Emancipation Oration,BY REV. E. K. LOVE, D. D., SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.DELIVERED AT AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, JANUARY 1891.

Fellow Citizens:-I esteem it an honor for which I have no language to adequately express my gratitude to you for being invited to address you on this auspicious occasion. The emancipation of more than four million souls from the most cruel and diabolical system of slavery that ever disgraced this or any other country is no ordinary occurrence; and we should celebrate it with befitting ceremonies, characterized with the profoundest sense of gratitude, thanksgiving and patriotism, as often as that memorable day rolls around until time shall wane and be no more. Indeed this should be a great day among us. It marks the day when the mighty arm of Jehovah was moved in our defense, and effected eternally our deliverance. Imbittered by no feeling of the injustices, indignities and the numberless indescribable injuries we have suffered in this land, we meet here to-day to thank God for deliverance, and to pledge with all our hearts, our love, patriotism and support of every interest of our common country.

We had no choice in selecting America as our home. We were decoyed from our father-land, and forced to serve as slaves in this country. In the Providence of God, this dungeon of the most ruthless prison was powdered, blasted and washed clean in the blood of America's noblest sons and made our home. But there are signs of the old disease developed and developing in a far more malignant form in the shape of murdering and lynching, and lawless mobs and the burning of human beings alive and many other Godless outrages which this country is morally bound to remedy. God, humanity and the onward march of civilization demand that an everlasting stop be put to these things--For be it understood by all who hear me this day Revolutions do not go backward; God has begun this work, and He will complete the work begun and grace in glory ends.

The Negroes were not and will not always be as they are. It was a plant of Africa that furnished the sublimely graphic picture and the wonderfully accurate illustration of the Messiaonic office of Jesus Christ, that called forth from Isaiah in charming eloquence, and in the profoundest 00044sweetness these words-"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground." This plant of the Prophet's vision grew in the North-Eastern part of Africa where it did not rain more than once in 25 years--But so peculiar was this plant that it furnished its own water by means of its large succulent roots, and thus moistured it was enable to defy the severest and longest drought. So it is with the sable descendants of that dark, neglected and unfortunate Continent. Though they have been enslaved in this land and subjected to the most trying hardships, they are endued with such peculiar vitality that they cannot be lawed out, starved out, murdered out, lynched out, burned out, migrated out and if the Force bill is passed they will not much longer be counted out.

Much ado is made of Tom Reed's count in the present Congress: this is the clearest proof that the white folks North, and the white folks South view Mathematics through different kaleidoscopes. When they were present. Reed counted them present. When we were present, they counted us absent-- When they were in. Reed counted them in, when we were in, they counted us out. Much eloquence and learning has been spent to show that the Negroes dying out and that they are not capable of self government and unworthy of the sacred franchise. John C. Calhoun went down into his grave saying "keep the Negroes down." The lamented Henry W. Grady, Georgia's proud son, spent the energies of a gifted mind trying to prove the inferiority of the Negroes, and that they should not aspire to any position in this government. But Grady is dead and gone and the Negroes still live and yet will come. There was another mighty man in Georgia--He was a scholar and a logician of the first order--He was an able writer and editor of a powerful Religious Journal--He believed, preached, taught and wrote that the Negroes were an inferior race and must die out in the midst of a superior race. That man's pen is palsied and his voice hushed in death; but the Negroes are here yet. That man was the distinguished Dr. Henry Holcombe Tucker of the Christian Index of Atlanta. There was another man more bitter still--Of us he published many ills--But he is dead and beneath the clods he sleeps--Yet the Negroes walk upon Macon's streets--That man was Editor Lamar of the Macon Telegraph. There was another mighty man who wielded an immense influence against us--His paper was bitter indeed--But a bullet from a pistol in the hands of a man of his own race pierced him and he fell mortally wounded: weltering in his blood, he died, and Negroes acquitted the man who slew him. That man was the able editor of the News and Courier of Charleston. Notwithstanding the alarming figures in the mortuary reports which come to us annually, and add to this number many thousands of 00055murdered and lynched Negroes, yet their number has swollen to nearly Eight Millions in a quarter of a century. This is double the number we had 25 years ago--This is a happy dying out.

In spite of men and devils the Negroes will rise. Their night has been dark and long; but from Piagah's lofty heights I see the day is breaking-Pilgrims rejoice! the glorious sun is coming out of his fiery chambers and the clouds and the darkness are breaking away.

Africa was once the glory of the world; there was no learning so enviable as that of Egypt; for in painting, sculpturing and architecture we excelled. The art of printing is traced to Africa, and we gave the world its first idea of banking. During a famine in Canaan, we gave Abraham, the Father of the faithful, shelter and food; when starvation threatened the extinction of the Jews in Canaan, we gave Jacob and his family a home surrounded with plenty. Moses, the greatest legislator the the world has ever produced, was born upon our soil. When the treacherous Herod was flooding Bethlehem with the blood of babies seeking the Holy Child Jesus, our Lord found refuge in our cultured home; and when he went fainting and bleeding and falling to Calvary, scorned and derided by every other nation, a Negro helped him bear his cross.

The nations of earth are like men traveling over hills and valleys to a great city. When those ahead would be in the valley, those behind would be on a hill. It would be silly for those behind to boast that they were above those who were before--For those who are now in the valley were once on that same hill, and those who are behind must go down in that same valley. When they will be going down into that valley, those ahead will be going up the next hill. The Negroes, in the awful wake of moral courage, sweetness of disposition, loving spirit of forgiveness, meekness, humbleness, tenderness of heart, devotion to God and physical discipline, which demonstrate the development of true manhood, which is heaven's idea of greatness, are in advance of any other nation under heaven. However high the proud Caucasians may stand upon the hill and however vociferously they may extol their superiority and greatness, the Negroes are in the the next valley just ahead of them and eternal fate has decreed that the Negroes shall make the grand stand first. Let the world hear the news--let the rising Sun as he comes out of his scared chamber and unfolds his golden mantle declare it; let the stars as they dance in their diamond sockets, repeat it; let the Moon, the Queen of night, as she rides in her silvery chariot, proclaim it; let the whistling winds sound it; let the flying clouds reveal it; let the awful thunders publish it; let the angry lightnings dispatch it; let it be written in burning letters upon the cerulean skies; yea, let Africa's 00066sons and daughters in every land sing it; that as we are, we were not, and as we are, we will not remain. Up yonder hill we will go, it matters not what it may cost--for to remain below we will be lost.

THE NEGRO PROBLEM.

The vexed and intricate Negro Problem has received the attention of the civilized world. Volumes have been written upon it and yet its solution is a profound mystery.

Why is the Negro problem any more difficult of solution than any other problem? Has America gone at this solution in an earnest practical common sense way? The weak, poor, oppressed, ignorant and enslaved in every age of the world have presented a problem and whenever statesmen and liberty loving people have gone earnestly and practically at its solution, "fading away as the stars of the morning, losing their light in the glorious dawn," so have these difficulties and intricacies passed away gently and lovingly, only remembered by what they have done. For more than four hundred years the Jews presented a serious problem to the Egyptians-- in Africa, too, remember. We held the Jews as our slaves in Africa until God wrung them from our tenacious grasp. He solved that problem and rescued the Jews. In Babylon and Assyria the Jews presented a serious problem. In Great Britain the cultured Anglo-Saxons of to-day presented a serious problem. It might have been thought that they would have been so impressed by the oppression and hardships they endured that they would learn never to oppress, not even the beast--but alas! How soon do men forget the lessons which God in affliction teach them. The Irishmen in Ireland present a serious problem to-day. America is wonderfully interested in fair play and home rule for Ireland, but is totally blind and indifferent to the murdering, lynching, injustices, outrages and the countless atrocious crimes at its own door. Much is said about ignorant Negro domination. What different an ignorant Negro from an ingnorant Irishman or an ignorant anybody else? If education be the basis of recognition, then it would be consistent to rule out the ignorant of every race and turn in the educated of every race. If this rule was faithfully carried out, the Negroes would have more rights than they can now boast of. Of all the race problems to which I have referred, the Negro problem is the easiest of solution. This problem has an advantage over any other problem in several ways.

First, We think in writing and speaking the same language; there is no trouble of misunderstanding each other.

Second, We embrace the same Christian Religion, accept the same God as our common Father, washed in the same hallowed blood of 00077Christ and are journeying to the same heaven.

Third, We are not lazy. We are tillers of the same soil. We are mingled in the families of this people. We cook their food, nurse their children and many of them are our fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins. Surely these pleasant relations should, at least, serve as a key to the solution of this great problem. The Negroes are not foreign born--they have been subjects of no other government--they are patient, meek, humble, forgiving, kind hearted, good natured and religious: hence, the simple rule of fairness and common justice will throw a flood of light upon this great problem. If half the sympathy and money that is spent on Ireland were spent on the Negroes, the Negro problem would be as clear as the noon day sun at high meridian in a cloudless sky.

HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

The Negroes have been made to feel that their votes were of paramount importance, and that the primary object of their emancipation was to clothe them with the right to vote. Hence, when they were first emancipated, they threw all of their souls into the ballot to the sad neglect of their brains and bodies. They were simply the tools of wicked designing politicians who did them more harm than good. I entertain the opinion that if at first, the Negroes had been urged to get an education, homes, land and money, even to the exclusion of the ballot, they would have been infinitely better off and farther up the hill of prosperity. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the political inspiration with which we were enthused 25 years left but little room for anything else, and, hence, the greatest things have received the least attention. If the political teachers who came among us directly after the war had taught the necessity of getting homes and money while we were docile and in our formative state, they would have done us far more good; and would have erected to themselves a monument more lasting than brass, higher than the regal sights of Pyramids which the voracious winds nor the innumerable series of years could destroy. Do not understand me to denounce in toto what they did. Much of what they taught was right--but this they should have done and not have left the other undone. I judge it will not be denied that a man can do better without the right to vote and the protection of his ballot than he can without the right to live and the protection of his life. This government is far more anxious to throw around the ballot of the Negroes the mighty arm of its protection, and find it far more Constitutional to secure the ballot than to protect and secure their lives. I take it for granted that it will be admitted that the Negroes, of the two, would be better 00088off without the ballot than without food, raiment, money and homes. They need these worse and should secure them first. Doubtless we all see this mistake. Let us set to work and correct it, as far as power in us lies. Success is in no other direction. Politicians may disagree with me, but if you will turn to the great Historical Dictionary of politics for the last 25 years, you will find that a politician means "one who wants an office that will pay well, and will usually do all in his power to get it, even at the expense of the best interest of the people, if there is no other road to the goal of his ambition." Hence they could not be expected to agree with me.

EDUCATION.

Education is that which develops the powers which nature has furnished us in their embryonal form. It is that which draws out the latent faculties and unties them in a pleasing symmetrical activity for the truest interest of a people. It is that which creates the desire for, and makes a people great. It lifts a people above low things, makes them better citizens, better neighbors, purifies and dignifies their homes. It begets the dispositions for virtue, thrift, frugality, justice and fair- play. It arms a people with the weapons with which to battle for their rights and to defend them when won. The ignorant people of every age have been and always will be in every age to come the servants of the Educated. To this rule there is no exception and from this decree there is no appeal. It is God's plan that intelligence--righteous intelligence--should rule. An ignorant man should not be placed in authority even though it be myself. If the ignorant rule the land groaneth just as truly as if the wicked ruled. The result would be the same if a Doctor killed the patient because of wickedness or because of ignorance. One of the most pressing needs of the Negroes is education. It is passing strange that the Negroes all over this broad land did not hold Educational Mass Meetings and urge, with all their might, the passage of the Blair Educational Bill. Senator Blair, in is efforts to pass this bill, is entitled to the everlasting gratitude and eternal support of every Negro in this land. I would rather see him President of this nation than any living man, and if Georgia's delegates to the next National Convention would hear me, they would vote for Blair first, last and all the time. This government ought to do something to remove the vast amount of illiteracy that drapes with a pall its National escutcheon. Is it more important to protect our ballot, and to secure our rights than to secure our intelligence? If Education is power, ignorance is weakness, and the more ignorance this government has, the weaker it is.

HOMES LANDS AND MONEY.

If we would help control the country, we must help own it. I fear that the day is not far distant when those who own nothing shall control nothing. Mississippi has led the way, and I shall not be surprised if other States follow right along in the line of disfranchising, by their State Constitutions, the greater part of the Negroes, by property or educational qualifications. I warn you to get ready for it. A homeless people are a weak dependent people. A people without homes or money raises their families as by chance. Their virtue is as banks without vaults or locks; it might be safe, but then it mightn't. It is every man's duty, yea, it is his privilege to bring up his family under his own vine and fig tree. Our homes must be the foundation of our greatness. We cannot be be collectively great if we are not first individually great--and be it understood, that we are just what we make ourselves. We cannot be made by laws nor Constitutions-we must carve our own destiny.

LANDS.

We were made of the dust and we should take peculiar pride in owning some of Mother Earth. If we had bought up the lands in the country and on the suburbs of the city of the cities and towns directly after the war when we could have done so for a song, we would be much better off to-day. I still advise the Negroes to buy land. Buy it anywhere you can get it. Be a free holder, and no powers on earth can keep you down. If the Negroes do not give this subject attention very soon they will see their mistake when it will be too late. This country is being rapidly flooded with foreigners of the poorest class of white people, and by and by they will buy up this land that is to-day lying idle and can be bought for a pittance, and the Negroes cannot then buy a foot of it for any price. This country bids fair to be the most wonderful theater of activity upon the Globe. I look forward to the day when the entire Continent will be cut up into little flourishing farms. I urge the Negroes to get ready to move off in the mighty march. Get land and cultivate farms--the farmer is a freeman indeed. He is lord of all he surveys. The Yankees did not give us that 40 acres of land and the old mules, but we must not be discouraged--we must have them.

MONEY.

We must get money if we would have power and influence. Money had a strange influence over men. It will help all through life. It helps you in the church, in the Courts, in the Legislatures and the National Congress. It influences the eloquent speaker and passes most, if not all of the bills. It will win recognition for you. This country is wild over the subject of money and whoever has it, is great. 001010The Negroes make money, but they are not fortunate to save it. Many of the poor white people of Europe would have been vastly rich, if they had made, in the last 25 years, the money the Negroes have made. The Negroes throw away more money on excursions, whisky, tobacco and trifling Christmas toys than the poor white people of Europe and China make. There is no good reason for our being as poor as we are. The majority of the Negroes who are in the penitentiary are there more because they did not have money than that they were guilty. They did not have money to employ first class lawyers to defend them. The Negroes have monopolized the jails, chain-gangs and penitentiaries so that it is difficult for a white man to find room in the inn. The explanation is the white man gives bond, employs the best legal talent and if convicted, pays his fine. The Negroes have no money and must give their time. However good a salary the Negroes may be getting, one week's sickness will make the masses of them paupers indeed. As long as this state of things last, "in vain we tune our formal songs, in vain we strive to rise."

CO-OPERATION.

The Negroes ought to form Real Estate and Mercantile Associations and do business if it requires every member of the race to do it. We ought to organize Building and Loan Associations-indeed, we ought do every business that the white folks do and spend our money among ourselves. It is remarkably strange that the Negroes do not see the advantage that would come to the race from such a course. How can we expect to cope with the other races when we spend all our money with them, and they are careful to keep their money floating among themselves? It is high time the Negroes were undertaking great things. They ought to be engaged in Banking and Rail-Roading. This is the only way to solve the Negro Problem.

THE PRESS

It seems that it has not occurred to the Negroes that there is untold power in the press. A well conducted press wields an influence that nothing else can do. The Negroes must support a press or suffer countless wrongs.

There is no other way of placing our grievances before the public. White papers are not published to acquaint the world of the Negroes grievances. The Press has been a powerful instrument in the acceleration of civilization. The Press is to-day the most powerful means of Education. By means of the Press the people associate daily with the great minds of the world, and the people of the United States attend Congress every day. The Press revolutionizes, shapes and governs public opinion. The Negroes have done nothing like their duty 001111in rallying to the support of the Colored Press. As a rule the Negroes take a paper for one year and seem to think that that will do forever. When they are asked to take your paper, they will take great pride in telling you that they took it five years ago. Most of the Negro papers are local and dependent almost entirely upon subscription for maintenance, for the reason that white merchants do not, very largely, advertise through colored papers and Negroes do not have much to advertise. It therefore takes a larger number of subscribers to keep a colored paper going than it does for a white paper. It requires such a little thing to make a Negro draw his support from a Negro paper. If there chances to be an article or an editorial with which he does not agree, or if his name appears without the handle, he is done with the paper forever. He seems to feel that for his $1.50 the whole paper must be conducted to suit him; the editor and the other subscribers to the contrary notwithstanding. The white papers may say the most abusive and slanderous things about him and call him "the Negro Tom." And call his wife a "Negro wench" and yet he grins and subscribes again. Then, on the other hand, the editor of colored papers have, too often, felt it a privilege to use the columns of their papers, which the people made it possible for them to publish, to vent their spleen upon those who honestly differed from them. This is a mutual weakness which must be remedied ere we succeed. Let us prick the public conscience by acquainting the public of our griefs, sufferings, injuries and the countless ills we suffer in this country through a well conducted and widely circulated Press. Let editors and subscribers lay down all personal differences and make a long, strong and united strike for the public good. Leaders who divide the people with their personal differences and animosity ought to be denounced by the people and forced down and out.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THIS GOVERNMENT.

It must appear to the thoughtful observer that this country is bordering on a fearful revolution. There are four great political parties in this country occupying each an unbounded, unutterable and the bitterest hostility to the other. On the North is the Republican party; on the South is the Democratic party; on the West is the Farmers' Aliance; and on the East is the Prohibition party. These are held together, as with a thread, by the rapidly waning patriotism and fading love of liberty. But there is a thundering volcano burning in awful fury beneath them. There is bound to be a terrible smash and I want the Negroes to get ready to jump on the biggest piece. When I think of the results of the war I am reminded of the hungry cats--two hungry cats stole some cheese and fell out about the equitable division 001212of them. A monkey was called in as Judge of the division and to settle the dispute. Judge Monkey cut the cheese into two pieces and threw them in balances--one piece was larger than the other--he bit off a piece and that was made smaller than the other--biting off first one piece then the other until the cheese were about all gone. The cats cried out to the Judge, give thyself no further trouble, only give us the remaining and we will be content. "The Judge said not so gentleman, the law must take its course," and cramming both pieces in his mouth, he very gravely dismissed the court. The cats left court more hungry but wiser.

The North and the South stole Negroes from Africa--the Negroes were not profitable at the North as that climate was too cold for them. They were transferred to the South where their value was greatly enhanced. The North saw a great prosperity for the South in this human property with no adequate return for the exported cheese; hence the quarrel begun. In the providence of God liberty was called in as Judge--nothing but an entire swallowing of this cheese in its hallowed corporation would satisfy this divinely appointed Judge--the North cried out hold on, the South said stop, but the Judge said justice must take its course.

Injustices and wrong doing cannot last. God is against it, right cannot compromise with wrong. This nation has done us a thousand wrongs. It is God's plan to requite every wrong, and overthrow nation, kingdoms and empires; when the cup of their wrath was filled up they always fell in their glory.

The Antedeluvian world was floating in wealth and grandeur, men lived to be seven, eight and nine hundred years old, and sin, wickedness and crime stalked in the world as black as night, offensive in God's sight, and these giants who filled the earth with violence and the whole corrupt race were swept away in a mighty flood.

After the flood, when men began to multiply and re-people the earth, murdering, injustices and numberless outrages characterized their dealing with each other. They undertook to prepare them a defense against God, and commenced the building of the tower of Babel. God confused their tongues and scattered them around the Globe; and in wealth, grandeur and glory, the Assyrian Empire, the first upon the face of the Earth, fell. The Egyptians held the Jews as property, and rose to the highest glory and culture. Maddened by their prosperity they rushed thoughtlessly into the jaws of death and perished in the Red Sea, endeavoring to capture those whom God was leading. When Babylon forgot that the mighty God ruled in the kingdom of men, in her highest wealth and glory, she fell; after many heart-revolting cruelties and the flood of blood, the loss of lives and 001313property, the Persian Empire fell. Because of its wickedness and unrighteousness, Jerusalem in its supremest magnificence, fell and her people carried in chains to a strange land. The same thing is true of Greece and Rome--in the zenith of their power, they were buried in a common ruin. The United States might have been kept in subordination to England, had England yielded to the fair and reasonable request of giving this people due representation for taxation. The South would have, to-day, been incalculably wealthy, with human beings as property, had she accepted the overtures that were offered her. And even after the war begun, had she accepted the 90 days overture, we would have been slaves to-day. But as the Egyptians, God hardened her heart, and blinded by her untold wealth, she rushed into a sea of blood in which slavery eternally perished. God used Jeff Davis as well as Lincoln--both played a wonderful part in our Emancipation.

In keeping with God's dealing with nations, and according to the historical hints I have given you, it is about time for a tremendous revolution. We stand to-day, I believe, my fellow-citizens, upon an awful catastrophe. I believe a great change is in the near future. The righteous Judge of all the Earth will avenge all the blood this people have shed. And in the language of Hector predicting the fall of Troy, let me quote:-- "Yet come it will-the day decreed by fatesHow my heart trembles while my tongue relates;The day when thou, Imperial Troy, must bend,And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end!"I must not close this address without paying the compliments to the better class of white folks South, which I know they so richly deserve. I know that many of them do not endorse the lawless mobs, and murdering of Negroes that have too often occurred in the South and especially in this proud Empire State. I know that many of them regret as truly as I do the East Point, Jesup and Baxley outrages,--but it is evident that we need stronger men in authority to administer justice,--men who will not be influenced by political consideration to wink at lawlessness. I regret profoundly that we have not had men at the head of affairs with stronger moral courage,--men who would dare to do right regardless of their chances for success in the next election. I have no doubt that these lawless outrages could be stopped if these same good white folks and the Negroes were to act together. The truth is the kindly disposed and right thinking white folks are politically hampered by the Democratic party and the Negroes by the Republican party. Politicians of both parties are keeping 001414us apart to our serious hurt. I advocate a shaking of ourselves from these bands, and let us be free. There is no chance of dividing the Negro vote as long as the white folks South wink at these outrages and it will be impossible for the Republican party to poll the Negroes votes as long as they advise no remedy to put a stop to this lawless slaughtering of the Negroes. The result will be that the Negroes will stay away from the polls and their bitterest disgust will increase for both parties, as the lonesome days go by. Fred Douglass said: "That the Republican party was the ship and that all else was the sea,"--but since that time the ship has sprung a thousand leaks and is rapidly sinking down into the angry sea. A third party is the only life boat in which we may pull for the shore, except the ship can be towed ashore and overhauled.

Here is what I call true patriotism,--true manhood and true courage. It is from the pen of one of the fairest men in the South. I would get up before day, a cold, stormy morning in March, to vote for Col. Estill of the Savannah Morning News for Governor of Georgia. Under the caption "A word to Jurors," he writes the following editorial Monday Dec. 29th, 1890:--

A WORD TO JURORS.

"Two black men have been convicted of murder in this county recently and sentenced to be hanged. There is no fault to be found with the verdict in either case. The jurors did their duty.

"But there is a thought in connection with these cases that it might be well to impress upon the minds of citizens who are likely to be called as jurors. There have been white men tried in this country for murder within very late years, and the evidence against them was as strong as the evidence against these black men. They were not convicted of murder in the first degree, and why?

"It has often been said that it is about impossible to convict a white man of murder in any part of the south, particularly if the murderer is a man of any influence and has enough money to employ able counsel. This statement is, of course, too sweeping. But it must be admitted that juries show altogether too much sympathy for white murderers.

"The hanging of black men for murder and the inflicting of a lighter punishment upon white men for the same offense will not have a very beneficial effect upon the black population. Such partiality in the administration of justice will embitter the blacks and will give greater license in the commission of crimes of violence to the whites.

"Criminals, white and blacks, must be treated alike. Before the infliction of the death penalty will do the good it ought to there must be a public sentiment that will demand that there shall be no leniency shown by courts and juries to white murderers.

"Jurors seem to think they must deal with white murderers differently from black ones. They are mistaken. At the bar of justice 001515white and blacks stand on a footing of equality, and when juries acquita white murderer or send him to the penitentiary where he has a chance of being pardoned, and consign a black one to the gallows, they not only violate their oaths but they do society an injury.

"The black murderers recently convicted in this county deserved, no doubt, to be convicted. Let white murderers also be given their deserts."

This editorial might have added "and especially if the white murders a Negro." But the editorial is too good for me to insist upon this amendment however just it may be. This criticism upon the white people, however, might be in order. It appears that the better class of them consider it belittling to sit on the jury and see that justice is done all around for the good of the community and state, and somehow manage to get off or keep off the jury. In most of our courts a simple glance at the jury will convince the most casual observer that the most intelligent citizens are not there. How this happens to be true, I do not know, and where the remedy is, I cannot say; but it seems to me that there ought to be some other qualification for one to be a juror other than a citizen. Let the whites and blacks unitedly contend for principles. In the language of another, let me say--"Principles have no modesty. It is their nature to rule, and they steadily assert their privilege. Do they encounter in their paths other principles that would dispute their Empire, they give battle immediately. A principle never rests until it has gained the victory; and it cannot be otherwise,--with it to reign is to live. If it does not reign supreme, it dies."

As the glorious panacea for every ill, personal or national, let me give you as the conclusion the language of John Muller the distinguished Historian:--

"The gospel is the fulfilment of every hope, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of every revolution, the key to all seeming contradictions in the physical and moral world; it is life and immortality.Since I have known the Saviour, everything is clear to my eyes; with him there is no difficulty that I cannot solve."

Having done all in our power to solve this great Negro Problem, let us accept the gospel principle and leave the rest with God. He will bring us out alright and not a dog shall wag his tongue against us.