; its Rise, Progress, and Present 
 Status." Perhaps no man in the South is more 
 competent to state this case. Dr. Orr is trusted 
 and honored by all who know him for his ability, 
 learning, and conscientious fidelity to every trust. 
 He has accomplished wonders in Georgia, in the 
 administration of the affairs of his department, 
 considering the limited resources at his command. 
 Three paragraphs from Dr. Orr's address I quote 
 here, wishing that I could reproduce the whole of 
 his statement and argument. After stating that 
 the public school systems of the South began their 
 work with the " new constitutions," Dr. Orr says : 
 
 " The adoption of these constitutions marks the 
 era of the admission of the negro, with the free con- 
 sent of the white race, to. the full rights of citi- 
 zenship, including the rights to free education. The 
 great moral revolution, which had been in progress for 
 nearly two decades, was now fully accomplished. I 
 have endeavored to show you the difficulties through 
 which it was necessary to pass before this end could 
 be reached. It only remains now for me to speak 
 of educational results of what has been actually 
 accomplished. I may state, then, that we have 
 made a brave beginning. While what we havejdone
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 165 
 
 may not be anything to boast of in itself, yet, con- 
 sidered in the light of the surroundings, we are not 
 ashamed of it. We have given to the negro in our 
 constitutions and in our statutes equal educational 
 rights. We have sought, in administering these 
 statutes, to hold the balance evenly. I can say for 
 myself that there is nothing in my official career of 
 which I am prouder than the universal recognition 
 of the truth of this statement in respect to my own 
 administration by our colored friends in Georgia. 
 Large numbers of our colored people have learned 
 to read and write and to make easy calculations. 
 They have, moreover, been taught something of the 
 history of this great country, and of the geography 
 of this and other lands, and of the structure of the 
 English language. In our cities our schools are 
 kept up from eight to ten months of the year; but 
 in country places the terms are necessarily short, 
 being only from three to five months. What we 
 do, however, for one race, the same we do for the 
 other." 
 
 Every informed man in Georgia knows that Dr. 
 Orr is, by the justice of his administration, fully en- 
 titled to his manly boast. He had endeavored, 
 without full success, to obtain complete statistics 
 for the fifteen Southern States. But the following 
 paragraph shows something of the work that has 
 been done ; moreover, it shows progress that de- 
 serves commendation and inspires hope :
 
 1 66 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 " In Virginia, beginning with the year 1871, the 
 colored enrollment for successive years was as fol- 
 lows: 38,554,46.736,47,169, 52,086, 54,941,62,178, 
 65,043, 61,772, 35,768. In South Carolina the same 
 enrollment from 1870 has been, 15,894, 33,834, 38,- 
 635 46,535 56,249, 63,415, 70,802, 55,952, 62,120, 
 64,095. In Georgia, beginning in 1871 and omitting 
 1872, when there were no public schools, the same 
 record reads, 6,664, 19,755, 42,374. 50,35$, 57-9 8 7> 
 62,330, 72,655, while in Mississippi, beginning with 
 1875, the same figures were, 89,813, 90,178, 104,777, 
 111,796. The only year for which my correspond- 
 ence enables me to present the grand aggregate 
 for the entire South was the year 1878. The attend- 
 ance for this year foots up the astonishing sum of 
 738,164, the reports being accurate for all the States 
 except Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana, in which, 
 as already stated, careful estimates were made. 
 When confronted by a record like the foregoing, 
 achieved in the midst of the difficulties that beset 
 us on every side, as a friend of the colored race I 
 thank God and take courage ! " 
 
 The Southern States are doing more for the 
 " higher education " of the colored people than 
 many suppose. Dr. Orr gives the following state- 
 ments : " Maryland appropriates $2,000 per annum 
 for the support of a normal school for the training 
 of colored teachers; out of the proceeds of the 
 ' Land Scrip ' fund donated by Congress, Virginia 

 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 167 
 
 gives $10,000 for the school at Hampton. South 
 Carolina gives $7,000 to Claflin University ; Georgia 
 pays, out of her own treasury, $8,000 to the Atlanta 
 University ; Mississippi pays for the higher educa- 
 tion of the colored youth an average of $10,000 per 
 annum ; the new constitution of Louisiana provides 
 for the same purpose an annual appropriation of not 
 less than $5,000, nor more than $10,000 ; Missouri ap- 
 propriates $5,000 per annum to the Lincoln Insti- 
 tute, a school for the training of colored teachers." 
 
 Dr. Orr's address closes with words that the best 
 people in the South, the people who are going to 
 shape its future policy, heartily indorse : 
 
 " Whether they shall ever be prepared, in mass, 
 for the intelligent, efficient, satisfactory discharge 
 of the functions of citizenship is a question. I be- 
 lieve they will, in spite of the mistakes that have 
 been committed, if the States, the general govern- 
 ment, and the various Christian Churches shall do 
 their full duty in the matter. That overruling 
 Providence which has shaped the events of the past 
 will not abandon them, or us, if we act like true men 
 and Christians. In view of the mode of their intro- 
 duction among us, and of the condition in which 
 they were so long kept by laws sanctioned by the 
 representatives of the entire people, and of the 
 manner in which their emancipation was effected, 
 we of the South believe that the duty of providing 
 the means of preparing them for citizenship belongs
 
 1 68 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 to the whole country. We ourselves, however, 
 have a duty to perform, which we do not intend to 
 shirk. I think I can speak for the entire South, 
 when I say that we are determined to stand by all 
 that has been done. They have been declared free : 
 to this we most heartily consent. They have 
 been admitted to all the rights of citizenship ; in this 
 we acquiesce. Our State constitutions and our laws 
 have declared that they shall be educated ; to bring 
 about this result we will do all that in us lies." 
 
 A great and noble work has been done by North- 
 ern philanthropists for the education and uplifting 
 of the emancipated negroes. I regret that it is not 
 understood in the South as it deserves to be. Some 
 mistakes that were made in the prosecution of this 
 good work have been alluded to, but, take it all in 
 all, such work has not often been done in any age 
 or country. Let us look into this work somewhat, 
 at least take a general survey of it. The aggregates 
 are impressive ; the details are deeply interesting. 
 
 It is right to say that much was done of perma- 
 nent value for the education of the emancipated 
 negroes by the United States government,. through 
 the Freedmen's Bureau. It may be true that the 
 very best work done through this agency of the 
 government was its contribution to the education of 
 the new-made citizens. 
 
 Mr. Eaton gives us the names and locations of 
 thirty-four " normal schools" for colored people;
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 169 
 
 twenty-eight " institutions for secondary instruc- 
 tion ;" fifteen " universities and colleges," one of 
 these being in Ohio, and one in Pennsylvania ; of 
 "theological schools," either distinctively such or 
 providing for this with other departments, there 
 are nineteen, all but two of them being located 
 in the South. There are three " schools of law," 
 and four " schools of medicine." Of the normal 
 schools, three are exclusively State institutions, as 
 in Alabama, North Carolina, and Arkansas. At the 
 normal schools there were, in 1878, 5,236 pupils; 
 at the "institutions for secondary instruction" 
 there were 5,290; at the "colleges and universi- 
 ties" there were 1,620; at the "schools of theol- 
 ogy " there were 626 ; at the " law schools " 44 ; 
 and at the " medical schools " 94. This is a good 
 showing thirteen years after the close of the war. 
 And Mr. Eaton shows that in all these schools the 
 general tendency was in the line of real progress. 
 
 Let it be fairly considered by all concerned, es- 
 pecially by the people of the South, that Northern 
 money, given by private individuals, by hundreds 
 of thousands of Christian men and women, has, for 
 the most part, founded and sustained these great 
 enterprises for the elevation of the African race in 
 this country. I, for one, have considered these 
 things, and regret many prejudices I once indulged 
 that were not justified by even the follies and blun- 
 ders that have been sufficiently alluded to. I go
 
 170 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 further ; many of us of the South have not taken 
 the right pains to inform ourselves of the work 
 that was being done in sight of us. Not long ago, 
 one of the best-informed men in Georgia, a cultured 
 reader of reviews and magazines and advanced 
 books, said to me that he did not know till Jan- 
 uary, 1 88 1, that there was such an institution as 
 the Atlanta University. He knew that there was 
 something in that city of that name that received 
 money from the State, but its grade, character, ap- 
 pointments, history, he knew nothing of. 
 
 A little detail may be useful in stating some of 
 the work done by Northern Christians for our col- 
 ored people. Among the chief of the societies at 
 work in the South for the help of the colored peo- 
 ple is the " American Missionary Association." It 
 is the work of the Congregational Church, and the 
 people who back this society are, for the most part, 
 the people who back the " American Board of For- 
 eign Missions." (Let this be considered ; the work 
 of that Board is an important part of the history of 
 Christianity in this century.) This " American Mis- 
 sionary Association " is carrying on 8 chartered in- 
 stitutions ; 12 high and normal schools; and 24 
 common schools, in the South. In all of them are 
 7,207 pupils, taught by 163 teachers. The secreta- 
 ries think that at least 150,000 scholars have been 
 taught, more or less, by the pupils educated in 
 these high schools and colleges. This work costs
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 171 
 
 money a great deal of it. Saying nothing of the 
 hundreds of thousands invested in buildings and 
 school property, the work of the society in the South 
 costs considerably more than $100,000 a year. 
 
 Some ignorant people " pooh-pooh " this sort of 
 work. They are the people who have reason to 
 fear that the negro will get ahead. 
 
 Some of the buildings used in these schools rank 
 with the best in the South. The Atlanta Univer- 
 sity is now using two splendid brick buildings ; an- 
 other, costing $40,000, is soon to be built between 
 them. They have a far better library than most of 
 the white colleges of the South have, and the library 
 has an endowment of $5,000, given by R. R. Graves, 
 Esq., the liberal New Yorker, who gave them most 
 of their 4,000 or 5,000 volumes. How many South- 
 ern white colleges have endowments for their 
 libraries ? 
 
 Some may doubt of the work they do. The State 
 Board of Examiners, appointed by the governor of 
 Georgia, say, in their published reports, that the 
 work is done thoroughly. And so it is. The stud- 
 ies are well graded, the majority of the pupils 
 being in the normal course. In the regular college 
 courses were twenty-six last year, six being in the 
 senior class. What do they study? I copy the 
 curriculum taken from the Catalogue for 1880, for 
 which thanks are due President Ware. This course 
 speaks for itself.
 
 172 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 COLLEGE COURSE. 
 
 For admission to this course, pupils must have passed 
 through the College Preparatory Course, or its equivalent. 
 The degree of B. A. is given to graduates from this course. 
 
 FRESHMAN YEAR. 
 
 GREEK Xenophon's Cyropasdia, Owen; Homer's Odyssey, 
 Merry; Grammar, Hadley. 
 
 LATIN Livy, Chase; De Senectute et de Amicitia, Crowell; 
 Grammar and Composition, Harkness; Greek and Roman 
 Antiquities, Bojesen. 
 
 MATHEMATICS Algebra, Peck; Plane Geometry, Brad- 
 bury. 
 
 SOPHOMORE YEAR. 
 
 GREEK Select Orations of Demosthenes, Tyler; Prome- 
 theus of jCschylus, Woolsey. First and Second Terms. 
 
 LATIN Odes of Horace, Chase; Tacitus, Tyler. First 
 and Second Terms. 
 
 ENGLISH Literature, Oilman with authors. Second and 
 Third Terms. 
 
 MATHEMATICS Solid and Spherical Geometry, Bradbury; 
 Trigonometry and Surveying, Bradbury. 
 
 JUNIOR YEAR. 
 
 GREEK- Gorgias of Plato, Woolsey. Third Term. 
 
 LATIN Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, Chase. Second 
 Term. 
 
 R H ETO R I C Hill. 
 
 SCIENCE Natural Philosophy. Peck's Ganot; Astronomy, 
 Lockyers ; Chemistry, Steele ; Geology, Dana. 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY Chadbourne. 
 
 SENIOR YEAR. 
 
 MENTAL PHILOSOPHY Porter. 
 
 LoG\CJevons. 
 
 MORAL PHILOSOPHY Fairchild.
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 173 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY Hopkins. 
 ESTHETICS Lectures on the History of Art. 
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Political Economy, Wayland / 
 Civil Liberty and Self Government, Leiber. 
 HISTORY History of Civilization, Guizot. 
 
 The normal course is formed to "meet the im- 
 mediate demand for teachers," and is well adapted 
 to this end. 
 
 I observe in the Catalogue that most of the grad- 
 uates of past years are put down as teachers. 
 What dividends on the investment large as it is ! 
 Who can estimate the work of these teachers? 
 Mr. B. M. Zettler, former school superintendent in 
 Macon, Georgia, bears emphatic testimony to their 
 efficiency. 
 
 The Atlanta University, I am informed, is not 
 beyond other schools of similar grade under the 
 care of the Society. Fisk University, Nashville, 
 represents much money, much brains, and much 
 good work. Its grade is high ; its work good. 
 And so of many others. Let us bear in mind, too, 
 that among the trustees and patrons of this great 
 benevolence are hundreds among the foremost 
 'Christian names in America, many of them honored 
 throughout the Christian world. 
 
 "The Freedmen's Aid Society" is the child of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. I quote here 
 from the " Thirteenth Annual Report," Rev. Dr. R. 
 S. Rust, Secretary:
 
 174 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 " The Society has aided in the establishment 
 and support of the following schools, six of which 
 have been legally chartered, with collegiate 
 powers : 
 
 "CHARTERED INSTITUTIONS. Central Tennes- 
 see College, Nashville, Tenn. ; Clark University, At- 
 lanta, Ga. ; Claflin University, Orangeburgh, S. C. ; 
 New Orleans University, New Orleans, La.; Shaw 
 University, Holly Springs, Miss.; Wiley University, 
 Marshall, Texas 6. 
 
 " THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS. Centenary Biblical 
 Institute, Baltimore, Md.; Baker Institute, Orange- 
 burgh, S. C. ; Thomson Biblical Institute, New Or- 
 leans, La. 3. 
 
 " MEDICAL COLLEGE. Meharry Medical College, 
 Nashville, Tenn. I. 
 
 " INSTITUTIONS NOT CHARTERED. Bennett 
 Seminary, Greensboro', N. C. ; Cookman Institute, 
 Jacksonville, Fla. ; Dadeville Seminary, Dadeville, 
 Ala.; Haven Normal School, Waynesborough, Ga.; 
 La Grange Seminary, La Grange, Ga. ; Meridian 
 Academy, Meridian, Miss. ; Rust Normal School, 
 Huntsville, Ala. ; Walden Seminary, Little Rock, 
 Ark. ; West Texas Conference Seminary, Austin,' 
 Texas ; West Tennessee Seminary, Macon, Ten- 
 nessee 10. 
 
 " In these institutions the number of pupils 
 taught during the year is classified as follows : 
 
 " Biblical, 372 ; law, 23 ; medical, 85 ; collegiate,
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 175 
 
 90; academic, 220; normal, 1,100; intermediate, 
 217; primary, 832. Total, 2,490. 
 
 " Number of pupils taught in our schools, 63,000 ; 
 number taught by our pupils, more than 550,000. 
 Amount of permanent school property, more than 
 $250,000. Number of teachers employed this year, 
 eighty." 
 
 This Society has expended in this work, during 
 thirteen years, $893,918 46. Nearly every dollar 
 came from the North, 
 
 As to the character of the work done by the 
 schools under the care of the " Freedmen's Aid 
 Society," it ranks with the best at work in this 
 field. I have read all the thirteen reports ; the re- 
 ports improve as fast as the schools. The orators 
 have nearly ceased to denounce slavery ; they are 
 now, at the anniversaries, beginning to discuss right 
 vigorously and wisely the negro's freedom. But 
 there is still some margin for " sweetness and light." 
 At the last anniversary meeting Bishop H. W, 
 Warren made an eloquent address, from which I 
 take the following extracts : 
 
 " The key-note of the present condition of our 
 work in the South is given in the following fact : 
 
 "On the 1 6th of October, 1880, Ex-Governor 
 Brown, of Georgia, now United States Senator, 
 stood on the platform of the new building for Clark 
 University, in Atlanta, and publicly gave thanks to 
 the representatives of the North for the aid given
 
 176 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the South in the matter of education. Before him 
 was a throng of colored people. They were sons 
 and daughters of a race that for the first time stood 
 facing the sunrise. Their countenances glowed 
 with the light of a new morning. The sun that 
 was about to rise lighted the sky with an aurora 
 of hope soon to brighten into an immortal day. 
 Beside him were three other governors of Georgia, 
 the school commissioner of the State, and repre- 
 sentatives of the enterprise and intelligence of that 
 swiftly rising commonwealth. On the same plat- 
 form were the professors, who had gone forth in 
 the true missionary spirit from pleasant homes and 
 friends beloved to take up a work genial only to 
 those who were filled with the spirit of Him who 
 left the glory of heaven for the shame of earth, 
 who, though rich, became poor that we through his 
 poverty might become rich. Behind him were four 
 Bishops, one of the blood of the race to be bene- 
 fited, and three representatives of a great Church 
 of Christ, that had been pouring out its men and 
 its money to aid in bringing light to those who sat 
 in darkness and the shadow of intellectual and 
 moral death. They were there in a moment of vic- 
 tory to lift up the banner, to raise the shout, and 
 then hasten on to the achievement of new victories. 
 It was in such a presence that Senator Brown said, 
 in effect : ' I want to publicly thank you men of the 
 North for doine what we were not able to do. We
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 177 
 
 are too poor. But it needed to be done. You have 
 done it. Its results are apparent to-day. I thank 
 you, and pray you to continue your help.' 
 
 " It was one of the sublimest moments of his life. 
 He was permitted to speak for millions and to mill- 
 ions. He voiced the crying needs of multitudes 
 who could not speak for themselves, who did not 
 even know the depths of their need. But he, who 
 had himself come up from lowly conditions by he- 
 roic struggles, spoke the unutterable thanks of the 
 lowly as they saw themselves rising to sublimer 
 heights of being. He also spoke to millions of 
 helpers who had previously heard few voices of 
 approval for their work save those of their friends, 
 their consciences, and their God. Few men ever 
 speak to so many, speak for so many, and with such 
 appreciation on both sides. It was well and wisely 
 spoken." 
 
 The "American Baptist Home Mission" is one 
 of the vigorous workers among the colored people 
 of the South. 
 
 Sidney Root, Esq., of Atlanta, Georgia, a citizen 
 of that city long before the war, held in deserved 
 honor as a broad-minded, cultivated Christian man, 
 is one of the trustees of " Roberts College," an in- 
 stitution founded and carried on by the " Baptist 
 Home Mission," whose head-quarters are in New 
 York. The wisdom of the society in electing Mr. 
 
 Root one of its trustees is to be commended. He 
 12
 
 178 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 is an honor to Vermont, the State of his nativity, 
 and to Georgia, the State of his adoption. I asked 
 him to prepare me a statement of the work done 
 by the " Baptist Home Mission." I give his an- 
 swer in full : 
 
 "ATLANTA, GA., Feb. 5, 1881. 
 
 " A. G. HAYGOOD, D.D. ; 
 
 44 MY DEAR SIR : By a note from our secretary 
 (Rev. H. L. Morehouse, D.D.) I learn that the 
 ' American Baptist Home Mission ' of New York 
 has expended something over $200,000 for build- 
 ings, for educational purposes among the colored 
 people of the South ; about $300,000 for salaries ; 
 and about $300,000 for current expenses and for 
 ' beneficiary students.' These sums, together with 
 amounts contributed for permanent endowment, 
 represent an aggregate of about $1,000,000 contrib- 
 uted through the Society for educational (includ- 
 ing theological and normal) instruction among the 
 freedmen. The management of the several insti- 
 tutions has generally been committed to Southern 
 people. The institutions are 
 
 Pupils in 1880. 
 
 " Wayland, Washington, D. C 93 
 
 Richmond, Richmond, Va 92 
 
 Shaw, Raleigh, N. C 277 
 
 Benedict, Columbia, S. C 140 
 
 Roberts, Atlanta, Ga 100 
 
 Leland, New Orleans, La 144 
 
 Natchez, Natchez, Miss 113 
 
 Nashville, Nashville, Tenn 232 
 
 Total 1,191
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 179 
 
 " There is now an institution in Selma, Alabama, 
 with 260 students, partly supported by the Board ; 
 and one at Live Oak, Florida, the number of stu- 
 dents not reported. 
 
 " The Secretary writes me that he will soon pre- 
 pare a table showing the number of students edu- 
 cated in the higher studies, and their occupation as 
 far as known to date. You will observe, however, 
 that, including Selma and Live Oak, there are about 
 1,500 students being educated as preachers and 
 teachers among the colored people, through the 
 agency of the Baptist Home Missionary Society. 
 
 " An excellent Medical College has recently been 
 founded in connection with Shaw University, Ra- 
 leigh, N. C., by a daughter of Mr. Estey, the organ 
 builder. I think as the matter is managed [ Mr. 
 Root's italics] a vast amount of good must result, 
 and I believe you will agree with me. 
 
 "Sincerely, S. ROOT." 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church, over and above 
 its great educational work among the negroes, has 
 done incalculable good in their uplifting through its 
 Church Extension Society, that has aided them in 
 building many churches, and through its Missionary 
 Society, that has helped them to sustain them. Its 
 money expenditures in these directions have gone 
 beyond a million of dollars. 
 
 From the senior Secretary, Rev. Dr. A. J. Kynett,
 
 i8o OUR BROTHER IN BLACK, 
 
 I have the following facts: From 1865 to Jan- 
 uary I, 1 88 1, the Society donated for building 
 churches, in round numbers, $830,000. Of the 
 whole amount, not less than $350,000 have been 
 expended in the Southern States, and of the 
 $350,000 nearly $200,000 have been used for the 
 benefit of the colored people. Of their " loan 
 fund " used only in loans less than $200,000 have 
 been in use in the Southern States, and of this 
 amount, about $50,000 among the colored people. 
 The Society has aided 3,068 churches throughout 
 the country; of the whole number, about 1,600 are 
 in the Southern States, and of the 1,600, not less 
 than 1,000 are for the use of the colored people. 
 
 Other Churches, whose reports are not available, 
 have done much good. And many thousands of 
 dollars have been given by benevolent individuals, 
 whose benefactions do not appear in any published 
 statistics. No doubt they are recorded where they 
 will never be forgotten. 
 
 The Presbyterians (of the North for the most 
 part) have done a great work in the education of 
 the negroes. Mr. Eaton reports for them, two nor- 
 mal schools in the South ; three " institutions for 
 secondary instruction ; " one university, the Biddle, 
 located at Charlotte, North Carolina, and one at 
 Oxford, Pennsylvania. The Episcopalians have 
 established two normal schools and seven schools 
 for " secondary instruction." The Friends have
 
 Some Work Good People are Doing. 181 
 
 one important institution in East Tennessee. The 
 Roman Catholics have a school for colored people 
 in Baltimore. 
 
 For myself I have reached a conclusion about this 
 educational work among the negroes of the South ; 
 it is God's work. Errors and mistakes being allowed, 
 the main facts abide. ^ Here is a small army of de- 
 voted men and women teaching these poor negroes. 
 Millions of dollars have been invested in the work ; 
 also millions of prayers. I have studied their 
 reports, have looked into some of their schools, and 
 have examined no little of their work ; it is full of 
 hope and cheerful prophecy. It is high time that 
 those who are trying to do good should have knowl- 
 edge of each other. Then they would help each 
 other. These men and women of the North who 
 are in the South teaching the negroes could do a 
 great deal more good if we of the South, men and 
 women, would do our full duty to them. If, when 
 they know us, we "improve on acquaintance" as 
 much as some of them have improved on acquaintance 
 after being once known by us, then in the next 
 generation, if not before, there will be mutual ad- 
 miration, with much hejping of one another in every 
 good work. And it will be to the peace of men and 
 the glory of God. Will not this be better than 
 mutual suspicions, heart-burnings, and other such 
 " works of the devil ? "
 
 1 82 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE NEGRO AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY. 
 
 WISE men, who wish the negro well and who 
 have the best interests of the country at 
 heart, will not confine their attention to his voting. It 
 seems to me, as heretofore intimated, that his import- 
 ance as a voter has been greatly exaggerated, much 
 to his hurt. I say this not because he is a negro, 
 but upon the general principle that the man is of 
 more consequence than the voter. Voting is not 
 the main business of life ; determining elections is 
 not the chief end of a man, whether of a black or 
 of a white man. He not only has other duties and 
 functions to perform, but others more important. 
 A citizen does not render his greatest service to 
 society by the act of depositing a ballot, but by his 
 right living. What is he ? What does he do ? Is 
 he a producer? Does he add any value, material, 
 intellectual, or moral, to th<i resources of his com- 
 munity and of the country? Is his personal influ- 
 ence good ? Is his family life a salt-savor among 
 his children and neighbors? Is the man as well as 
 the voter what he ought to be ? 
 
 If we must stick on this ballot question, then I
 
 The Negro as a Member of 'the Community. 183 
 
 have this to say, a man's real value in politics depends 
 upon his value in the community. Voting is, in- 
 deed, important, but it is incidental. A man votes, 
 we will suppose, two or three times a year, or often- 
 er, as the case may be. But he is a member of the 
 community three hundred and sixty-five days in the 
 year. Now, what is he in the community ? Is 
 his influence, whether it be great or small, on the 
 right side of morals and progress ? This aspect of 
 the question no thoughtful person can overlook, or 
 undervalue. For it is real, practical, abiding. 
 
 The negro is a neighbor. Perhaps there is little 
 or no intercourse between the cabin and the man- 
 sion, or between the cabin and the cottage, or 
 even between two cabins, a white family in one and 
 a colored family in the other. (But I do think 
 there is more intercourse between " mansion " and 
 " cabin" in the South than between " brown-stone 
 front " and " garret " in the great cities.) But the 
 negro is a neighbor all the same, and, by his very 
 existence and presence, a power for good or evil. 
 If we leave the higher considerations of duty, and 
 find the lowest place for our argument the self-in- 
 terest, the mere convenience and comfort, of the 
 dominant race it is important that this negro, this 
 humblest member of the community, be a good 
 man, a man of right views, sentiments, habits, and 
 associations. It is important to both races that 
 their relations be not only friendly but mutually
 
 1 84 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 helpful and affectionate. If this negro be a bad 
 man, with false views, corrupt sentiments, vicious 
 habits, and evil associations, he is a constant menace 
 to peace and good order. Neither more nor less a 
 menace on account of his color, but a menace on ac- 
 count of his character. 
 
 In what ways, now, can we of the white race help 
 cur colored neighbor to be what he ought to be as 
 a member of the community? The answer cannot 
 be given in detail ; no rules can comprehend such a 
 subject. Much depends on circumstances of time 
 and place, as of persons. Of one thing we may be 
 sure it is not in the power of legislatures, state or 
 national, to define the class of relations and duties 
 I am writing of, nor to secure the results that right- 
 minded people believe to be so necessary to the 
 well-being of society. Social problems were never 
 solved by legislation or authority; it is not in the 
 nature of things that they should be solved by 
 mere power or mere law. I am not unmindful of 
 the value and need of good laws, of laws that de- 
 fend and protect men in all their rights ; that en- 
 courage, and, in so far as it is possible, secure the 
 fullest development of the best powers that are in 
 human nature. But I am now speaking of these 
 relations in life that are of necessity more or less 
 beyond the reach of human laws and their sanctions ; 
 of relations in which each man must be more or less 
 a law unto himself.
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 185 
 
 I propose this question to myself: How must I, 
 a white man, and my neighbor, Daniel Martin, a 
 black man, treat each other? He is my neighbor 
 living with his family near me ; he is my friend also, 
 in whom I can trust ; more, he has been a servant 
 in my household for six full years. Daniel is a 
 citizen ; more than that, he is a man ; the law made 
 him a citizen, God made him a man. I am as much 
 bound by eternal righteousness to deal fairly with 
 Daniel Martin in all things, as with the worthy man 
 and cultured Christian minister whose garden joins 
 mine. And, let it not be overlooked, Daniel Mar- 
 tin is as much bound as I am to deal righteously in 
 all the relations that bind us together. I may, 
 because I have larger opportunity, owe more duty 
 to him than he owes to me, but the nature of the 
 obligation is the same. 
 
 Does any man with a particle of sense suppose 
 that any law can provide for all the relations that 
 exist between Daniel Martin and me ? Divine law 
 never proceeds upon this sort of literalism in statu- 
 tory enactment, that every possible duty must be 
 named and weighed and timed and measured. 
 When human law makes the attempt it fails always. 
 The infinitely varied adjustments of human life 
 make mere statutory solutions of such questions 
 impossible. And there is another reason besides 
 the endless variety of occasions and circumstances ; 
 if it were possible to provide for every duty by
 
 1 86 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 statute, there would be no place left for our. per- 
 sonal development in good conscience and moral 
 life. 
 
 If mere laws cannot guide and restrain Daniel 
 Martin and me, (and both of us need guidance and 
 restraint,) how are we to manage our seemingly 
 difficult case? Here is our first mistake; it is not 
 a difficult case at all, except we make' it so by want 
 of sense and of a good conscience. There is no 
 trouble whatever, provided we two men have the 
 right spirit in our hearts ; provided, also, that we 
 have good sense in our heads. Daniel and I have 
 just one thing to do; we must plant ourselves square- 
 ly and sincerely on the " Sermon on the Mount." On 
 this basis we will get on with little thought or need 
 of outside help to the end of a long chapter. 
 
 In the course of time Daniel and I will have 
 various business relations. (There is no discount, 
 be it observed, in the matter of " caste " for busi- 
 ness connections. " Business is business," unless it 
 be in teaching his children to read !) I want Dan- 
 iel's muscle, his experience in a line of things, and 
 his integrity; he wants my money, my confidence, 
 my friendship, and now and then when he " gets in 
 a pinch," a little " advance," or other extra help. 
 Some day he will have something to sell that I 
 wish to buy ; I will have something to sell that he 
 wishes to buy ; and so on to the end of our natur- 
 al lives. How are we to manage? Just as two
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 1 87 
 
 white men who wish to do right would do; just as 
 two black men who wish to do right would do. 
 We are each to do in all our dealings with each 
 other the fair and honest thing. This is all there 
 is in it. With this difference, if I wrong him, tak- 
 ing advantage of his ignorance, or weakness, or 
 dependence, of any thing peculiar to his condition 
 that gives me the advantage of him, I am all the 
 viler for using my advantage unrighteously. It is 
 doubly mean for the white man to wrong a negro. 
 And this is recognized broadly in the proverbial 
 phrase by which some superlatively despicable per- 
 son is described in all parts of the South : "He'is 
 mean enough to cheat a negro." 
 
 " But," says the irrepressible one, be he Northern 
 or Southern, " how about the social question ? " 
 This question indicates a sort of hysteria. But if you 
 must be answered, it is easy: Daniel Martin never 
 asks any thing of me as to social life that I am not 
 willing to give. I respect him in his place ; he 
 respects me in my place. He is master in his 
 house, (except when his wife gets the upper hand,) 
 I am master in mine, (all exceptions understood.) 
 No test that brought embarrassment to me or mor- 
 tification to him ever occurred, or ever will. Wise 
 people never make these issues ; they do not come 
 up spontaneously, not once in a thousand times. 
 In his capacity as servant, Daniel Martin will make 
 fires, clean shoes, and do other such things. Were
 
 i88 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 I living in New York or London, and Daniel were 
 what he is, or any other man in similar relations 
 to me, I should expect him to do the same things, 
 so long as they are included in our bargain, and he 
 is paid for his work. But I do not ask him to sit 
 at the table with my guests, or to entertain com- 
 pany in the parlor after tea. He does not wish 
 such association. Ask him. He has just about the 
 same social recognition in my house that a man of 
 all work has in other decent and well-ordered 
 households. 
 
 There never was a subject so much discussed that 
 has so little in it, except it may be the invention of 
 perpetual motion. It gives no trouble to either 
 race when let alone. People of good sense, good 
 breeding, and of unmeddlesome -temper, do let it 
 alone. 
 
 Let us consider, as they are related to our pres- 
 ent argument, the whole class of negroes in a com- 
 munity. Owing to their antecedents, (and let us 
 remember the antecedents that are back of Ameri- 
 can slavery, antecedents that carry our thoughts 
 back to the huts and kraals of Africa,) and owing 
 also to their present circumstances, there are some 
 lines in which they need special instruction, train- 
 ing, encouragement, building up. I may indicate 
 some of them, too obvious to need elaborate dis- 
 cussion. I must teach the negro to respect my 
 rights ; I do this best by respecting his. I must
 
 The Negro as. a Member of the Community. 189 
 
 teach him to respect and keep his contracts ; to do 
 this I must respect and keep mine. I must teach 
 him to obey law and to respect authority ; to do this 
 I must set him the example. I must teach him to 
 " rule well his own house ; " to do this I must show 
 him, not simply teach him, how. I must teach him 
 to speak the truth ; to do this I must speak the 
 truth to him. I must teach him honesty ; to do 
 this I must be honest. I must teach him purity 
 in his own life and in all his family relations ; to do 
 this I must let him see that I respect and keep the 
 law of chastity. I must teach him the sin and ruin 
 of drunkenness ; to do this I must keep the demon 
 from my own lips and from my house. I must 
 teach him the sanctity of a freeman's ballot ; to do 
 this I must myself vote as an honest man upon my 
 conscience, only for good men, only for good meas- 
 ures, neither buying nor selling votes, nor cheat- 
 ing in any way, by terror, by violence, by " ballot 
 stuffing," by false counting, by false returns, or by 
 any method known to demagogues of any land or 
 race. 
 
 Some duties and virtues need emphatic, distinct, 
 repeated, and careful statement in my efforts to do 
 him good. For example : The negro race in the 
 South I know, and every-where else I suppose, 
 needs building up in all the sanctities of family life. 
 Their slave history was not favorable to the devel- 
 opment of right views and sentiments on this sub-
 
 190 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 ject ; it was very unfavorable to it. Nor was slav- 
 ery favorable to the virtue of the white race ; it was 
 far otherwise. It was a great shame and sin that 
 the law did not recognize their marriage relations ; 
 that it not only did not protect them from arbitrary 
 separations, but that it did not forbid them volun- 
 tary separations. The old system worked badly 
 for the negro, as to his conceptions of the dignity 
 and sanctity of marriage in two directions. First, 
 it did not forbid masters to separate husband and 
 wife. Once in my life I saw a husband and wife "sold 
 apart." It was long ago, in my childhood ; it froze 
 my soul with horror. But let the truth be spoken 
 in justice to the old masters ; the great majority of 
 them would not separate husbands and wives ; 
 there was a strdng sentiment against it ; and the 
 professional " negro-trader " was a man whose busi- 
 ness was against all the sentiments of the better 
 class of people ; to many he was simply odious. 
 Second, the old system operated badly in not com- 
 pelling them to keep their marriage contracts. 
 This was really worse for their morals than separa- 
 tion by sale or other form of force. Their ideal of 
 marriage might have been elevated if separations 
 had occurred only by outside and arbitrary power ; 
 it could not be much elevated when the law allowed 
 them to follow their own whims and affinities. 
 
 But there was among them, in the days of slavery, 
 and is to-day, a much higher average of conviction,
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 191 
 
 sentiment, and practice in their marriage relations 
 than hasty observers or careless generalizers have 
 supposed. Many writers, arguing from the want of 
 law to prevent masters from separating husbands 
 and wives, and the want of law to compel them to 
 keep their own contracts, have concluded that there 
 was no marriage among them worth the name. 
 This is a mistake and an injustice both to the ex- 
 master and to the ex-slave. The one was not so 
 heartless, the other not so debased, as has been as- 
 sumed. For, i, as has been stated, the majority of 
 masters did not separate husbands and wives; 
 2, natural affection, religious principle, and the ex- 
 ample of the white people, (there was hardly a di- 
 vorce in the South till after the war,) went far to 
 counteract in their own minds the tendency to 
 " easy divorce." 
 
 Nevertheless, much of right teaching and train- 
 ing remains to be imparted. Many Southern peo- 
 ple are truly awake to this. Moreover, the civil law 
 enters their family life now. Their marriages must 
 have the sanction of law; their infidelities are 
 punishable by law. Granted that the law is not 
 always enforced for marital infidelities, yet it is oft- 
 en enforced, and its tremendous educating power 
 has fairly begun to show its benign influence. If 
 now the Southern people only have sense and prin- 
 ciple enough to keep out of their statute books the 
 " easy " and unscriptural divorce laws that have al-
 
 192 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 ready brought such harvests of shame and crime to 
 some other sections of our country, another genera- 
 tion will witness vast amendment among the ne- 
 groes in their conjugal and family life. But Heav- 
 en save us from these divorce laws that, in some 
 States, have allowed one divorce to every fourteen 
 marriages ! Such laws are hardly as good conserva- 
 tors of marriage as was slavery itself.* 
 
 If we of the South are to make progress with 
 our problem, if we are to become the people Provi- 
 dence designs us to be, if we are to do our duty 
 to God and man, then let us understand distinctly, 
 once and for all, that in the administration of law 
 the negroes shall receive, not only in theory but in 
 practice, fair dealing and justice. And this princi- 
 ple must assert itself in every court and in all mat- 
 ters that are brought into court. In theory we 
 have one law for both races ; the practice must be 
 according to the theory. When the court says, 
 Make the negro pay his debt, let it say also, The 
 ^X'hite man must pay his debt. Let the same law 
 be applied in all criminal prosecutions. The law 
 does not know color or condition in its definitions ; 
 the administrators of law should not know color. 
 A crime that should imprison or hang a negro 
 should imprison or hang a white man. When some 
 
 t\vo years ago f a white man, , of Floyd 
 
 County, Georgia, was hung for the murder of a 
 * See note at end of chapter. f Written in 1881,
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 193 
 
 negro, it was a contribution to right sentiment and 
 good morals in the whole State." 
 
 This is every man's question and every woman's 
 question, for the right administration of law de- 
 pends largely upon public sentiment. It is a sort 
 of maxim that a law greatly in advance of public 
 opinion cannot be enforced. Therefore I say this, 
 it is every one's question. What each man and 
 woman thinks on these subjects has much to do 
 with the administration of justice. 
 
 I am not one of those who count it patriotic to 
 deny what enemies or prejudiced critics charge 
 upon us, if the facts are against us. I do not feel 
 called on to go into any comparative statistics of 
 crime in the different sections of our country. But 
 this I do know, whatever may be true of other 
 sections, there is a disgraceful and appalling amount 
 of crimes against life in the South. Human life is 
 held cheap. No honest and informed man will deny 
 it. Murders are frightfully frequent, acquittals are 
 ruinously common. There is but one remedy, the 
 prompt, certain, rigid, and impartial enforcement of 
 our excellent laws. 
 
 Let us remember always, we must base all our 
 instructions and regulate all our dealings, with the 
 black man as with the white man, upon the eternal 
 principles of righteousness which are laid down in 
 the word of God. The negro's ethical education, 
 
 as must be the white man's, if it is to form his 
 18
 
 194 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 character and control his life, must be according to 
 the truth as it is in the Holy Scriptures. Dr. An- 
 drew Peabody has truly said in one place, " The 
 Bible is the educator of civilized man." 
 
 If white people and black people wish to know 
 how to treat each other in all the relations of life, 
 let them study the Bible. Take, for example, the 
 business relations of life, the old question of capital 
 and labor, of service and wages. For the settle- 
 ment of all questions that grow out of these rela- 
 tions the laws laid down and the principles taught 
 in the Bible are worth all the "political econo- 
 mies" in the world. They apply to all races 
 and conditions of men, in all countries and in all 
 times. They are as needful and useful in New En- 
 gland factories as on Southern plantations. Free 
 -negroes are not the only underlings in the world, 
 negro servants are not the only hirelings. There 
 are thousands of factory operatives, day laborers, 
 domestic servants, mechanics, sewing women, clerks, 
 apprentices, and such like, whose cry for justice 
 against oppression goes up to heaven by day and 
 by night. " For which things sake," in all lands, 
 " the wrath of God is come upon the children of 
 disobedience." Let us here recall some of these 
 half-forgotten laws ; they must do us all good. I 
 know they are needed in the South; I am per- 
 suaded that they are needed wherever there are 
 masters .and servants.
 
 The Negro as a Member of tJie Community. 195 
 
 A few passages will answer here; a reference 
 Bible will show others plenty. " Thou shalt not 
 defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him : the wages 
 of him that is hired shall not abide with thee 
 all night until the morning." Servants must be 
 paid according to the promise of the bargain, 
 their wages are their all ; to hold them back be- 
 cause they are helpless is both tyranny and rob- 
 bery. Here is another law of God in Moses; 
 " Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is 
 poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or 
 of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy 
 gates : at his day thou shalt give him his hire, 
 neither shall the sun go down upon it ; for he is 
 poor, and setteth his heart upon it : lest he cry 
 against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto 
 thee." God forbids not robbing only, but oppres- 
 sion also ; the poor hireling must not be ground 
 down to a starvation price for his sweat and mus- 
 cle. Prophecy pronounced its v/oe upon such op- 
 pressors of men : " Woe unto him that buildeth his 
 house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by 
 wrong ; that useth his neighbor's service without 
 wages, and giveth him not for his work." The last 
 of t,he prophets threatens vengeance against the op- 
 pressor of hirelings, and grades him with the basest 
 of criminals. " And I will come near to you to 
 judgment ; and I will be a swift witness against the 
 sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against
 
 196 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 false swearers, and against those that oppress the 
 hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, 
 and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and 
 fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts." St. Paul 
 lays down broadly the principle that covers all 
 cases : " Masters, give unto your servants that which 
 is just and equal ; knowing that ye also have a 
 Master in heaven." St. James pierces the very 
 marrow of all oppressors of laborers and of the 
 helpless : " Behold, the hire of laborers who have 
 reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back 
 by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have 
 reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of 
 Sabaoth." And this Lord of Sabaoth saith, " Ven- 
 geance is mine ; I will repay." 
 
 There are some legal claims which, according to 
 God's law, cannot be enforced by a good man. 
 For instance, and it covers many cases, " No man 
 shall take the nether or the upper millstone to 
 pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge." 
 Debts should be paid ; over-exemption by law puts 
 a premium on dishonesty ; but the rich man, the 
 well-to-do man, who strips the poor neighbor down 
 to his skin for a debt is loathesomely mean. 
 
 That servants and hirelings should render faithfully 
 the service due from them is taught with equal clear- 
 ness. This principle covers every case, the highest 
 and the lowest, of what is due from the servant, 
 from the one working for wages : " Servants, be
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 1 97 
 
 obedient to them that are your masters according 
 to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness 
 of your heart, as unto Christ ; not with eye-serv- 
 ice, as men-pleasers ; but as the servants of Christ, 
 doing the will of God from the heart ; with good 
 will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to 
 men." 
 
 For masters and servants, for employers and 
 employes, for capitalists and laborers, God's word 
 lays down plain and unmistakable principles that 
 will conserve all the true interests of all men. But 
 it is noteworthy that more is said to the master 
 than to the servant ; perhaps because the very 
 weakness and dependence of the servant is some 
 protection against the temptation to neglect his 
 work he must. But power in all its forms is ex- 
 posed to nearly all possible forms of temptation. 
 And God, who knows the heart, gives most warn- 
 ings to those who need them most. 
 
 If we will keep these laws, interpreting and ap- 
 plying them in the spirit of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, the problem is solved. Outside the prin- 
 ciples of these laws and the spirit of the Gospel 
 there is no solution now or henceforth. The sooner 
 we understand this the better for all concerned. 
 To a class of persons, to some calling themselves 
 " publicists," " political economists," " philosoph- 
 ers," and to a class of so-called "reformers," and to 
 " doctrinaires " of every breed, these notions may
 
 198 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 seem to be antiquated. So with some persons 
 Bible morality is antiquated. But the Bible, after 
 all, gives us the true principles of sociology. 'Hu- 
 man society cannot exist, or go on at its best, or at 
 any thing in a thousand leagues of its best, on any 
 other basis than that which is laid down in the 
 book which has given to us all in our civilization 
 that is better than paganism. 
 
 NOTE. As a solemn warning to our law-makers to stand by the 
 word of God in this matter of divorce, I quote some statements 
 made in Tremont Temple, Boston, Massachusetts, January 24, 1881, 
 by the Rev. Samuel W. Dike, of Royalton, Vermont, who delivered 
 a notable lecture on "Facts as to Divorce in New England." Mr. 
 Dike's lecture was one of " The Boston Monday Lectures." After 
 giving a detailed history of divorce and of divorce laws in each of 
 the New England States, the lecturer said: "If, now, we sum up 
 for New England, there were in the year of grace 1878, in Maine, 
 437 divorces, in all but one county ; in New Hampshire, 241 ; in 
 Vermont, 197 ; in Massachusetts, 600 ; in Connecticut, 401 ; and in 
 Rhode Island, 196 : making a total of 2,072, with one county (An- 
 droscoggin, Me.) unreported, and a larger ratio in proportion to the 
 population than in France in the days of the Revolution. In France 
 the ratio of separation to marriages latterly is about I to 150; in 
 Belgium, of divorce to marriages, I to 270, with a few separations ; 
 and in England, of petitions for both divorce and separation, I to 
 300. On the basis of population by the present census, there was I 
 divorce to every 819 inhabitants in Maine ; I to about 820 in Penob- 
 scot County, the seat of a theological seminar)'; I to every 1,443 
 in New Hampshire; I to every 1,687 in Vermont; i to every 2,973 
 in Massachusetts; I to every 1,553 m Connecticut; and I to every 
 1,411 in Rhode Island. But no State is likely to have a larger 
 divorce rate than Massachusetts, unless the laws and discussion 
 speedily check the evil. But the Catholic marriages are, in four 
 States, 27 per cent, of the whole. Assuming, what is very nearly 
 true, that there are no divorces among these, the ratio of divorces 
 to marriages among Protestants is I to 11.7 for the four States
 
 The Negro as a Member of the Community. 199 
 
 together ; it being I to 15 in Massachusetts, I to 13 in Vermont, i to 
 9 in Rhode Island, and I in less than 8 in Connecticut. 
 
 "But what of divorce in the West ? Has not this practice, in 
 going West with the New Englander, run into greater extremes ? 
 Few States, if any, west of Ohio collect statistics of divorce. In 
 Ohio the ratio for many years averaged I to 25, and now it is about 
 I to 18. Indiana has changed her laws for the better ; while Illi- 
 nois has, it is said, adopted better forms of procedure. No city has 
 had a worse reputation in divorce than Chicago. Yet the records of 
 Cook County, with a population of about 600,000, for the five years, 
 1875-1879, show a ratio of divorce suits begun to marriage licenses 
 taken out of i to 9.4. But for the year 1875 it was found that one 
 fifth of the petitions heard were denied. Making this allowance 
 and the more strict practice of later years fully justified it the 
 ratio becomes I to 12. Chicago is not as bad as Hartford or New 
 Haven."
 
 200 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE NEGRO AND THE LAND. 
 
 T T NFORTUNATELY for all, the rich and the 
 **-' poor, the powers that be began thinking seri- 
 ously on the "land question" in Ireland a few cent- 
 uries too late for their peace. Had they known 
 two or three hundred years ago what they know 
 to-day, they would have managed better. Then 
 might there have been a "lengthening of their tran- 
 quillity." Is it not the part of wisdom for the 
 people of the South may be the question might 
 be widened in its application to take this " land 
 question" in hand while it is still manageable ? 
 
 It is not a subject to be dismissed with a sneer 
 or a snarl. Sneers and snarls never change facts. 
 Here are two facts: i. There are now over six 
 millions of negroes in the Southern States. They 
 will some day be ten millions, and many more ; the 
 mass of them are here to stay. 2. They do and they 
 will, of necessity, sustain some relation to the land. 
 
 If we begin in time, and employ good sense, we 
 of the present generation may do much to make 
 their relation to the land a useful and happy one. 
 On the other hand, if we wait too long missing
 
 The Negro and the Land. 201 
 
 our best opportunities and act foolishly, we will 
 hand down to our children an inheritance of em- 
 barrassments, burdens, and troubles without end. 
 
 We have been dealing, in a tentative sort of way, 
 for fifteen years with the questions that grew out 
 of emancipation, but we have done next to nothing 
 toward a satisfactory adjustment of the relation of 
 the freedmen to the land. Some do not seem to 
 know that there are relations to be adjusted they 
 just go on the same way, from year to year, till 
 they die. Axle-deep in ruts, they neither learn nor 
 forget. 
 
 As a rule each year among us is experimental. 
 As a class the land owners of the South have ab- 
 solutely no defined policy. Every year we make a 
 sort of " trial trip." Possibly all this experiment- 
 ing has been for the best ; certainly it could not be 
 otherwise. We had to learn whites and blacks 
 alike. Neither the land owners nor the negroes 
 could take any other land system bodily and trans- 
 fer it to Southern fields. The English system, even 
 if it suited the English, might fail utterly in the 
 South a large, thinly-settled country of cheap 
 lands, with two races so singularly related in their 
 past history and present connections. No system 
 of any country was based on natural or social con- 
 ditions like those of the Southern people. It was 
 our equation never yet " worked out ; " we could 
 not " copy " from another's slate ; there were un-
 
 202 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 known quantities many. The time element was 
 necessary ; there was nothing we could do but 
 make experiments to find out what best suited us. 
 
 But has not this tentative work gone on long 
 enough? Is it not time to look beyond the coming 
 Christmas? I ardently wish to keep to facts, and 
 I will not affirm, but I express the opinion, that 
 there are not in my county ten landlords or ten 
 tenants, white or black, who have any " understand- 
 ing " to say nothing of a " contract " that goes 
 further than the end of this present year; and this 
 county is much like the rest. There may be some 
 tenants who expect to stay where they are next 
 year ; hardly any even think about the third year ; 
 but " contracts" are " for the next crop." 
 
 There are several varieties of landlord. There 
 are the " planters," as they are called, who own 
 large bodies of land, some few owning several plan- 
 tations. For instance, a gentleman was in my 
 office the second week in January, whose family 
 residence is in Atlanta, Georgia. He owns, per- 
 haps, half a dozen plantations two or three in 
 Alabama ; he has lands in Stewart, also in Ran- 
 dolph, County in this State. Some of the large 
 land owners, as, for instance, a most successful 
 planter in Hancock County, Georgia, live upon 
 their plantations. This gentleman owns thousands 
 of acres, renting them to a small army of ten- 
 ants, some white and some black. There is a very
 
 The Negro and the Land. 203 
 
 large class of " farmers " owning from a few hun- 
 dred to a thousand acres. These, as a rule, cultivate 
 part of their land with hired labor and rent part to 
 tenants. White and black tenants " take land " on 
 the same basis. Three plans, with unimportant 
 exceptions, cover the entire tenant system among 
 us. i. Some lands are worked by tenants who pay 
 "a fixed sum." Thus: A. rents, for the year, a 
 field, or fields, to B., for so much money, B. taking 
 the chances of the crop. It is nearly always " a 
 lumping trade ; " that is, B. does not pay so much 
 per acre, but so much for the whole. 2. Lands are 
 rented for part of the crop. In Georgia the tenant 
 generally pays the landlord " one third of the corn " 
 and " one fourth of the cotton." 3. Some combine 
 the plans. There are many modifications growing 
 out of side issues ; as " fixing fences," " clearing 
 lands," "furnishing fertilizers," "making advances," 
 and many other such matters. And, as all must 
 see, the greater the number of modifications, the 
 larger the margin, and the more numerous the oc- 
 casions for misunderstandings when final settlements 
 are made. But in any case, with the fewest pos- 
 sible exceptions, it is " a one-year" system through 
 and through. It all has to be gone over and con- 
 tracted about at the beginning of each year. 
 
 The " lease " system has hardly been tried at 
 all ; it is practically unknown among us. It is, per- 
 haps, true that hitherto the conditions of this whole
 
 204 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 question have made it impracticable to make long 
 contracts or leases. But id this sort of thing this 
 everlasting flux this annual change (or at best 
 renewal, optional with both parties) of landlords 
 and tenants, to go on always ? Then, year by year, 
 our difficulties and embarrassments will increase. 
 As it seems to me, if there is no help for it, there is 
 no help for us whether this "us" means tenants 
 or landlords. 
 
 Is it not time to study "leases" long leases? 
 If a planter is afraid to commit himself too far, 
 might he not, while holding on to this " year-by- 
 year " plan of renting as to a portion of his lands, 
 try a long lease on another portion, that he may 
 make a fair comparison of methods ? People learn 
 by trying experiments. 
 
 Is it not reasonably certain that a judicious lease 
 system would, in the long run, be better for both 
 parties to this question ? This one-year system 
 puts both parties in a position that landlord and 
 tenant ought never to occupy ; namely, to give as 
 little and get as much as possible, but without 
 reference to that which is vital to the money inter- 
 ests of both the improvement of the farm. Let 
 us see whether this is an overstatement. 
 
 I. A. rents B. for this year fifty acres, we will 
 say, for one thir.d of the corn and one fourth of 
 the cotton. B. lays all his plans as to this field for 
 this year. His thought is, I will get out of it all
 
 The Negro and tJie Land. 205 
 
 I can, I will put on it as little as possible, so as to 
 save myself this year. He begins late and hurries 
 through his year's work, so as to save, for outside 
 jobs, all the time he can. Saving time is good, if 
 it be not taken from the right care and culture of 
 the land. The tenant's motive to make the land 
 permanently better is, by this one-year plan, re- 
 duced to the lowest possible force ; in many cases 
 it is obliterated. An example occurred under my 
 observation last year. A colored man owned a small 
 field and rented, for one year only, another. He 
 repaired his own fences ; he did not touch the 
 fences of the rented field, except to patch just 
 enough to " turn stock." Now, that fence patched 
 and not mended wont turn stock. On his own 
 lands he used stable manure, looking to the second 
 year for part of its benefit ; on the rented land he 
 employed guano, because he believed he would get 
 all its benefit the first year. On the one-year plan 
 the tenant does nothing he can help doing. He has 
 little motive to take care of the place, except so far 
 as maybe necessary to secure his part of the year's 
 crop. Drainage is neglected, fences are half mended, 
 nothing is done for the real and permanent better- 
 ment of the land. This annual change destroys all 
 healthful motive to substantial improvement of soil 
 or premises. 
 
 2. The very fact of making contracts year by 
 year introduces a feverish restlessness that is alien to
 
 206 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 the best agricultural life. The tenant is on the con- 
 stant lookout for a change, taking often the barest 
 chances for bettering his condition. Many of them 
 spend enough time place-hunting to make a poor 
 place desirable. 
 
 3. Under this one-year plan the landlord has 
 little motive to make permanent and valuable im- 
 provements. He knows not who will come next 
 year, and feels no security that his improvements 
 will be cared for. 
 
 4. It creates, as has been intimated, unnatural 
 relations between landlord and tenant. Each is 
 looking out for himself, and neither has any business 
 interest in the other beyond the end of the year. 
 
 There are seeming exceptions to the foregoing 
 statements concerning the prevalence of the one-year 
 system, as in many cases where tenants or hired hands 
 remain for a number of years, annually renewing their 
 contracts. This is only better than an actual move 
 and change each year, but it does not secure, as is 
 obvious, the benefit of a long occupancy provided 
 for in the contract. In the " state of mind," rest- 
 le^s, uncertain, and more or less suspicious, that has 
 prevailed with our people, both with whites and 
 negroes, for a number of years, it may well be ad- 
 mitted that these year-by-year arrangements were 
 all that were practicable. Very well ; but what 
 about the next decade, the next generation, the 
 next hundred years? Surely no one who has in-
 
 The Negro and the Land. 207 
 
 formed himself on these subjects in the history of 
 other nations, or who can look straight at disagree- 
 able facts which involve himself, will undertake to 
 justify on grounds of sound economy our present 
 uncertain and wasteful system. 
 
 Let me ask if it be profitable to rent a farm to a 
 freedman for one year for so much money, or for 
 a part of the crop, why will it not be more profita- 
 ble to rent it to him for ten years, at a somewhat 
 lower rate ? Would the landlord not realize more 
 on a ten-years' lease to a proper tenent at one fifth 
 of the crop than at one third paid by the same 
 tenant during the ten years on an annually renewed 
 rent contract, where neither party looks beyond 
 " next Christmas ?" If not, why not ? It seems to 
 me that in such a test of methods one fifth would 
 turn out more than one third.* The ten-years' 
 
 * Improved lands and better tillage would avoid a dilemma in 
 which an old negro of our village found himself a number of years 
 ago. He was a long time the servant of the Rev. John W. Talley, a 
 venerable superannuated preacher of the South Georgia Conference, 
 of the Southern Methodist Church. His name was William, and he, 
 too, was a preacher. He stood on his dignity beyond most of his 
 race, and would introduce himself to strangers after this fashion : 
 " Mornin', sah ; I am the Rev. William Talley, sah." His face 
 was a study, particularly the mouth, which was over-size. That in- 
 describable " set " which so often shows itself in the lips of colored 
 preachers and of some white preachers, too was in the Rev. Will- 
 iam a striking part of the countenance. It comes through cultivat- 
 ing solemnity of expression, not from a hypocritical tendency, but 
 from the belief that it is " the way to do," if one would be thought 
 vety pious. During the last year of the war, standing in the pas-
 
 208 OUR BROTHER ix BLACK. 
 
 lease would, at least, offer the tenant some induce- 
 ment to improve the farm ; the one-year plan only 
 makes it to his interest to squeeze out of it all he 
 can. The rule as stated is to put nothing on that 
 he cannot get off by Christmas. He does not drain, 
 he does not make a good fence, he does not plant a 
 tree, he does not plow for next year's crop, he 
 does not permanently enrich the lands ; he does 
 nothing in the world he can help doing, except as it 
 effects the crop in hand. A sensible, and therefore 
 just, lease system would save to the South millions 
 of dollars now paid out every year for " commercial 
 fertilizers," in which there has perhaps been as 
 much downright swindling as in any business ever 
 carried on among men. On our one-year plan of 
 renting lands " guano " is necessary ; there must be 
 quick returns and the tenant wants it all returned ; 
 on a long-lease plan the more natural and perma- 
 nent methods of fertilization would, beyond ques- 
 tion, be adopted, because it would be to the 
 interests of all to adopt it. And in due course of 
 
 senger depot in Atlanta one day, I heard a wicked fellow say, " I'll 
 bet a dollar that old darky is a preacher; I know by his mouth." 
 
 On one occasion the old man was sent to '"haul in" the corn 
 crop from a little field his master had rented for " the third." The 
 old fellow was perfectly honest, though not up in arithmetic. It 
 turned out that the little field yielded but two loads. Old William 
 put both loads in his master's crib, and reported to the astonished 
 landlord as follows, " Dare is no third, sah, de land am too pore U 
 perduce de third, sah." It was not a bad commentary on our very 
 primitive, hand-to-mouth system of annual renting.
 
 The Negro and the Land. 209 
 
 time it would come to pass in the South, as in 
 other countries well tilled, the longer a field is cul- 
 tivated the more productive it becomes. As things 
 have been with us, men in buying or renting lands 
 are influenced in their judgment very much as they 
 are in buying a horse the older he is the less he is 
 worth. 
 
 It is surely time that our people began to study 
 the lease systems of other countries ; it is time to 
 begin experiments for ourselves; in due time we 
 will develop a system suited to our wants. Some 
 day there will be, it is to be hoped, an end of this 
 " crop-to-crop " method of farming ; leases for nine- 
 ty and nine years will yet be made of Southern 
 lands. 
 
 In concluding on this point it may be remarked 
 that a long lease is itself a conservative influence. 
 The longer the lease the less of a " tramp " does 
 the tenant become. It not only settles him down 
 to systematic, intelligent work, but it tends to deliv- 
 er him from the systemless and thriftless style of 
 living that characterizes the man who only does 
 "jobs "as he can pick them up from day to day, 
 and that shows itself in the life of the man and the 
 family that always expects to " move at the end of 
 the year." 
 
 For a long time, many of the negroes, perhaps 
 the majority of them, will be hirelings; at most, 
 
 tenants. So will ,be rnany white men. There never 
 14
 
 2io OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 was a country where all were fitted to be proprie- 
 tors, even of very small " holdings." And for the 
 reason it is not in them to " hold " any thing ; they 
 have no grip. If every negro family (so far as the 
 general truth is concerned the adjective may be 
 dropped) were to begin this year with the mythical 
 " forty acres and a mule, and a year's supply of pro- 
 visions," or with any other similar outfit for inde- 
 pendent life as small proprietors, it would not be 
 long before a great multitude would be landless and 
 knocking at the doors of better managers for em- 
 ployment. But many negroes are fitted to be land- 
 owners, as well as long tenants, and they will be if 
 the chance be given them. And it is sound policy 
 to give them the chance the chance to buy and 
 pay for and own farms suitable to them. 
 
 A farm worth buying is good enough to pay for 
 itself in a few years, if it is in the hands of a man 
 fit to own it. I believe that, on many accounts, it 
 is desirable that a large number of negroes should 
 become land-owners. In looking into this subject, 
 it will hinder clearness of judgment if we raise, pre- 
 maturely, the question, If many of them become 
 land owners, where are planters to get labor ? 
 For this discussion concerns not the planter alone, 
 but the whole frame-work of our Southern system. 
 This is not a question of what is to the convenience 
 or interests of a few thousand planters, but of what 
 is to the interests of several millions of people. I
 
 The Negro and the Land. 211 
 
 have no prejudice against that small and diminish- 
 ing class known as " planters," as distinguished from 
 " farmers." I have no reason to have. Many of 
 my best personal friends are among them. But 
 the welfare of the whole people is a more important 
 matter than the welfare of a few men. 
 
 Moreover, as I think, my friend, planter A., is 
 unnecessarily alarmed about his future labor ; surely 
 it is not necessary that the many should be kept 
 landless that the few may secure laborers.* 
 
 There are several things planter A. may consider 
 to abate his alarm, i. There will always be a great 
 multitude of landless people. Not before the mil- 
 lennium will all families have homes of their own. 
 
 2. Good wages always attracts labor. But if 
 planter A. should fail of getting negro labor to suit 
 his views, there are still open doors of deliverance 
 for him. He may, (i,) as most landlords do in 
 older countries, give long leases to worthy tenants ; 
 or, (2,) look to other labor ; or, (3,) if nothing can be 
 done, he can sell out. For, if it come to this, it 
 is better there should be no great planters than 
 that there should be hundreds of thousands of 
 landless people re-enforcing year by year the army 
 of tramps and criminals. 
 
 * If it be said, " A few men own the land in England," I answer, 
 Yes ; but their long-lease system largely satisfies the land-owning 
 instinct of their tenants. On our year-by-year system they could not 
 hold their land, with a crowded, clamorous population around 
 them ; and they do not feel over-secure as it is.
 
 212 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Some of the benefits that would accrue to the 
 whole people, to the State, if a large number of 
 negro families should become the owners of their own 
 
 o 
 
 farms, I suggest. There are others of importance 
 that will suggest themselves to the reader some, 
 no doubt, that have not occurred to me. 
 
 1. Owning land tends to foster, the virtues that 
 make a people happy, strong, and prosperous. It 
 encourages industry and promotes economy. It 
 furnishes the right soil for all those affections and sen- 
 timents that are the life and soul of homes. The one- 
 year tenant has the poorest chance to make a home ; 
 the long-lease tenant is in far better case ; the land 
 owner, although of only a very small " parcel of 
 ground," is in the best case of all. The best homes 
 grow out of ownership of the soil. 
 
 2. Owning land makes people, of whatever color, 
 more conservative. This has always been true. 
 The wisest of the Romans understood this. . Land- 
 owners are almost entirely removed from the influ- 
 ences of communism. Mobs are not made up of 
 land-owners. The ownership of an acre and a cab- 
 in makes a man think twice before taking part in a 
 riot. Is it not to be considered that six millions 
 of landless people, moving, most of them, every year, 
 are in position to be influenced by the fanatics 
 and desperadoes that break out now and then in 
 some of our cities? 
 
 3. Land-owners feel an interest in government
 
 The Negro and the Land. 213 
 
 beyond their mere chance at its disbursements. 
 The land-owner, although of but few acres, is con- 
 cerned about the income as well as the outgo of 
 public money; he is concerned in the question of 
 taxation. While planter A. is nursing his unneces- 
 sary fears about a lack of labor, should a goodly 
 number of negroes become small proprietors, would 
 it not be well for him to think of the possibilities of 
 his being taxed out of his great estates ? The land- 
 less are always tempted to overtax proprietors ; and 
 there are always demagogues plenty to speculate on 
 this tendency. If we should live to see ten million 
 negroes in the South, (our children will,) and nearly 
 all of them landless, and among them two millions 
 of voters, we will see a very unhealthful, not to say, 
 dangerous, state of things. In such a case all land- 
 owners and property owners of every class are at 
 the mercy of the landless multitudes, who are practi- 
 cally irresponsible to reason, in that their poverty ex- 
 empts them from taxation and their unreasoning in- 
 stinct puts the blame of their poverty on the rich 
 minority. We may not wait two generations to 
 realize these dangers ; they may not be far off; there 
 are now premonitory tremors in the ground. The 
 negro vote in the South, in a number of States at least, 
 has been divided once by Southern men. Many do not 
 see the significance of this. Yet there are dema- 
 gogues enough to use all the instincts of this once- 
 divided black vote to turn the scale in many elections.
 
 2i4 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 But if among the ten millions of negroes who will be 
 here after a while there should be only five hundred 
 thousand owners of farms, even small farms, there will 
 be in them a conservative force that may save all prop- 
 erty from virtual confiscation and society from chaos. 
 If planter A., with his five thousand acres, is wise, he 
 will hasten to establish a few negro voters as land- 
 owners. He will save money by making it to their 
 interest to keep a sharp eye on government, its tax- 
 ations, and its disbursements. If planter A. thinks 
 it important that this colored man vote with him, 
 he would better establish him as a proprietor. When 
 it comes to taxes, the land votes, for the most part, 
 one way. 
 
 4. Owning land will, in most respects at least, have 
 the same effect upon the negro that it has upon the 
 white man. * It will create in him so deep a personal 
 and family interest in honest and capable govern- 
 ment, as greatly to raise his character as a voter. 
 A man who owns a farm, be it ever so small, is not 
 so apt to sell his vote for a dollar or a dram as is the 
 man who owns nothing but his muscle. Such a voter 
 begins to consider the character of the man he votes 
 for. Bad legislation will, he sees, come back to 
 his farm. There can be no doubt that owning even 
 a little property, especially landed property, greatly 
 sharpens a voter's wits, in town or country, in choosing 
 rulers. In this one case, at least, self-interest serves to- 
 clarify the judgment and to support the conscience.
 
 The Negro and the Land. 215 
 
 What is equally important, the man who feels 
 that the acre he works is his own is more independ- 
 ent in his choice and action. We may be very 
 sure that one hundred negroes owning little farms, 
 and one hundred owning nothing, are very different 
 forces in society and government. It is just as true 
 of white men. 
 
 5. If such of them as are fitted for it were land- 
 owners they could do something in bearing the ex- 
 penses of government. They would largely increase 
 the resources of the State. Some will say : " Some- 
 body owns the land now and pays tax on it." 
 But he owns, most likely, a great deal that pays him 
 nothing and that is on the tax lists at one tenth of 
 what it ought to be worth. Mr. B.'s plantation of 
 one thousand acres, half worked and a burden to 
 him, is nominally worth from $4 to $6 per acre. 
 From what he told me recently, I doubt if it nets 
 him three per cent, on this low nominal valuation. 
 If five hundred of the one thousand acres were 
 divided into ten fifty-acre farms, and worked by as 
 many negro families, owning them, the value of the 
 whole would be doubled. The five hundred sold 
 would support as many as fifty persons, and leave 
 something to sell ; the five hundred kept by Mr. B. 
 could be put in first-class condition with part of the 
 proceeds of the portion sold.; it could be worked 
 effectively and made worth more than the whole of 
 the thousand acres as they now stand. There are
 
 216 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 thousands of proprietors in Mr. B.'s case, and there 
 has been enough experimenting of the kind sug- 
 gested to show its feasibility and usefulness. 
 
 Is there any property less valuable or desirable 
 than a large landed property that cannot be worked, 
 or in any way made productive, but that must pay 
 tax year after, year? We have multitudes of poor 
 and embarrassed land-owners in the South who 
 would be comparatively rich with one half of what 
 they now own and cannot manage. 
 
 6. The South needs a large number of negro farm- 
 ers, settled on their own farms, for a reason that 
 will some day become exigent : we need them 
 as a grand self-sustaining and efficient moral and 
 social police against the idle and vicious of their 
 own race. The land-owning negro is the sworn foe 
 of " tramps." The antagonism is as natural as that 
 between shepherds and " sheep-killing dogs." It is 
 a very rare thing that a negro desperado belongs to 
 a family settled on its own land. If a large num- 
 ber of negro families were established on their own 
 farms they would prevent, cure, and put down vag- 
 abondage as no " vagrant act " ever devised could 
 do it. 
 
 7. It is of very great importance to make possible 
 such industrial and social development among the 
 negroes that they may become strong enough to 
 provide for the helpless of their own race. I-could 
 mention a number of cases, where the fact of own-
 
 The Negro and the Land. 217 
 
 ing a little land enabled certain negro families to 
 assist others of their race, less fortunate, in the hour 
 of their need. Within gunshot of my own house are 
 several negro families able to make comfortable 
 some old and helpless " grandfathers " and " grand- 
 mothers " by virtue of owning their homes, And 
 they do it creditably to themselves ; thus honoring 
 their own hearts and keeping their poor " off the 
 county." 
 
 Our white people may, however, make up their 
 minds to it, that if the negroes continue, as most 
 of them now are, for another generation, we will 
 have to go into the business of keeping "poor-houses" 
 and of supporting paupers on a scale of things 
 not now in our imagination. By every considera- 
 tion of good sense and good conscience, if the 
 negro is to stay here, (and nothing is more certain 
 so far as human calculations go,) we should desire 
 him to become as useful as he may be made to 
 himself, his family, his neighbors, and the State. 
 
 8. I mention another matter of large significance 
 and importance, that will be considered some day. 
 May it not be too late ! It is eminently desirable 
 that the negro, as a citizen and as a man, should 
 develop in his breast the sentiment of patriotism. 
 Up till a recent period their interest in the country 
 has been largely confined to one of the political 
 parties. But partisan zeal is no substitute for 
 patriotism ; nor is gratitude to a party, or to a section
 
 218 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 of the country, even, a substitute for love 01 country. 
 In several communities I have observed that as the 
 negroes lost interest in the party with which they 
 had been identified, they lost their interest in the 
 elections, and largely in the country itself. It is ab- 
 solutely certain that thousands upon thousands of 
 negroes did for years stand in expectancy, looking 
 for the " forty acres and a mule." And it is equally 
 certain that this foolish deception went far to shake 
 their confidence and to disgust them with politics. 
 There is, I believe, no condition so favorable to 
 the development of patriotic feeling among a people 
 with the antecedents and surroundings of Southern 
 negroes as the ownership of land. In every nation 
 patriotism is rooted in the soil and nourished by it.* 
 
 * It is proper and just to say that one strong reason, alluded to in 
 chapter ii, why many Southern people have been reluctant to sell lands 
 to negroes, is their fear that it might retard the immigration they 
 hope for. They feel, what all the world knows, that slavery former- 
 ly, and the presence of free negroes now, with all the embarrass- 
 ments that have grown out of these facts, have been a bar to immigra- 
 tion. Witness the fact that there are in Georgia, for example, in a 
 population of 1,538,783, only 10,310 of foreign birth. But I suggest 
 that the foreigners who might wish to come among us would prefer to 
 settle in a State where many of the negroes own farms than where 
 they own none ; simply because all men, who think clearly, must 
 know that a land-owner, though poor and black, is a better citizen 
 and a better neighbor than a man who changes his place, or is liable 
 to change it, every year. I undertake to say, and with perfect con- 
 fidence, that the negroes who, in Georgia, according to the Report of 
 the Comptroller-General for 1880, own 586,664 acres of " improved 
 lands," represent the very best sense and character in the negro 
 population in the State.
 
 The Negro and the Land. 219 
 
 9. I mention, lastly, as a reason why it is desira- 
 ble that there should be many land-owners among 
 the negroes, what good people will consider and 
 lay to heart : it is best every way for their moral, 
 social, and race development. I cannot conceive 
 of a good man who does not wish the best fortune 
 to all men of every race. I cannot conceive 
 of a good man who would not rejoice to see the 
 negroes more comfortable, intelligent, moral, useful, 
 than they are. I should despise myself to have any 
 other feeling toward any human creature. And let 
 us remember always that in thinking of the provi- 
 dence of God, in his dealings with the negroes in 
 this country, we must never confine our thoughts 
 to those few negroes nor to this small section of 
 the earth. We must think of the unknown millions 
 in Africa and of the destiny of two continents. 
 That the Christianized negroes in this country may 
 realize their providential mission in the world, they 
 have need to be anchored in the soil that supports 
 them. For the Church no less than the State must, 
 in the last analysis, find its resources of men and 
 money in agriculture. The field and not the count- 
 ing-room is at the basis of society. Africa must 
 largely draw its missionary re-enforcements, genera- 
 tion after generation, from the land-owning negroes 
 of the Southern States of our Union.
 
 220 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 CHAPTER XVH, 
 
 THE AFRICAN CHURCHES IN AMERICA. 
 
 I HAVE said that there are nearly one million 
 people of African blood communicants in the 
 different Churches in this country.* The whole 
 negro population has been brought largely under 
 the influence of religious principle and sentiment. 
 
 I have had good opportunity to know the relig- 
 ious characteristics of these people. My old nurse, 
 "Aunt Esther," was a Christian, if ever there was 
 one in this world. She lived and died in the enjoy- 
 ment and practice of religion. Her plaintive melo- 
 dies linger in my grateful memory to this hour. 
 My mother has with her now the same cook she 
 had in 1851. "Aunt Mary" is a "stalwart Meth- 
 odist ; " the pictures of all her Bishops, Bishop 
 Allen's in the center, hang in her room. She shout- 
 ed mightily the first time she listened to my boy- 
 
 * I might have said more than a million, as follows those "esti- 
 mated" expressing the judgment of the best informed : 
 
 African Methodist Episcopal Church 214,808 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, (colored) 190,000 
 
 Colored Methodist Episcopal Church 112,300 
 
 Meth. Episcopal Church (col'd members estim'd) 300,000 
 Colored Baptists (estimated) 500,000
 
 The African Churches in America. 221 
 
 preaching, in 1858, while yet a student in Emory 
 College. 
 
 I have seen the negroes in all their religious 
 moods, in their most death-like trances and in their 
 wildest outbreaks of excitement. I have preached 
 to them in town and city and on the plantations. 
 I have been their pastor, have led their class and 
 prayer meetings, conducted their love-feasts, taught 
 them the Catechism. I have married them, baptized 
 their children, and buried their dead. In the real- 
 ity of religion among them I have the most entire 
 confidence, nor can I ever doubt it while religion is 
 a reality to me. Their notions may be in some, 
 things crude, their conceptions of truth realistic, 
 sometimes to a painful, sometimes to a grotesque, 
 degree. They may be more emotional than ethical. 
 They may show many imperfections in their re- 
 ligious development ; nevertheless their religion is 
 their most striking and important, their strongest 
 and most formative, characteristic. They are more 
 remarkable here than anywhere else ; their religion 
 has had more to do in shaping their better charac- 
 ter in this country than any other influence ; it will 
 most determine what they are to become in their fu- 
 ture development. No man, whatever his personal 
 relations to the subject, who seeks to understand 
 these people, can afford to overlook or undervalue 
 their religious history and character. Whatever the 
 student of their history may believe on the subject
 
 222 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 of religion in general and of their religion in particu- 
 lar, this is certain it is most real to them. To them 
 God is a reality. So are heaven, hell, and the judg- 
 ment-day. 
 
 Their Churches are the centers of their social and 
 religious life. No man has more influence with his 
 following than has the negro pastor. Some of their 
 " shepherds " may be far from being " patterns and 
 ensamples to the flock," but they have power with 
 their people. Many of them are men who, in zeal, 
 devotion, and Christlikeness of spirit, are worthy to 
 take rank with the confessors and saints of any age 
 .or Church. There is an old man in this village 
 from whom the wisest may learn and the holiest 
 may receive new inspiration in their religious life. 
 Many times he has done me good. David Cureton 
 will claim many stars in his crown of rejoicing. In 
 the old days many of the slave preachers were men 
 of marked character and religious power. Many 
 will be their trophies when " the day " reveals the 
 secrets of all men. Their skill in " exegesis " and 
 " dialectics " was limited, but their power in ex- 
 hortation and application was notable.* Now that 
 education is doing its blessed work in them more 
 perfectly, many of them are men of real intellectual 
 
 * The following incident is historic. I suppress his name, for I truly 
 respect him, and somebody might tease my old colored brother. He 
 was preaching on the " Fiery Furnace and the Three Hebrew Chil- 
 dren." His history and geography were confused, and by some 
 chance he got his biblical history mixed up with some mythologic non-
 
 The African Churches in America. 223 
 
 power. Some names could be given that are known 
 and honored on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 The hope of the African race in this country is 
 largely in its pulpit. The school-house and the 
 newspaper have not substituted the pulpit, as a 
 throne of spiritual power, in any Christian nation. 
 I do not believe that they ever will. But for this 
 race the pulpit is pre-eminently its teacher. Here 
 they must receive their best counsels and their 
 divinest inspiration. I say its pulpit ; I mean this. 
 White preachers have done much and ought to have 
 done more ; they can now do much and ought to do 
 a hundred-fold more than they do ; but the great 
 work must be done by preachers of the negro race. 
 Tongues and ears were made for each other; in 
 each race both its tongues and its ears have char- 
 acteristics of their own. No other tongue can 
 speak to the negro's ear like a negro's tongue. All 
 races are so ; some missionaries have found this 
 
 sense he had heard from the " college boys." He gave a most 
 dramatic account of the scene and occasion they excel in this sort 
 of thing and managed himself and his theme tolerably well till he 
 came to speak of the "fourth" man whom Nebuchadnezzar saw 
 " walking in the midst of the fire." Whereupon he delivered him- 
 self in this wise : " My brutherin, commentators differ as to who 
 this fourth one wus. -Some say it wus Moses, some say it wus 
 Isaiah ; but my opinion is he ware Jupiter." Yet this same man 
 had power with men in exhortation and power with God in prayer. 
 On questions of sin, repentance, faith in Christ, and religious ex- 
 perience he could touch the conscience till it quivered in agony, 
 and move the heart till it melted with contrition or burst forth into 
 songs of gladness. Moreover, he lived his religion.
 
 224 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 out. In every mission field the "native ministry" 
 does a work that no other can do. 
 
 How urgent the need and how sacred the duty 
 of preparing those of this race whom God calls to 
 preach to their people ! Heaven bless the men and 
 women who have given money and personal service 
 for their education ! Heaven bless their " schools 
 of the prophets!" May they ever be under the 
 wisest guidance and the holiest influences ! 
 
 Mistakes were inevitable ; some unwholesome in- 
 fluences have, in some cases, marred the good work. 
 This should not surprise us. But, after all, never 
 was money better spent than in founding training- 
 schools for a native African ministry. Would God 
 that some Southern men and women counted 
 themselves worthy to take part in this ministry 
 of consecrated gold and holy teaching ! 
 
 I am as sure as I am that it is January, 1881, that 
 the negro preachers are, as a class, improving, and 
 that they are capable of large culture, both intel- 
 lectual and spiritual. But I do not wish to theorize 
 about their intellectual capacity overestimated by 
 enthusiasts, on one side, underestimated, on the 
 other, by those who think that consistency means 
 sticking to an expressed opinion, facts or no facts. 
 The measure of their capacity I do not know ; 
 perhaps no man knows. How should any one 
 know? The experiment is only in process; it may 
 take a century to complete it. But nothing is
 
 The African Churches in America. 225 
 
 more certain than that they are capable of large 
 improvement. 
 
 In studying the religious characteristics of the 
 negroes one who is informed and is only concerned 
 about facts leaving his theories and pet plans of 
 Church work to take care of themselves will be 
 impressed with the power of their ecclesiastical or- 
 ganizations. Whether the negro Church leaders 
 have an instinct for government I know not, but 
 this I know they hold together well. They are 
 devoted to their Churches. There is not simply 
 individual enthusiasm, but a certain esprit in the 
 congregations that might well be the envy and 
 despair of many a white pastor. They go their 
 length for their Church. But one Church in the 
 world has such a grasp upon the money question 
 I mean the Roman Catholic Church. A negro con- 
 gregation in Atlanta, for instance, (where I recently, 
 after preaching in one of the colored churches, wit- 
 nessed a collection that was a marvel to me,) will 
 raise more money, in proportion to ability, than 
 any white congregation in that city of enterprise 
 and liberality. When two of the " stewards," ap- 
 pointed to this office, stand up before .the chancel 
 and take up the collection, the contributors march- 
 ing up while the congregation sings some simple 
 recitative and chorus of their own, then, be sure, 
 there will be a hail of nickels and dimes. They 
 
 work wonders in their money management partic- 
 15
 
 226 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 ularly the " stewardesses." To mention another 
 characteristic, no people in the world can match 
 them in sticking to a protracted meeting. It is no 
 uncommon thing for them to hold straight on for 
 three or even six months. There is something in 
 this persistence besides religious enthusiasm ; the 
 Church, as intimated above, is the center of their 
 social as well as of their religious life. In any 
 view, it is a potent influence. No doubt there 
 are many follies and extravagances, many mistakes 
 and wastes of power, but, nevertheless, they make 
 headway. 
 
 The most remarkable tendency that has so far 
 shown itself in the development of their ecclesi- 
 astical life is the strong, and, as I think, resistless, 
 disposition, in those of like faith, to come together 
 in their religious organizations. The centripetal is 
 stronger than the centrifugal force. We have al- 
 ready a number of African Churches. Indeed, the 
 great majority of them belong to Churches not 
 only of their own " faith and order," but of their 
 own " race and color." This tendency showed 
 itself in many ways in the South, before their 
 emancipation. I have known them, in old times, 
 walk from ten to fifteen miles on a Sunday to 
 attend their own meetings. This disposition has 
 become very pronounced, and has expressed itself 
 on a very large scale since they were set free. 
 
 I have meditated much on this subject, and give
 
 TJie African Churches in America. 227 
 
 my opinion holding it subject to revision, if the 
 facts of their future development require it. As the 
 matter appears to me, after much observation and 
 much conversation with those who fairly represent 
 their people, there is somewhere, in their secret 
 thoughts and aspirations, a mighty under-current 
 of sentiment that tends to bring them into race- 
 affiliations in their religious development. It is an 
 instinct that does not recognize itself, that does not 
 argue, that cannot express itself in words, but that 
 moves straight on to its ends, steady, resistless, 
 and, in the end, triumphant. And, as this whole 
 problem appears to me, the hand of God is in it. 
 He who gave to the stork knowledge of " her ap- 
 pointed times " in her flight through the heavens, 
 has implanted this strong instinct of coming to- 
 gether, and for the wisest and most beneficent of 
 far-reaching and saving ends. 
 
 An illustration is now being furnished of the cor- 
 rectness of these views, and in a very impressive 
 and striking manner. The Methodist Episcopal 
 Church is, perhaps, the strongest single ecclesias- 
 tical organization in this country. Since the war 
 this Church has lavished and not always wisely 
 its treasures of men and money upon the South. 
 Its disbursements of money in the prosecution of 
 its Southern work sum up among the millions. 
 We have seen what it has been doing for thirteen 
 years through the " Freedmen's Aid Society." Its
 
 228 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 great Missionary Society has spent hundreds of 
 thousands upon their Southern work. The " Church 
 Extension Society" has helped mightily investing, 
 many thousands in assisting the negroes to build 
 churches. 
 
 Within the old slave States they have about 
 400,003 members. Of the whole number perhaps 
 250,000 are negroes. In such States as Virginia, the 
 Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Loui- 
 siana the negroes are very greatly in the majority. 
 
 I have had good knowledge of the work of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. I have 
 studied the subject carefully in their broad exhibit 
 of statistics and in their press. I have studied it 
 also in detail. In my town of Oxford they have a 
 church. Some of its members are of my house- 
 hold. Among its older members are those who 
 were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, before the war. I was, with the Rev. John 
 W. Talley, at one time, in 1859, their pastor. The 
 old college janitor, the Rev. David Cureton, now a 
 superannuated preacher of the Savannah Confer- 
 ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a 
 local preacher in the old organization. " Judge 
 Levi," and " Mrs. Judge" as they were known to 
 the students who lived near the college campus 
 thirty years ago, where they live to-day, were 
 members then and they are members now. In 
 this congregation is the quadroon woman, "Aunt
 
 The African Churches in America. 229 
 
 Amie," or Mrs. Williams, (she that has " had her 
 own time and her own way " for thirty years,) 
 who will be remembered by many old students 
 for excellent laundry work. And others of the 
 "old set" still survive much inclined they are 
 to look upon the younger negroes, who never 
 knew the " old times," as mere parvenus. In their 
 social and religious character they are as good as 
 the new, and as workers somewhat better. Faith- 
 ful work was done for them, and the colored pas- 
 tors of to-day will not take it to heart if it be sug- 
 gested that the preaching in the old time averaged 
 better than it does now. 
 
 Since this Church, with many others, "went 
 over " in a body to the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, in 1867, I have had exceptionally good op- 
 portunity to know their affairs. My honored father 
 in-law, the Rev. John W. Yarbrough, of blessed 
 memory, who was an itinerant (and ordained elder 
 by Bishop Morris) before the " division," who had 
 been from 1844 a traveling preacher in the Church 
 South, entered the ministry of the Church North, 
 January, 1867. After seven years of faithful serv- 
 ice in the Church North, he returned to the Church 
 South, and having, in both Churches, diligently 
 " served his generation according to the will of 
 God," winning many trophies in each, died, Decem- 
 ber 1 6, 1879, in the fullness and triumph of Chris- 
 tian faith. He was for two years the pastor of this
 
 230 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 Oxford Colored Church in their present organization, 
 and for four years their presiding elder. From 
 him I learned all the facts that characterized their 
 transition period, and whatever was important in 
 the opinions and sentiments of the other colored 
 Churches in his charge. 
 
 For six years and more I have had my residence 
 very near their Church, preaching for them and 
 helping them in all ways possible to me.* I was 
 welcomed by them before the "Cape May Treaty" 
 between the two Churches. 
 
 I think I know the Oxford Colored Church well. 
 My opinion is, it is steadily improving, being yet 
 far from perfection. For years the Freedmen's 
 Aid Society helped to support a school for them. 
 It was while on an official visit to this school that 
 I first met the Rev. Dr. R. S. Rust, the Secretary 
 of the Society, and began to learn something of 
 their methods. In this school many have been 
 taught the " rudiments," and so the average intelli- 
 gence has increased. I have known their pastors, 
 who, for several years past, have been colored men. 
 Some of them have been very ignorant, some of 
 them rather superior for their class. But this is 
 
 * Some of the more " stylish " have imitated white people, going 
 from their pastor for exceptional service, as a marriage or a funeral, 
 and have insisted on my presence. But the colored pastors have 
 not seemed to be at all jealous ; the " fees " disturb no man's equa- 
 nimity.
 
 The African Churches in America. 231 
 
 certain, they improve. This Church " commands 
 better talent " than it did six years ago. One of its 
 dangers is, and it is no small danger, nearly every 
 man among them who feels that he has some " gift 
 of speech " wants " license." As many white 
 Churches have done, they, too, have overdone the 
 " license " business, sometimes mistaking, I have 
 thought, a desire to do good for a call to preach. 
 
 The reader will pardon these rather gossipy 
 details. I wished to show that I have not been 
 looking at these people through a telescope, that I 
 have some right to an opinion as to their charac- 
 teristics and tendencies. 
 
 Now, the Methodist Episcopal Church has done 
 very nearly its best for these colored people in the 
 South, and its best means a great deal. And the 
 colored people are not ungrateful. This Church 
 has not only spent millions of money, it has laid 
 itself out to make the colored members " feel at 
 home." They began with mixed Conferences, not 
 distinguishing colors in statistics or appointments. 
 Of eloquent speech and writing there has been no 
 lack to educate the colored people to forget their 
 color. This tenderness shows itself even in the 
 " Discipline," and in a way certainly amusing and 
 probably embarrassing. Thus paragraph 396 reads, 
 " Blue Ridge Conference shall include the State of 
 North Carolina." This is the white Conference. 
 Paragraph 444 reads, " North Carolina Conference
 
 232 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 shall include the State of North Carolina not in- 
 cluded in the Blue Ridge Conference." This is the 
 colored Conference. A high official of the Church 
 says frankly : " This clumsy form of speech is 
 fetched about to avoid any specific allusions to 
 color." He thinks it " over-fastidious." But it 
 illustrates how earnestly this great Church has 
 sought to cause itself and to cause the negroes to for- 
 get color. Nothing in the range of reason has been 
 left undone to accomplish this result. The experi- 
 ment has been made fully, vigorously, patiently, and 
 by leaders wise in managing men. 
 
 But nature asserts herself. In nearly all of the 
 States the Conferences are now unmixed ; in all of 
 them where the negroes are sufficiently numerous 
 to form separate organizations. As oil and water 
 diligently shaken together in a vessel mix for a 
 time, but without chemical union, so these two races 
 mixed in the Conferences for a time. When the 
 mixture settled, lo ! the oil and the water touched, 
 but were distinct. 
 
 People who build theories out of facts will study 
 such a case as this. 
 
 Why this unmixing? At whose instance? Not 
 at the instance of the white preachers, most cer- 
 tainly. They were committed, by every form of 
 words, to the opposite view. Indeed, every body 
 knows the white preachers did not drive them off. 
 (But after the experiment had gone on for some
 
 The African Churches in America. 233 
 
 years they were, I am inclined to believe, "resigned" 
 to the separation into " two bands.") 
 
 But instinct is supreme ; the colored brethren 
 were restless till they had their own Conferences. 
 It was the same instinct, for instinct it is, that led 
 to the formation of a number of African Church 
 organizations in the North long ago. The Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, South, recognized (quite 
 resignedly, I must allow) this instinct, and in 1870 
 erected their colored members into a separate ec- 
 clesiastical organization "The Colored Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in America." It is an immense 
 name, but the shorter ones had been appropriated. 
 This colored Church has wrought famously during 
 the ten years of its existence, numbering in 1880 
 112,300 members. The Discipline of this Church, 
 by the way, expressly provides that no white man can 
 become a member. One white man desired admis- 
 sion into one of their Conferences, and was refused. 
 
 The Baptist negroes, also, like globules of mer- 
 cury, have run together. So of the rest, where there 
 have been numbers large enough. 
 
 It is this instinct that has called upon successive 
 General Conferences and that will continue to 
 call for " a colored Bishop." I have talked with 
 many of their preachers and laymen to find out, if 
 I could, what is the very truth in this call. Their 
 earnestness is out of all proportion to their argu- 
 ments; their logic is not at all equal to their feeling
 
 234 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 in the matter. Hence logic does not satisfy them 
 when the Conference declines their request. The 
 Conference follows its logic as well as its feeling 
 should I say instinct ? and declines ; the colored 
 brethren follow their feeling and brace its cry by 
 such logic as they can master. They do not see 
 very clearly how a colored Bishop is to be more 
 useful ; they know well that, in some respects, a 
 white Bishop can do more for them ; they cannot, 
 to their own satisfaction, quite make out their case. 
 But they want their colored Bishop all the same. 
 
 Their arguments wont stay answered ; as well 
 argue with magnetic currents. Instinct never yet 
 surrendered to arguments ; it is their race-instinct, 
 deep and strong and " inexpugnable," as Carlyle 
 would say. Who that heard their impassioned 
 speeches at Cincinnati, in May, 1880, could doubt 
 that their appeal came, not from the cold conclu- 
 sions of the reason, but red-hot out of their hearts, 
 from the irresistible promptings of instinct? List- 
 ening to their speeches, I felt strongly the mighty 
 under-current that their words but feebly revealed 
 and I felt " They are right ; they do well to ask this 
 Conference for a Bishop of their own race." Listen- 
 ing to the words of the white leaders of the Con- 
 ference, and looking at the subject in the light of 
 cold judgment, I said to myself, ." This Conference 
 is also right to decline the request." 
 
 This instinctive disposition to form Church affili-
 
 The African C /lurches in America. 235 
 
 ations on the color basis may be wise or unwise. 
 But it is in them deep in them; The tendency is 
 strengthening all the time. This instinct will never 
 rest satisfied till it realizes itself in complete sepa- 
 rations. Whether we of the white race approve or 
 disapprove matters little. The movements that 
 grow out of race-instincts do not wait upon the con- 
 clusions of philosophy ; nor do they, for a long 
 time, take counsel of policy. We may, all of us, as 
 well adjust our plans to the determined and inev- 
 itable movements of this instinct that does not 
 reason, but that moves steadily and resistlessly to 
 accomplish its ends. It is a very grave question to 
 be considered by all who have responsibility in the 
 matter: Whether over-repression of race-instincts 
 may not mar their normal evolution may not in- 
 troduce elements unfriendly to healthful growth- 
 may not result in explosions ? I have seen a heavy 
 stone wall overturned by a root that was once a 
 tiny white fiber. Instinct is like the life-force that 
 expresses itself in life or in death. 
 
 But, so far as the duty of the white race is con- 
 cerned, what would it matter if all the colored 
 Christians should segregate into Churches of their 
 own color as well as their own faith? Nothing 
 whatever. No right-minded Church can wish to 
 hold on to them for mere aggrandizement in num- 
 bers ; for displays in the " Year-Books " of statis- 
 ticians ; or for any other reason " of the earth
 
 236 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 earthy." Such "numbering of Israel" is not of the 
 spirit of Christ. With David's example before us we 
 should "crucify '' this sort of "carnal ambition." 
 
 If every colored Methodist in the United States 
 were to-day in one organization, this would not 
 change the grounds or nature of our obligations to 
 them in any respect, so far as fraternal love, frater- 
 nal aid, and co-operation are concerned. It would 
 then, as now, be our duty to help them in all pos- 
 sible ways ; and, considering their history in this 
 country, and the providential indications of their 
 relation to the salvation of Africa, just as much our 
 duty then as now. It does not lessen the interest 
 and love of a right-minded mother in her daughter 
 when that daughter becomes a mother and keeps 
 her own house. If there be any difference, the 
 mother is more of a mother when she becomes a 
 grandmother. 
 
 If there were not one negro in the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church the " Freedmen's Aid Society " 
 would be as much needed as it is now. The " Col- 
 ored Methodist Episcopal Church of America" that 
 was " set up " I hope not " set off" needs the 
 help of its mother, the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, every whit as much as if they were still with 
 us. Nay all the more because they are not with 
 us.* And we ought, before God, to help them. 
 
 * The next General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, should take vigorous action to establish a great " training-
 
 The African Churches in America. 237 
 
 If any think that setting them up, or off, was only 
 getting rid of a burden, let them repent of this evil 
 thought for evil it is, as sure as the stars shine. 
 
 So if all the Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congre- 
 gationalist, or other colored Christians, should come 
 together in Church organizations of their own color 
 only, then white Baptists, Presbyterians, Congre- 
 gationalists, or others, would still be under sacred 
 bonds to help them in every good word and work. 
 This I lay down as fundamental and vital if we 
 are ever to do clear thinking on the subject, or to 
 discharge our duty to God in them, it will never 
 do to make our religious interest in the negro de- 
 pend upon his being a member of our particular 
 Church organizations. We can't throw off our re- 
 sponsibilities by ceasing to " count " him ; nor can 
 we measure our duty by his relation to our statis- 
 tical glories and greatness. 
 
 At this point, as well as elsewhere, I wish to say 
 because it ought to be said of Southern Chris- 
 tians as a class : They are in a state of mental un- 
 rest as to their present attitude toward the negroes. 
 Thousands of them long to help the negroes if 
 they only knew how to get about it. People at a 
 distance imagine that it is very easy for Southern 
 
 school " for this colored daughter. If God spares his life. Dr. John 
 B. M'Ferrin is the man to take the matter in hand and put it through. 
 This note is on my own long-meditated thought. The doctor knows 
 not that I write it, nor any other.
 
 238 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 white people to help them which only illustrates 
 that many are not as wise as they think they are. 
 It is easier now than it was for a dozen years after 
 1865. For a long time negroes did not welcome 
 Southern co-operation excepting always, money. 
 Their feeling of irritated suspicion as to the South- 
 ern whites was fomented by some to the general 
 hurt. How this was done I need not discuss now. 
 But at this time the negroes are warming toward 
 the Southern people. Of this there are expressions 
 every day and every-where. Our preachers are 
 not unwelcome now ; in some quarters they are in 
 demand. 
 
 It is a sad thing in the life of even one man when 
 he fails to see and embrace an opportunity to do a 
 good deed, or to forward a great movement toward 
 the triumph of our Lord's kingdom. It is a sadder 
 thing when a whole Church, or a whole people, 
 misses its opportunity. We of the South have 
 come to such a place and such a time in our his-- 
 tory that we have again offered to us a great oppor- 
 tunity to help a whole race in two continents. May 
 we be wise and faithful to make the most of it, in 
 the love of God and of man ! 
 
 It is true that our path, since the war, has been 
 blocked in many ways. But we are not blameless ; 
 some of us have made the most of our excuses. 
 We have accepted our dismissal too readily. We 
 might have done more ; we ought to have done
 
 The African Churches in America. 239 
 
 more ; we are going to do more. Thousands of 
 our people will help them whenever they see the 
 opportunity. Truth claims for our people more 
 than they have received of recognition. After all, 
 they have helped in many ways. There are few 
 churches or school-houses in all the South, built for 
 the use of the negroes since the war, in which the 
 money of Southern white people has not been freely 
 invested. Hardly any were built without their aid : 
 some chiefly through their help. 
 
 This much let us understand on all sides, and, if it 
 be true, let us act upon it : Our obligation to help 
 the negro in his social and religious development, to 
 help him in working out his destiny, does not grow 
 out of his relation to "our party"or to " our Church," 
 but out of our common relation to Christ Jesus, our 
 elder Brother, and to God, our Father. Whether 
 in our Church or his own, we must help him in all 
 wise and brotherly ways to work out his problem 
 and fulfill his mission. And this we owe to God. 
 
 NOTE. In that noble tribute to John Wesley, " The Wesley Me- 
 morial Volume," edited by the Rev. J. O A. Clark, D.D., LL. D., 
 and published by Phillips & Hunt, New York received after this 
 chapter was written is an interesting and well-written article on 
 " Wesley and the Colored Race," by Rev. L. H. Holsey, one of the 
 Bishops of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America, 
 from which I take the following extracts. Altogether noteworthy 
 they are. Bishop Holsey says : 
 
 "The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, impoverished by the war, 
 and scarcely able to survive the shock she had received, was unable 
 to keep up the work she had begun and continued for so long n
 
 240 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 time. She could barely hold the ground she had gained. During 
 the many years she had been directing the evangelical work among 
 the negroes she had been training a body of colored ministers who 
 were ready to take the places of the white itinerant and local preach- 
 ers. Many of these retained their connection with the Cliurch South ; 
 many of the ablest went with other bodies of Methodists. There 
 was now aroused a great interest in the evangelization of the col- 
 ored race on the part of the Northern people. They felt that every 
 obligation required that they should do something for the negro, 
 and at once they began the work. They found the field already 
 prepared and white to the harvest. Preachers, leaders, and church 
 buildings were at hand. Culture was needed, and especially organ- 
 ization for self-help, for hitherto the colored people had been pro- 
 vided for by others. They must now learn to provide for themselves. 
 The African Methodist Episcopal Church had a corps of able 
 Bishops, and a compact organization. So had the Zion Methodists, 
 who differed from the African Methodists in but little more than 
 name. The Methodist Episcopal Church, rich and powerful, also 
 came into the field. The Methodist Episcopal Church established 
 schools and colleges and has been liberal and energetic. The other 
 bodies have shown the same zeal. 
 
 " The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, gave to the colored 
 Church which it had set up the Colored Methodist Episcopal 
 Church of America all the church buildings which it had erected 
 for its colored members, and saw it organized for important and 
 successful work. 
 
 " The effects of Methodism upon the negro race in the South, and 
 of the Baptists, the only other body of Christians who had ever clone 
 much for the negroes, was seen during and after the late war. 
 The negroes rose in no insurrection. They waited the issue pa- 
 tiently, and when the end carne, and they were free, they accepted 
 their freedom as of God. No Christian leader among them has 
 ever been accused of any agitation that would issue in bloodshed. 
 They felt that God, in his providence, had said to the Christians of 
 tlie South : ' Take these sons of Africa and train them for me, and in 
 my time I will call for them.' The congregations of colored Meth. 
 odists, thrown upon their own resources, have nobly met the demand.., 
 and now day-schools and Sunday-schools and churches are found all 
 over the country."
 
 These African-Americans and Africa. 241 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THESE AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND AFRICA. 
 
 WHAT is to be the grand outcome of this 
 most remarkable of modern race movements? 
 Can it be supposed for a moment that the tremend- 
 ous energy of these numerous and vigorous African 
 Churches is to expend itself in these United States, 
 and almost exclusively among these six millions 
 of Americanized Africans and their descendants? 
 Can any thoughtful man suppose that this mighty 
 Amazonian current of energy energy material, in- 
 tellectual, and spiritual is in God's wide and great 
 plans for the world limited to the negroes in this 
 country ? or that the only relations it sustains to 
 any channels of life outside of its own are incidental 
 and occasional overflows ? 
 
 This would amount to saying : Providence brought 
 them to America, and maintained them here in 
 wondrous ways, " a peculiar people," in the midst of 
 a strange race, of variant if not antagonistic ten- 
 dencies, in order that they only might be redeemed 
 from barbarism and brought to the knowledge of the 
 truth. 
 
 To me it is simply unthinkable that in the plans 
 16
 
 JJKJV1UC1 
 
 Stanley 
 Baptist 
 
 242 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 of Providence for the thousands of Africans in 
 America the millions of Africans in Africa should 
 have no place. To my view, nothing solves the 
 problem of their providential coming to this coun- 
 try, of their providential maintenance as a race in 
 process of civilization and Christianization, of their 
 providential emancipation about one decade before 
 found Livingstone that glorious John the 
 of African civilization that leaves Africa 
 out. 
 
 Here in the United States they have come to 
 Christ, the Lord of all ; here they have multiplied, as 
 did Israel in Egypt ; here they have the fairest op- 
 portunity this world can give them to grow into 
 the fullest stature of which they are capable ; and 
 here, where they now are, the great body of them 
 will, I do not question, remain, if not to the end of 
 time, yet long beyond the period when all doubt of 
 their destiny will be solved, and all controversy 
 concerning their relation to the white race will be 
 happily ended. Here, in a climate that suits them, 
 in the midst of a Christian population friendly to 
 their development, under laws that protect them, 
 under conditions the most favorable possible to 
 them, they can grow into a strong people, " maje 
 reacjy " by Providence for their great duties to the 
 uncounted millions in their mother country ; here 
 they can realize, more perfectly than anywhere else 
 under the sun, God's plan and purpose concerning
 
 These African-Americans and Africa. 243 
 
 them ; here they can grow to be all that they can 
 be, and thus and then be ready to do all that they 
 can do ; here they can be taught till they can 
 teach ; here training-schools may be established, 
 whence teachers and preachers may go forth from 
 time to time to kindle great lights of learning and 
 saving truth in the dark places beyond the sea ; 
 here, for holy conquests in Africa, they can gather 
 and drill a great army of enlightened and Chris- 
 tianized men and women ; and not teachers and 
 preachers only, but farmers, mechanics, artisans, 
 men in all departments competent to lead the civ- 
 ilization of the tribes and nations in Africa. From 
 these shores colonies can depart from time to time, 
 
 as God opens the way for the great undertaking. 
 
 ' ., 
 
 These colonies will follow the brave explorers who \Ql 
 
 fl I 
 blaze out the highways for the march of that com- S. 
 
 ing Christian civilization that will make of the l)^- 
 " Dark Continent " one of the brightest and noblest (jw^ 
 lands of the earth. 
 
 What they need now is to strengthen their stakes 
 and lengthen their cords, to get themselves ready, 
 to gather up their energies for the greatest mission- 
 ary movement that ever was undertaken in the his- 
 tory of the Church. 
 
 They are not ready now. God overruled slavery 
 for most gracious ends. They learned the Gospel 
 in slavery as they could not have learned it in their 
 native wilds, as they could not have learned it had
 
 244 O UR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 they been made free upon their first landing upon 
 our shores. When emancipation anticipating 
 Providence, it may be came upon them, they were 
 not fully ready for their new trials, dangers, and 
 responsibilities. Unless we of the South had more 
 generally and more fully realized our providential 
 relation to them, may be they could never have got- 
 ten ready in slavery. But, granting whatever faults 
 were in slavery, it is certain that their training, 
 while in bondage, had done much for them. If 
 their antecedents, surroundings, and resources be 
 considered, it will be allowed that they have 
 wrought wonders since their emancipation. Their 
 very habit of obedience as slaves enters largely into 
 the measure of their capacity for independent Church 
 organization, as well as their capacity for citizen- 
 ship. What could they have done with a Church, 
 or with a ballot, or with themselves, had they been 
 converted by cargoes and turned loose, free, upon 
 their landing? But they are learning how to do 
 Church work, and they are learning fast. They 
 may lack the far-seeing sagacity of statesmanship, 
 but they have what, perhaps, is better for the 
 growth of a Church or a nation, the promptings of 
 a prophetic instinct as to their duty and destiny. 
 Moreover, let it be remembered, when we are 
 tempted to doubt of this whole perplexed problem, 
 that they have the guiding, though unseen, hand 
 of God. What the Lord said of Cyrus may be
 
 TJiese African-Americans and Africa. 245 
 
 said of them : " I have girded thee though thou 
 hast not known me." 
 
 They are not, it may be, as yet fully ready to lay 
 broadly and deeply in Africa the foundations of a 
 great civilizing and sanctifying Church. But they 
 are getting ready. And some of them I know have 
 glimpses now and then of the star that is to go 
 before them in the progress of their race to its re- 
 demption. Some of them see what men wiser in 
 this world's knowledge may not see, for they have a 
 simple and steadfast faifh in God and his word. , 
 Some of the loftier spirits among them are already?' 
 looking with longing eyes and burning hearts to' 
 the home of their fathers. They begin to hear the 
 call of the man of Africa, " Come over and help us."' 
 They begin to realize in their inmost consciousness 
 it flashes on them while they sing and penetrates 
 their deepest souls while they pray that this di- 
 vine trust rs theirs, to " preach Jesus and the resur- 
 rection " to the many millions of their brethren 
 who " dwell in the land of the shadow of death." 
 Their hearts are stirred ofttimes with the divine 
 quickenings and deathless impulses of which the 
 hopes of new nations are born. And centuries 
 after our times, when our children's children won- 
 der why their fathers ever quarreled or fought, the 
 historians of Africa's redemption will bless the mem- 
 ory both of the North and of the South. 
 
 Will the white Christians of America, when the
 
 246 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 time comes, be ready to help ? Do they now read 
 aright " the signs of the times " of the Son of man ? 
 The chief function of the white race in America, 
 in its relation to the evangelization of Africa, is one 
 of help. It is not ours to do this work, except as 
 we help those whom God has so strangely called 
 and prepared. Some white Christians are now 
 helping, perhaps, without knowing how much ; per- 
 haps, without looking beyond the poor negroes of 
 their own communities ; perhaps, without a thought 
 of the mighty outcome of it all in other lands, and 
 in the years and generations to come. Every dollar 
 consecrated to giving them the Gospel while they 
 were slaves, and since they were made free ; every 
 sermon preached to them ; every lesson taught them ; 
 every good book printed for them all has been help- 
 ing forward the salvation of a continent. And when 
 the day of God declares all things, although it may 
 appear that thousands of slave owners in the old 
 days, now happily gone forever, did not realize their 
 sacred relation to this great race movement toward 
 the cross of our common Lord, yet will it be found 
 that thousands did recognize and discharge, to the 
 best of their ability, their duty to these sons of the 
 strangers. That day will reveal the love and " com- 
 passion on souls " that inspired Capers, Andrew, 
 Pierce, Mercer, Crawford, M'Intosh, and the thou- 
 sands of nameless immortals who helped to bring 
 nearly half a million Southern negroes to Christ
 
 These African-A mericans and Africa. 247 
 
 Jesus, while they were yet in their house of- bond- 
 age. And it will reveal thousands of godly men 
 and women who, inheriting the burdens and re- 
 sponsibilities of slavery, so recognized the Christ 
 in their servants that the King will say to them: 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
 of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 
 This great preparation that is to " make straight 
 the way of the Lord " is being helped forward every 
 day and hour; it is helped fonvard every time a 
 negro is taught a truth, or is lifted up, or in any 
 way is placed in a better position to make a man. 
 It is helped forward every time a negro school is 
 established, a negro church built, a negro family 
 toned up to better thinking and better living. In 
 a word, every good thing that has been done, that 
 is being done, that may yet be done for the negro 
 here, is helping him to get ready for the moral con- 
 quest of a continent. 
 
 But when I ask, " Will the white Christians of 
 America, when the time comes, be ready?" I do 
 not mean this unconscious co-operation with a 
 great movement. I mean the clear-eyed vision of 
 a great duty and a great opportunity; I mean the 
 conscious, deliberate recognition of that duty in 
 our broadest, boldest plans for the future work of 
 the Church ; I mean the broad-minded, true-hearted, 
 and courageous attempt, when the time comes, to 
 perform that duty to the utmost of human ability.
 
 xr w 
 
 248 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 In this work all good people in this country 
 should heartily join ; for all are debtors to the 
 Africans in America. All Christians in this coun- 
 try should help them to get ready. When the day 
 comes, and it cannot be far distant, for them to 
 enter fully upon the work, then every Christian in 
 the land should help them to carry it on. Some 
 have already gone as advanced guards of the coming 
 hosts. Some left Nashville, Tennessee, in 1880, 
 who had been made ready in one of the great train- 
 ing schools of the Congregationalists. And a few 
 have gone from other Churches. There are a few 
 white men and women at work in different parts 
 of Africa ; they have gone before. In Sierra Leone, 
 in Senegambia, in the Ashantee Country, on the 
 Lower Coast, the Coast Country near the Cape, in 
 Liberia, and among the tribes nearest the British 
 dependencies, are mission stations where the true 
 light shines. Thousands have already come to the 
 light and have rejoiced in it. The work that has 
 been done is one of glorious preparation. But the 
 missionary movement that is to save the continent 
 must flow out of the African Churches in the United 
 States. "A tidal wave of blessing," to use the 
 words of Bishop Holsey, one of their own race, 
 " must sweep back upon the shores of Africa." 
 
 When the colored Baptists in the United States 
 send missionaries to Africa, then let the entire Bap- 
 tist power of America stand back of them and help
 
 These African-Americans and Africa. 249 
 
 and nourish them as there may be need. When 
 the Congregationalist negroes send missionaries, 
 let the entire Congregationalist power help them in 
 all their work. When the Methodist negroes begin 
 to send out missionaries in good earnest, when 
 they begin to organize " Mission Conferences " in 
 Africa, then in this work, if never before, or after, 
 or elsewise, let the entire power of American Meth- 
 odism unite to forward their great design. The 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has in her or- 
 ganization now few names of the negro race, but 
 she has children in every colored Church in America, 
 and they call to her to help them ; and this Church 
 will hear the cry of her children, and she will help 
 them. 
 
 In such a work as this at least all Methodism, I 
 say not American Methodism only, should unite 
 as one body and one soul. But the call is pre-emi- 
 nently to American Methodism and peculiarly to 
 American Episcopal Methodism. This pre-eminent 
 and special call grows out of the relations these 
 Methodisms sustain to each other and to the 
 negroes ; also out of the opportunity God gives 
 them, as indicated and measured by the greatness 
 of their numbers and their power. If once our 
 brother in black was the innocent " occasion " of an 
 unfraternal parting, may it not, in the good provi- 
 dence of God, be some day his high office to unite 
 us again, at least in all the love and sympathy of a
 
 250 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 genuine and deathless brotherhood of mutual help 
 and genuine co-operation ? 
 
 Do we not owe this debt to Africa ? Her sons 
 helped mightily to clear the forests before the 
 march of our population. Their toils have added 
 untold millions to the wealth of our country. Their 
 hands have helped to build up great cities and 
 great highways in all our States. They, at least, 
 are not to blame for the horrors and exasperations 
 of our fratricidal war. They deserve everlasting 
 honor for their heroic patience and Christian wait- 
 ing during that fiery trial of their faith. Modern 
 times have not given to the world a sublimer ex- 
 pression of a steadfast faith in the all-wise provi- 
 dence of God. 
 
 When God's time comes, and surely we are near- 
 ing the hour when the day will break upon them 
 and us, let us be found among them who know the 
 " day of the Lord." We may be sure of it, God's 
 hand is upon this people. When he speaks to them 
 " that they move forward," as he did to Israel on 
 the shores of the Red Sea, let us be sure that the 
 " pillar of cloud and of fire " will go before them, 
 and that the "Captain of the Lord's host" will lead 
 them on. 
 
 When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, 
 under the " high hand " and the " outstretched 
 arm " of the God of their fathers, they " spoiled the 
 Egyptians," for their heathen oppressors were hard
 
 These African-Americans and Africa. 251 
 
 of heart and would not do them justice, nor " let 
 Israel go," nor forward them on their journey. But 
 we are not of Egypt; we are Christ's, the Lord's. 
 We must and we will, in gratitude to God and to 
 these our brothers, in the love of humanity and in 
 the love of Christ, send them away on their divine 
 mission with " blessings " and with " gifts." 
 
 Is there a more inspiring thought in connection 
 with the future of the Christian religion ? Millions 
 of Christianized negroes in America sending and 
 carrying the Gospel, that alone brings life and im- 
 mortality to light, to uncounted millions in their 
 native Africa, while millions of Christians of the 
 white race join hands and hearts in helping on the 
 glorious work. There never existed in the cir- 
 cumstances and relations of two races such an op- 
 portunity of doing missionary work on a continent- 
 wide scale. Would God there were some Christian 
 Moses or Paul to lead the triumphant march ! 
 There never was a work for God and man in which 
 the good angels would more gladly join. 
 
 O, Thou Christ of God ! Thou " mightiest among 
 the holy and holiest among the mighty!" Thou 
 who didst take upon thyself "the form of a servant" 
 that Thou mightest make all men free, give to us the 
 " fullness of Thy spirit," that we, Thy unworthy dis- 
 ciples, may have wisdom and grace and courage to 
 make ready for the duties of the morrow by faith- 
 fully performing all our duty of to-day, toward these
 
 252 OUR BROTHER IN BLACK. 
 
 our brethren, who came unwillingly to our guardian- 
 ship long before our fathers were born ; whom Thou 
 hast kept as " a peculiar people " in our midst, and 
 hast blessed beyond any people who were ever en- 
 slaved ; whom Thou hast made free by many and 
 strange providences, and to whom Thou hast given 
 a message of hope and salvation for multiplied 
 millions of their kindred who wait for Thy coming 
 as "those who watch for the morning! " 
 
 THE END.
 
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