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they meet your and my approbation, showing the sure and almost unconscious progress to a widening sentiment for a most liberal solution of this political question in the direction I plead.

Then, sir, if the result of your experience points to the future as I have indicated, does not every reason of an intelligent and far-seeing statesmanship demand that we settle this status at once in the direction of an intelligent voting power? Does not the spirit of the day abroad in the land demand our wise and liberal action? Now arises an important question. If the South, far-seeing and liberal in its policy towards the Negro, should adopt a liberal franchise provision, can the Negro on his part ever become imbued with the American spirit? Will he ever become a citizen sufficiently intelligent so as to become a substantial integral portion of the American voting population? Will the progress shown on our part by the adoption of this free and equal basis of franchise meet any progress on the part of the Negro?

Are his feet on the ascending steps of a good citizenship? Is he improving in character, in religion, in material prosperity, in self-respect? Sir, I appeal to that tribunal which is more powerful for enlightenment than gathered statistics. I summon here as proofs the result of your own observation. I point to the spires rising heavenward all over this land and sheltering an increasing number of dusky and intelligent worshippers. I call here in witness the homes where, under their

own fig-tree and vine, live in plenty and sweet contentment increasing numbers of the Negro race. Yea, Mr. Chairman, I point to the thousands of intelligent students crowding the halls of learning in the South and filling every situation open to them with credit and character. I call to your attention a greater increase within the time in material prosperity than falls to the lot of any other race excepting the Anglo-Saxon in the wide world. I appeal to your own experience as to the vast change for the better in the horde of unlettered and ignorant Negroes within one generation. Within three generations mark his improvement from the barbarian, bound and gyved, and thrust over the side of the slave-ship and given to us. There has been disappointment and discouragement, it is true, but the progress has been substantial and on the right line. I will not take your time with the discussion of the detail of a proposition which is obvious to all. I have given somewhat of study to the question of his improvement, and a careful investigation of the only people whose shackles within our time have been broken, leads me to the conclusion, and it is the conclusion of every careful student of the emancipated serfs of Russia, that the Negro has infinitely outprogressed the freed white serf in every element of an enlightened citizenship. Surely he has improved. This has been the general consensus of opinion and the observation and experience alike of the statesman, the scholar, and the man of business of the South.

When I see the progress of the Negro and the sure improvement of the conditions surrounding him, the darkness which tinges the bright skies of the South brings me no despair. Out of the cloud should not come despair, but the sweet gladness of hope brightening our every difficulty. The evidences of His supreme care over us are too unmistakable for despair, and the cloud of witnesses that His care encompasses this nation, and that with the fingers of His wisdom he has placed these people among us, will admit of no question. When commerce languished and its utmost gates lay behind the white sails, and the rivers of India no longer gave their gold and the fields their gems, and the cunning hands of the East no longer wove the silk and garments of mankind, the treasury of plenitude of this new land yielded richer gems and gold more plentiful than ever glistened in Indian rivers or burdened with the glory of wealth the mines of Golconda. When the golden belt and the steel armor were the sole tokens of rule, when the king was the state and the people his servants, He gave to the world our country, where the only king is Freedom and where the People is the State. When under the rule of King and Cardinal and Noble the creed of the people was the voice of the Conclave, under the oaks of New England and the pines of Virginia there arose a thunderous song of a new people who cared not for the creed of Conclave, Diet, or Cardinal, and who heeded not the command of princes. When the swarthy

Spaniard, in leathern jerkin, found not the Fountain of Youth, for us its sweet waters waited lovingly and to-day are caressed for our good by the soft airs of our South. When Spain's covetous eyes, under casque and helmet, failed to find the gold of the West, and by its mighty power change human destiny, it was given to us to enrich our freedom with its plenitude beyond the wealth of kings. He gave us vast rivers on whose shores in the one season the fleecy cotton, the yellow corn, the golden wheat, the wine and the oil, the fruit and the flowers, the seed-time and the harvest, shed their glory. He flooded this land with the sunshine which on the prairie and beside the mountain kisses from the fertile field the grain and the fruit, and from His exhaustless plenty He has filled our land with the mighty agents of civilization waiting but our touch to garner them into the rich treasures of our commerce. He kept for this people the play of the lightning and imprisoned for us the giant arms of the steam. He has planned for us mighty continents and seas and lakes and rivers and harbors and capes, by whose power we can grasp in our strong hands the Ultima Thule of commerce. He strengthened the hands of tyrants that people from all countries forsaking their homes should give to us their best and their bravest; and He broke to pieces the kings when they would shackle the progress and curb the holy aspirations of freedom and religion in this newest continent. In all the hoary ages He has filled the earth with tyrants and kings

and has laid Africa close to their hands; yet, for reasons known only to His wisdom, He has reserved this free country as the land where the sigh of the slave and the rattle of his chain were more frequent than in any since the years began their race. For them He made peaceful fields incarnadined with the blood of a free people, yet over the carnage He made His Son to walk, and after His "Peace, be still," as on the troublous waters of Galilee, tenderness touched the heart and peace and unity and love passing all understanding reigned with the people. Then surely His mighty arms are around us and His Providence is with us. This thing, which we understand not and which our mortal eyes do not fully see, is for the ultimate glory of our people.

Whether this race surrounding us as a cloud, educated and strengthened to its full stature through our trials and our sorrows, shall, on the shores of the Tanganyika, raising the sweet songs of praise learned on the banks of the Tennessee, the Kanawha, and the Mississippi, lead the Dark Continent to the light of the brighter day, or whether as our helper here in fashioning this newest and best land, is not yet for mortal man to know. But, sir, with all my soul, I believe that this people has been placed here so as in some inscrutable manner to glorify this civilization so surely touched with the Master's fingers and so certainly fashioned with His hands. Ah, sir, there is no despair. The witnesses cannot fail.

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