nioersitt) of 
 4 A (California 
 
 Ifilaus Sorccfeels IfTutto 
 
IRegro in Hmenca 
 
 Bn& 
 
 Hfceal Hmertcan IRepublic 
 
 BY 
 
 T. J. MORGAN, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 Studies in Tedagogy" " Tatriotic Citizenship" etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 1420 Chestnut Street 
 
SPRECKELS 
 
 Copyright 1898 by the 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
 jfrom tbc Society s own press 
 
DefcicateD 
 
 TO THE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS WHOM I HAD 
 THE HONOR TO COMMAND DURING THE WAR FOR 
 THE ENLARGEMENT OF HUMAN LIBERTY, THE PER 
 PETUATION OF FREE INSTITUTIONS, AND THE 
 PRESERVATION OF THE REPUBLIC "A GOVERN 
 MENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR 
 THE PEOPLE" 
 
 i 00504 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 MY grandfather was a slaveholder. My 
 father was an Abolitionist. While a student 
 in college I learned to believe in the doctrine 
 of the brotherhood of man and to hate slavery. 
 During the war I organized four regiments of 
 Negro soldiers ; was colonel of the Fourteenth 
 U. S. Colored Infantry ; organized and com 
 manded the First Colored Brigade of the Army 
 of the Cumberland, and participated in numer 
 ous engagements with both white and black 
 soldiers. Since the war I have had an abid 
 ing and growing interest in the progress of 
 the Negroes. For more than five years, as 
 the executive officer of the American Baptist 
 Home Mission Society, under whose auspices 
 an extensive educational and missionary work 
 has been carried on for the Negroes, I have 
 had occasion to study their conditions criti 
 cally, to make frequent public addresses, and 
 to write numerous essays. Some of these are 
 
Prefatory Note 
 
 now printed together with the hope that they 
 may be serviceable as well as interesting. 
 Written at different times, for specific pur 
 poses, with no intention of making a book, the 
 essays contain a little repetition and lack of 
 unity, defects which I hope the reader will 
 kindly pardon. I could not remedy them 
 without marring the individuality of the papers. 
 The essay on The Ideal Republic is added 
 because it sets forth the essential principles 
 underlying the relation of eight million Ne 
 groes to their fellow-citizens of the republic. 
 The final solution of this great question holds 
 in it very much for weal or woe not only for 
 the Negroes and their descendants, but also 
 for all that mighty host who are to constitute 
 the Twentieth Century Republic. 
 
 T. J. M. 
 
 NEW YORK, November, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. SLAVERY AND FREEDOM 9 
 
 II. NEGROES IN THE CIVIL WAR 5 2 
 
 III. EDUCATION OF THE NEGROES 75 
 
 IV. THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF NEGRO 
 
 WOMEN " 96 
 
 V. RELIGIOUS LIFE AMONG THE NEGROES . . 115 
 
 VI. NEGROPHOBIA . . . .^ I2 3 
 
 VII. THE NEGROES UNDER FREEDOM 143 
 
 VIII. THE IDEAL AMERICAN REPUBLIC . . . . 160 
 
THE NEGRO IN AMERICA 
 
 SLAVERY AND FREEDOM 
 
 THE population of the United States now 
 comprises probably seventy millions of people, 
 and among these are representatives of all the 
 great races of the earth. About four hundred 
 years ago, when adventurers from Europe came 
 to explore North America they found living 
 here a body of copper-colored people whom 
 they called Indians. Where these people 
 came from, how they got here, why they came, 
 or how many there were of them, nobody 
 knows. In the early part of the seventeenth 
 century colonists arriving from Europe began 
 to form settlements along the Atlantic coast, 
 and European immigrants have continued to 
 come until the number has reached the enor 
 mous proportion of about twenty millions. 
 Almost all of these people came of their own 
 free will, to establish for themselves homes in 
 9 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 a new country, where the conditions would be 
 more favorable for their prosperity and happi 
 ness than in the lands from which they came. 
 They and their descendants constitute by far 
 the largest part of our population, and they 
 have been the chief factors in the development 
 of our civilization. 
 
 The Africans brought to this country were 
 
 not immigrants, coming of their own free will 
 
 to seek their fortunes in a 
 
 The "Mayflower" country; they were 
 
 and . , . \ f . 
 
 the Slave Ship ca P tlves seized m Afnca > 
 carried away from their na 
 tive land, their homes, their friends, and 
 brought to this country in the holds of sailing 
 vessels where they suffered many hardships, 
 and were sold into slavery. The first slave- 
 ship landed at Jamestown, Va. , 1619, with 
 its helpless cargo, and thus introduced on 
 American soil an institution which was des 
 tined to play a very significant part in the fu 
 ture history of the American people. The 
 "Mayflower," which landed at Plymouth, 
 Mass., in 1620, brought a company of intelli 
 gent Christian white people, who laid the 
 foundations of a new civilization characterized 
 by freedom : out of the Plymouth Colony have 
 10 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 come free schools, free Bibles, free ballots. 
 America is pre-eminently the land of equality. 
 Every citizen of the republic has the right to 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and 
 rightfully claims the equal protection of the 
 laws under which he lives. The slave-ship 
 brought slaves, those who could claim no rights 
 whatever, but were to receive in silence and 
 submission whatever treatment was accorded 
 to them by their masters. In a new country 
 such as this then was, there was great need of 
 labor ; and the slave trade was very profitable, 
 because there was great demand for the work 
 of the poor creatures who were brought from 
 Africa to America. 
 
 At first the Africans were sold to any who 
 would buy them in any of the Colonies ; slav 
 ery existed in the Northern portions of the 
 country as well as in the Southern. In the 
 course of time, however, slavery came to be 
 confined entirely to the Southern States. The 
 Northern communities abandoned it partly be 
 cause it was less profitable in the North and 
 partly because of the growth of a strong pub 
 lic sentiment against it. 
 
 Slaves were used for the performance of all 
 kinds of service : the women as cooks, cham- 
 ii 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 bermaids, laundresses, sewing girls, nurses ; the 
 men as coachmen, gardeners, field hands. A 
 very large part of the hardest work in the South 
 was done by the slaves, and those who could 
 afford to do so usually preferred to own their 
 servants rather than to hire them, as was gen 
 erally done at the North, and is now done 
 everywhere in the country. Many slavehold 
 ers were kind-hearted, noble, worthy people, 
 who either did not see anything wrong in slav 
 ery, or who, because they had inherited their 
 slaves, or for other reasons which seemed to 
 them sufficient, could not very well divest 
 themselves of slave property. 
 
 In very many instances the slaves were 
 kindly treated, being fairly well clothed and 
 fed, and properly cared for when sick ; in other 
 cases they were treated very harshly and even 
 cruelly. They were not taught to read or 
 write ; they did not own property ; everything 
 they had belonged to their masters ; they 
 were not allowed to have their own homes, 
 but must live wherever required to by their 
 masters ; sometimes a husband lived on one 
 plantation and his wife on another, while the 
 children, perhaps, were sold and carried away 
 into distant States. Slavery left no place for 
 
 12 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 the recognition of manhood and womanhood ; 
 it made no provision for the cultivation of self- 
 respect, industry, thrift, intelligence, enter 
 prise, independence; it crushed out in the slave 
 most of the nobler sentiments of the human 
 heart. Slavery was a monster, and the mother 
 of vices. It developed in the men sloth, im 
 providence, servility ; in the women, fawning 
 and impurity. In the masters it developed 
 arrogance, pride, and cruelty. As a system, 
 it stands condemned at the bar of the world s 
 best public opinion as utterly irreconcilable 
 with correct principles of political economy, 
 morality, or religion. 
 
 The Africans who were brought to this 
 country as slaves were black, full-blooded 
 
 Negroes : were ignorant, 
 
 , A Blessing Deeply 
 
 superstitious, and very de- Disguised 
 
 grade d Africa, whence 
 they came, being mostly a land of barbarism. 
 Strange as it may seem, it is true that slavery, 
 notwithstanding its evils, was in large degree 
 overruled to their good. They learned to 
 speak the English language. They learned 
 that great and blessed lesson how to work. 
 They became acquainted with the white man s 
 ways, acquired a taste for freedom and real 
 13 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 prosperity, and an intense desire for learning. 
 When the Civil War began, in 1861, there 
 were about four million slaves, but of these 
 only a very small number were originally Afri 
 cans (the slave trade having been stopped), 
 and among them were a large number of mu- 
 lattoes, or mixed bloods, some of whom were 
 almost entirely white. These four million 
 slaves, multitudes of whom through the preach 
 ing of the gospel and religious instruction had 
 become Christians, were far removed in most 
 respects from the degraded condition of the 
 first shiploads of captives that were brought 
 from Africa. 
 
 From the very first introduction of slavery 
 there were those who looked upon the institu 
 tion as wrong, but it was 
 
 Emancipation suffered to remain and grow 
 until the evils of it became 
 very many and very manifest. Some of the 
 wisest and best people in the South considered 
 it not only a moral wrong, but an economic 
 evil, and believed that the country would be 
 more prosperous without it than with it. 
 When, however, the sentiment against it in 
 the North became very strong, and efforts 
 were made to prevent by legislation its spread 
 14 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 into new Territories and States, the question 
 became a political one, and the South united 
 almost solidly in advocating both its continu 
 ance and its extension. Some said that it 
 could not be abolished ; that the Negroes were 
 unfit for freedom ; that, if set free, they would 
 miserably perish, and that the abolition of 
 slavery would produce such a revolution in 
 the condition of the South as would threaten 
 that entire region with the greatest evils, 
 economic, social, and political. Some very 
 curious arguments were used in its favor : one 
 was that God intended the Negroes to be 
 slaves, and hence made them black ; another, 
 that all working people should be slaves, so 
 that they could be better controlled by their 
 masters ; still another, that the white race 
 would reach a higher stage of civilization by 
 holding the blacks in slavery. Some went so 
 far as to declare that Negroes were not human 
 beings, but beasts ; that they had no souls ; 
 but these people would have found it very 
 difficult to explain such a phenomenon as Fred 
 Douglas. 
 
 In the North there slowly grew up a very 
 strong public sentiment in favor of the entire 
 abolition of slavery, and those who advocated 
 15 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 this action were called Abolitionists. They 
 formed themselves into clubs and societies, 
 published newspapers, pam- 
 The Abolitionists phlets, books, made ad 
 dresses, wrote letters, and 
 in a great variety of ways strove very ear 
 nestly to create a sentiment against slavery 
 strong enough to overthrow it. William Lloyd 
 Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Owen Lovejoy, 
 Charles Sumner, and Henry Ward Beecher, 
 were among the leading champions of the free 
 dom of the slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 published "Uncle Tom s Cabin," depicting 
 the horrors of slavery, which had an enormous 
 circulation and exerted a profound influence, 
 notwithstanding the fact that many Southern 
 people insisted that the picture was overdrawn, 
 and that slavery was not so bad as she des 
 cribed it. 
 
 In 1856 the Free Soilers, as they were called, 
 had acquired force enough in politics to secure 
 the nomination of General John C. Fremont as 
 the Republican candidate for the presidency, 
 and, although he was not elected, he received 
 a great many votes. The campaign in his be 
 half intensified the public sentiment against 
 slavery, and, in consequence of this, in 1860, 
 16 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, was elected 
 president of the United States. Many of the 
 prominent politicians of the South professed 
 to see in his election an act of hostility to 
 slavery and an encroachment upon the rights 
 of the Southern people, and they finally in 
 duced a large number of the States to try to 
 secede from the Union and form a confederate 
 government. The fundamental principle of the 
 secession movement was the doctrine of State 
 rights : that every State of the Union had the 
 right to secede whenever the people thought 
 it best for their own interest. 
 
 One of the principal motives that led to the 
 formation of a confederacy was the protection 
 and perpetuation of slavery. The secession 
 movement led to one of the most disastrous 
 wars ever waged, which continued from April, 
 1861, to April, 1865, and cost both the North 
 and the South the expenditure of an enormous 
 quantity of blood and treasure. The war was 
 begun by the South. President Lincoln im 
 mediately called into service, first, seventy-five 
 thousand volunteer soldiers ; and he continued 
 to call for new troops as long as they were 
 needed, until the war was ended. His pur 
 pose, and that of the great army that he called 
 B 17 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 into existence, was not to destroy slavery, but 
 to preserve the Union. From the first, how 
 ever, the Abolitionists, and many others, be 
 lieved that the war begun for the perpetuation 
 of slavery could end in no other way than in 
 its destruction, and some were in favor of tak 
 ing immediate steps for this. 
 
 President Abraham Lincoln, after a great 
 deal of discussion and very much urging from 
 
 the Abolitionists and others, 
 The Great c ,, r . 
 
 Proclamation finall y> after havjn S g lven 
 warning of what he in 
 tended to do, unless those in rebellion against 
 the government laid down their arms, issued 
 on January i, 1863, his famous Emancipation 
 Proclamation, which declared free all slaves 
 held in the States, or parts of States, still in 
 rebellion against the national government. 
 He issued this act as a war measure. As 
 president of the United States, he was com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army and the navy, and 
 had a right to emancipate the slaves if thereby 
 he could weaken the power of those who were 
 trying to destroy the Union, and thus contrib 
 ute to the preservation of the life of the Re 
 public. By this act, and by subsequent legis 
 lation, all the slaves became free, and can 
 18 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 never again be enslaved. By a change in the 
 Constitution they were enfranchised, /". e. , 
 they were allowed the privilege of voting and 
 holding office the same as white men. These 
 two acts, emancipation and enfranchisement, 
 together mark a great epoch, or new starting- 
 point, in the history of the Africans in Amer 
 ica ; heretofore, they had been slaves that 
 could be bought and sold just as cattle are 
 bought and sold, without any rights which the 
 white man was bound to respect ; hereafter 
 they were to be free men and women, entitled 
 to all the rights and privileges of American 
 citizenship. This was a very great change, 
 in their situation. Many people thought that 
 they would die if thus set free ; that they would 
 become absolutely poor ; that they could not 
 care for themselves ; that they would become 
 lawless desperadoes. But, happily, no one of 
 these things has proved to be true. 
 
 The Negroes did not fully understand what 
 the Civil War meant. They could not read and 
 their masters purposely kept 
 them in ignorance as to the n 
 real state of things. There 
 was, however, a very general impression among 
 them that the "Yankees" were their friends, 
 19 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 and many of them believed that the Union 
 army was coming South to set them free, but, 
 of course, they could not express openly their 
 desire for freedom, nor their hopes for the 
 coming of "Massa Linkum s soldiers." Some 
 of them had very absurd notions about North 
 ern people ; they had been told, and some of 
 them actually believed, that the Yankee 
 soldiers had horns, and it was very amusing 
 to see the curious expression on their faces 
 when they had their first sight of Union 
 soldiers. Notwithstanding all the excitement 
 occasioned by the war, the great body of the 
 slaves remained quietly at home following their 
 ordinary pursuits. A very large proportion of 
 the able-bodied white men were in the South 
 ern army, so that in numerous cases the white 
 women and children were left alone with the 
 Negro servants. The food for the families 
 and the supplies for the Southern army were 
 raised chiefly by the labor of the slaves, and 
 it is an interesting fact that there were very 
 few cases of complaint on the part of white 
 women and children against them during the 
 war. They seemed to feel that they were en 
 trusted with the care of the white folks and 
 took a pride in being faithful to their trust. 
 20 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 There were instances in which white women, 
 on the approach of the Northern armies, con 
 fided to the keeping of their slaves their 
 money, jewels, and other valuable property 
 which they feared might fall into the hands of 
 the soldiers ; they rarely betrayed even this 
 trust. 
 
 In many cases Southern white officers took 
 their body servants with them into the army, 
 where they remained for the most part loyal 
 and faithful. Their good conduct at home 
 during the war served to awaken a great deal 
 of gratitude and admiration for them on the 
 part of the white people of the South. If the 
 Negroes had been so disposed, they had it in 
 their power to work great harm during the ab 
 sence of their masters and to inflict irreparable 
 injury on the helpless women and children. 
 
 A very considerable number left their homes 
 and passed the lines of the Union army. 
 Some of them did this 
 thinking they might imme- "Contrabands" 
 diately gain their freedom, 
 having very extravagant and crude notions of 
 what freedom meant. Quite a number found 
 employment in the Union army as cooks and 
 waiters, but most of them had a hard time of 
 21 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 it. General Benjamin F. Butler justified him 
 self in seizing upon the slaves "because," he 
 said, "they were contraband of war"; and so 
 they came to be almost universally called 
 l Contrabands. The places where they were 
 herded together to be fed and cared for were 
 called " Contraband camps. " Their poverty, 
 ignorance, and helplessness at once excited the 
 pity of philanthropic people in the North and 
 teachers and missionaries were sent among 
 them ; but not much could be done, because 
 these camps were temporary and soon broken 
 up. 
 
 After a great deal of discussion, in which 
 much was said both for and against it, Presi 
 dent Lincoln decided to enlist Negro troops 
 for the Union army. This was one way of 
 finding employment for the able-bodied men, 
 who were very much better off with something 
 to do than if they remained idle. Besides 
 this, the wages that they would earn as soldiers 
 would enable them to do something toward 
 caring for their families and other friends who 
 were dependent upon them for support. At 
 first it was feared that they would not make 
 good soldiers because they were so ignorant 
 and so servile in disposition. It was thought, 
 22 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 however, that if they were properly organized 
 and drilled they would at least be useful in 
 constructing fortifications and in guarding 
 military posts, thus relieving an equal number 
 of veteran white soldiers who could take 
 their places at the front to do the fight 
 ing. There were those who believed from 
 the first that they would make good soldiers ; 
 that they were imitative, teachable, ambitious 
 to excel, proud of being called men and treated 
 as soldiers, and very desirous of doing some 
 thing toward gaining their own liberties. The 
 result showed that they were right. Nearly 
 two hundred thousand Negro troops were or 
 ganized, some as infantry, some as cavalry, and 
 some as light and heavy artillery ; they per 
 formed all kinds of military duty, took part in 
 many hard-fought battles, and showed them 
 selves to be in many respects admirable 
 soldiers. They became very skillful in the 
 manual of arms ; learned all the movements 
 of the soldier in companies, regiments, and 
 brigades ; kept their clothes, their arms, and 
 their camps in good condition ; stood very 
 well the fatigue and hardships of heavy 
 marches ; were patient under wounds and sick 
 ness ; endured quietly the hunger and other 
 23 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 deprivations incident to army life ; were obedi 
 ent to their officers ; were very brave in bat 
 tle ; and were thoughtful and kind toward white 
 Southern prisoners whom they captured. Al 
 though they were not so intelligent and hence 
 not so independent and self-reliant as most of 
 the white soldiers of the Union army, they 
 made a good record for themselves, and Negro 
 troops have formed a part of the regular army 
 ever since the close of the war. 
 
 At first there was a great deal of prejudice 
 against them on the part of the white soldiers, 
 but gradually this prejudice wore away and 
 Negro troops were treated with the same re 
 spect and confidence as white troops. In some 
 instances white regiments said that they would 
 rather march and fight by the side of well- 
 drilled, brave Negro regiments than with any 
 other. 
 
 Naturally there was much indignation in the 
 South because the North had organized slaves 
 into regiments of soldiers, and many threats 
 were made that if Negro troops were captured 
 in battle they would be killed without mercy, 
 and their officers would share the same fate. 
 These threats, however, only made the colored 
 soldiers more careful and more courageous, 
 24 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 and stimulated their white officers to greater 
 diligence in drilling them for service, and in 
 preventing their being captured. The preju 
 dice of even Southern soldiers and people 
 against them gradually wore away, and there 
 were very few instances in which those taken 
 prisoners were treated with exceptional cruelty. 
 When the Negroes had been emancipated 
 and enfranchised, the appalling fact presented 
 
 itself of four million Ameri- 
 
 . , The Negroes 
 
 can citizens, without educa- . . 
 
 in School 
 
 tion and without political 
 experience. Here they were, just emerging 
 from bondage, blinded by the glittering light of 
 freedom, without experience, without leader 
 ship. Here were numbers of churches with 
 pastors who could not read a word of the Bible 
 they were trying to explain ; here were multi 
 tudes of children who ought to be in Sunday- 
 school, but who had no teachers ; here was a 
 great host of young people growing up without 
 knowledge, deprived of the care of their mas 
 ters because they were free, and having no 
 body to provide for them ; they were, indeed, 
 like sheep without a shepherd, and unless some 
 thing were done for them they would speedily 
 fall a prey to ravening wolves. 
 2 5 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 The government organized what was called 
 the "Freedmen s Bureau," and placed at the 
 head of it General O. O. Howard, a Christian 
 gentleman, a philanthropist, a brave soldier, 
 and a broad-minded statesman. For several 
 years this bureau labored earnestly and effici 
 ently to improve the welfare of the Negroes, 
 and accomplished great good. The govern 
 ment did not undertake to establish schools 
 directly, but the bureau encouraged all educa 
 tional movements among them. 
 
 Even before the war closed the philanthropic 
 people of the North sent missionaries and 
 teachers to labor among the " Contrabands," 
 and in many of the important cities of most of 
 the Southern States there were established 
 Christian schools, having at first special refer 
 ence to giving a rudimentary education to 
 those who intended to preach. It was felt 
 that the preachers ought at least to be able to 
 read the Bible, as well as to know some 
 thing of what the Bible taught. The work of 
 these schools was necessarily, in the beginning, 
 very primitive. They were attended at first 
 by a good many old men, who, with their 
 spectacles on, pored over their spelling lessons 
 like little children in the primary department. 
 26 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 But even with these crude beginnings they ac 
 complished from the outset a very important 
 work ; the teachers met the pupils not only in 
 their class-rooms, where they learned to read 
 and write and spell, but they taught them a 
 great many useful things besides, and so helped 
 them to do the work they were called upon to 
 perform. These schools were at first held in 
 some instances in Negro cabins, in other 
 cases in the dark, damp basements of Negro 
 churches. 
 
 Thirty-five years have gone by since these 
 institutions were started, and the change that 
 
 has taken place in them is 
 
 i r i j j T. j A Great 
 
 wonderful indeed. To-day Revo|ution 
 
 the Baptists alone are assist 
 ing in supporting more than thirty of them for 
 the Negroes in the South. One of these is a 
 high-grade theological seminary, at Richmond, 
 Va., where more than fifty young men are 
 pursuing a course of study similar to that pur 
 sued in the best theological seminaries in the 
 North. Another is Shaw University, at Ra 
 leigh, N. C. , where there is an academic de 
 partment, a normal department, a college, a 
 school of pharmacy, a law school, and a medi 
 cal school. This one institution has accom- 
 27 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 plished for the State of North Carolina a work 
 that is very difficult to describe on account of 
 its extent and importance. One of the great 
 est schools of the kind in the world is Spelman 
 Seminary, at Atlanta, Ga., where there is a 
 beautiful campus, a number of splendid brick 
 buildings, a large faculty, and a great body of 
 Negro girls and women. They are instructed 
 in cooking, sewing, housekeeping ; are taught 
 typesetting ; are trained as nurses for the sick 
 room ; are fitted to become missionaries, and 
 there is a well-equipped normal school where 
 they are educated for high-grade work as teach 
 ers. There are other schools, at Nashville, 
 Tenn. , Columbia, S. C. , Marshall, Texas, and 
 elsewhere. During the last year more than five 
 thousand pupils were in attendance, and it is 
 the testimony of all who are acquainted with 
 them that the students are industrious and ca 
 pable. Those who have gone out from these 
 institutions to become teachers, pastors, law 
 yers, doctors, editors, and to fill other useful 
 occupations, are among the foremost men and 
 women of the race, and are doing an invalua 
 ble work for their people. 
 
 The Baptists of the North have expended 
 in this educational work, since the war, more 
 28 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 than three million dollars, and they are spend 
 ing now more than a hundred thousand dollars 
 every year to carry it on. 
 
 The Negroes have organized schools at 
 Louisville, Ky. ; Selma, Ala. ; Little Rock, 
 Ark. ; Macon, Mo. ; Au 
 gusta, Ga. ; Lynchburg, Negro Schools 
 Va., and elsewhere, which 
 they are conducting themselves. They are 
 under the control of Negro Boards of Trustees, 
 are taught by Negro faculties, and most of the 
 money needed for their sppport is contributed 
 by the Negroes. Nearly all of them, how 
 ever, receive some help from the American 
 Baptist Home Mission Society. 
 
 Of the eight million Negroes now in the 
 country more than one million six hundred 
 thousand are members of Baptist churches, 
 and a great many more are in sympathy with 
 the Baptists, and naturally look to them for 
 aid in missionary and educational work. The 
 Negroes are poor, and are not yet able to 
 carry on their educational work without help, 
 and one of the most beneficent schemes ever 
 devised and carried on by Christian people 
 anywhere in the world at any time, is that 
 of establishing among them these Christian 
 29 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 schools of learning for the development of 
 their manhood and womanhood, the formation 
 of their Christian character, and the prepara 
 tion for usefulness of thousands and tens of 
 thousands of those who are to be leaders of 
 their race. 
 
 Many others besides the Baptists have been 
 and are engaged in this important work, 
 among them being the Congregationalists, 
 Methodists, and Presbyterians. Some of the 
 great schools they have established and fos 
 tered are Hampton Institute in Virginia, Fisk 
 University in Nashville, Straight University at 
 New Orleans, Biddle University in North 
 Carolina, Clarke and Atlanta Universities in 
 Georgia, and Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama. 
 
 In addition to the work done by the re 
 ligious denominations, the most important help 
 furnished to Negro education by persons not 
 living in the South has been given through the 
 Peabody and Slater Funds, which comprise sev 
 eral million dollars. The first secretary of this 
 great beneficent educational fund was a North 
 ern man, Rev. Dr. Barnas Sears, once presi 
 dent of Brown University ; the next two were 
 the late Dr. Haygood, of Georgia, and Hon. 
 J. L. M. Curry, of Virginia, both Southern 
 30 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 men and both very earnest, intelligent, and 
 faithful in disbursing the money for the best 
 interests of all concerned. The Slater Fund 
 was exclusively for the benefit of the Negroes, 
 while the Peabody Fund was for all. 
 
 Besides the philanthropic work inaugurated 
 by Northern capital, there has now been 
 established in all the South 
 ern States a public school Pub Jgchools 
 system for the equal bene 
 fit of white and Negro children. In the North, 
 colored children can attend all schools and 
 colleges and universities, but in the South they 
 have separate schools and are not allowed to 
 attend any others. The young Negroes of 
 the South, therefore, do not have the same 
 opportunity for acquiring a liberal education 
 that white children have either in the South 
 or North. Their public schools are, as yet, 
 not of a high order, being taught almost en 
 tirely by Negroes, very many of whom are 
 but poorly prepared for their work. The 
 schoolhouses, especially in the country, are 
 poor ; they are not well supplied with books 
 or apparatus, and the schools continue only a 
 few months in the year. Nevertheless, they 
 are accomplishing a great deal of good, and 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 are being improved from year to year, so that 
 by and by they will probably become very effi 
 cient. The great body of Negro children 
 must depend upon the public schools for their 
 education, hence these schools should have 
 the sympathy and support of all classes of peo 
 ple. The Southern States are entitled to great 
 credit for what has already been done in this 
 work. 
 
 One of the most hopeful factors in the de 
 velopment of the Negro race, the improve 
 ment of their material and moral condi 
 tion, has been their thirst for knowledge. 
 This was particularly characteristic of those 
 who had been slaves, whom it was unlawful to 
 teach to read and write, and who were thus 
 shut out from even the simplest rudiments of 
 a common English education. They were al 
 most universally eager to get an education, 
 and when the opportunity was presented 
 not only multitudes of adults, but many old 
 men and women, took their places along with 
 little children in schoolrooms. While there 
 are marked exceptions not a few, yet it is still 
 true of the Negroes as a body that they are 
 anxious to learn. 
 
 In Africa there is an immense number of 
 3 2 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 Negroes, how many nobody knows, but prob 
 ably not less than one hundred and fifty or two 
 
 hundred millions. Some of 
 
 Negro 
 these apparently have no christians 
 
 religion at all ; many are 
 idolaters, some Mohammedans, and a very 
 few are Christians. Of the eight millions in 
 this country, a very large proportion belong to 
 Christian churches; one million six hundred 
 thousand are reported to be members of Bap 
 tist churches, about the same number are en 
 rolled in Methodist churches, and besides 
 these there are Presbyterians, Congregational- 
 ists, Episcopalians, and others. It is a singu 
 lar fact that perhaps a larger proportion of Ne 
 groes are enrolled as church-members than of 
 any other class of people, and in this respect 
 the contrast between the Africans in America 
 and those in Africa is very striking. 
 
 In the days of slavery they usually attended 
 the same churches as their masters, being al 
 lowed to sit in the back seats or in the gal 
 leries, where they listened to the preaching of 
 the gospel. Many of them were converted 
 and were received as members of white 
 churches. Services were frequently held es 
 pecially for them, and many eminent Southern 
 c 33 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 preachers took great satisfaction in preaching 
 to them. 
 
 After the war the Negro Christians almost 
 universally separated themselves from their 
 white brethren and formed churches of their 
 own ; they preferred to have Negro pastors, to 
 carry on their own religious work, and to con 
 duct their services in their own fashion. There 
 has been very naturally a good deal of very 
 crude preaching and some strange customs in 
 connection with their religious worship. They 
 are an emotional people, fond of excitement, 
 and oftentimes in their churches they give 
 themselves up to a kind of religious frenzy, 
 shouting, screaming and doing many things 
 which seem very strange to outsiders. It 
 ought to be said, however, that in some cases 
 they have copied these curious customs from 
 white people, and that even to-day there are 
 white congregations whose manner of worship 
 is quite as grotesque as theirs. It should also 
 be especially remembered that there is a great 
 improvement in this respect, and to-day very 
 many of their congregations are as quiet, 
 orderly, and decorous as those made up of 
 highly cultivated white people. 
 
 At first their pastors were ignorant and their 
 34 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 preaching of a very poor quality. At the 
 present time, however, there are found many 
 Negro pastors who have been well educated, 
 some in schools, some in colleges, and some 
 in theological seminaries, whose preaching is 
 intelligent, biblical, earnest, and effective. 
 Indeed, some of them are eloquent and 
 preach sermons remarkable for their oratorical 
 power. They have vivid imaginations, a sur 
 prising command of language (which is not 
 always used with exactness), and they fre 
 quently preach with extraordinary fervor. 
 They usually assume a larger degree of author 
 ity over their churches and rule their congre 
 gations much more absolutely than pastors of 
 intelligent white churches are wont to do ; 
 but this evil will correct itself as the members 
 of the churches grow in intelligence, indepen 
 dence, and the power of self-government. 
 
 When the war closed the Negroes had very 
 few and very poor houses of worship, but now 
 all through the South are to be found meeting 
 houses which they have built, chiefly with their 
 own money, and many of them are large, 
 comfortable, convenient, and even costly. It 
 is remarkable and much to their credit that 
 they have been willing, out of their small 
 35 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 earnings, to contribute such large amounts to 
 build meeting-houses. 
 
 It is sometimes asserted that their religion 
 does not always control their action ; that 
 
 their profession is better 
 Religion and . . 
 
 Right Living than their P ractlce > wh ^h 
 is probably true of Chris 
 tians generally. We should remember that 
 under the system of slavery they imbibed very 
 erroneous notions of morality. They did not 
 think it wrong to steal from their masters, be 
 cause they were only helping themselves to 
 what they had produced by their toil ; they 
 could not see why it was right for the white 
 men to take possession of them, buy and sell 
 them like cattle, and appropriate to their own 
 use. without their consent, all that they earned 
 by their labor. Among free, intelligent people 
 the family and the home are sacred. The re 
 lations of husband and wife, parent and child, 
 brother and sister, are very sweet and tender, 
 and are the foundation of noble characters. 
 Among the slaves there could be no families, 
 and all these dear relations were disregarded 
 and trampled upon, so that the standard of 
 morality and the rules of conduct common in 
 Christian families would be unknown among 
 36 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 slaves. When they became free, so that the 
 husband could have his own wife and the pa 
 rents could care for their own children, a new 
 order of things was introduced. But necessa 
 rily it takes a great deal of time to develop ideas 
 of morality which are permanent and forceful 
 in regulating conduct, although they are mak 
 ing rapid and hopeful progress in this direc 
 tion. 
 
 There is needed among them a very much 
 larger number of pious, able men who have 
 been well educated and es 
 pecially trained for the office Need of an 
 of pastor. One "fact will Educated Ministry 
 serve to show how great is 
 this need : There are in the North about one 
 million white Baptists, and there are five great 
 theological seminaries where young men are 
 trained to be pastors, and this is not too many. 
 There are in the South one million six hundred 
 thousand Negro Baptists, and there is only one 
 solitary Baptist theological seminary to furnish 
 for their churches a well-educated ministry. 
 There ought to be at least two more, one at 
 Atlanta, Ga., and one at Marshall, Texas, and 
 there would be, if money could be found to 
 establish and maintain them. 
 37 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 The development of the moral and religious 
 life of any people is very difficult and neces 
 sarily very slow ; many generations must pass 
 away before it can be accomplished. It is now 
 nearly one thousand nine hundred years since 
 the establishment of Christianity upon the 
 earth, and even the most favored white people 
 who have enjoyed the best opportunities have 
 not yet embodied in their lives, individually 
 and collectively, the teachings and spirit of 
 Jesus Christ. It was not to be expected that 
 the Negroes would make much greater progress 
 in their moral and religious growth than has 
 been made by white people under even 
 more favorable circumstances. Those who are 
 best acquainted with them believe that they 
 will develop a high type of religious life. 
 They are fond of music ; many of them greatly 
 excel as singers, and no doubt they will at 
 tain to a high order of sacred music in their 
 churches. They are a sympathetic and liberal 
 people, which will lead them to be generous 
 in their contributions for the care of the sick 
 and poor and for sending the gospel to the 
 heathen. Their pulpit oratory, while con 
 forming more and more to accepted standards 
 among white people, will doubtless retain for 
 
 38 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 generations something of its own fervor and 
 rhetorical embellishments. They have as yet 
 very much to learn regarding effective organiza 
 tion for educational, religious, and missionary 
 work, but in this too they are making fair 
 progress, and education, experience, and time 
 will do for them what it has done for others. 
 We are now entering upon what promises to 
 be an era of co-operation in behalf of the 
 evangelization and educa 
 tion of the Negroes. There Co-operation 
 are several very distinct 
 stages which mark the progress of this people 
 in America, to some of which allusion has al 
 ready been made. First, there was the bar 
 baric heathenism in which they lived in their 
 native land ; then there were two hundred and 
 fifty years of American bondage in which they 
 acquired a forced acquaintance with the rudi 
 ments of civilization ; this was followed by 
 the stage of helplessness incident upon their 
 sudden liberation from bondage while unpre 
 pared for freedom. During this stage they 
 could do very little for their own moral or in 
 tellectual improvement and were dependent 
 chiefly upon the missionaries and teachers who 
 were sent to them from the North. Most of 
 39 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 the white people of the South felt aggrieved 
 because the Negroes had been set free ; they 
 were impoverished by the dreadful war, and 
 many of them were much embittered against 
 both the Negroes and the North because their 
 former slaves had not only been emancipated, 
 but also enfranchised. They could not be ex 
 pected at once to enter heartily into the work 
 of providing schools for their proper educa 
 tion, and for many years those established by 
 the Northerners found little favor among them. 
 The teachers who went South were not gen 
 erally received into good society, and were 
 classed with the people they came to teach. 
 Unfortunately this social ostracism is not yet 
 wholly a thing of the past. 
 
 In some cases the Negroes have been a little 
 restive under the work done for them by their 
 Northern friends, and have urged very strongly 
 that more of their own number should be em 
 ployed as teachers and members of Boards of 
 trustees, in extreme cases even insisting that 
 the schools established for them by Northern 
 philanthropy and money should be turned over 
 to their exclusive management. But it re 
 quires a great deal of wisdom and experience 
 to manage educational institutions successfully, 
 40 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 and those who have done most for the estab 
 lishment of these schools in the South have 
 felt that the interest of the Negroes themselves 
 would be best promoted by having their man 
 agement continue in the hands of their found 
 ers. It has not been easy to reconcile these 
 conflicting policies, but time is a great healer 
 and is doing its beneficent work in this as in 
 other cases. 
 
 Some extremists among the Negroes are in 
 favor of drawing the color line ; that is, they 
 wish to separate themselves 
 as far as possible from white Drawing the 
 people ; they strongly insist Color Line 
 that they ought to prosecute 
 their own missionary work, publish their own 
 literature, manage their own schools, and not 
 be dependent in any respect upon white peo 
 ple, against whom they have a strong race prej 
 udice. This is a very foolish attitude. " God 
 made of one blood all nations of the earth," 
 and one of the ripest fruits of Christianity, and 
 one of the most precious results of Christian 
 civilization, is the destruction of the race bar 
 riers between different peoples. The destiny 
 of the Negroes in America is indissolubly linked 
 with that of the white people. The present 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 generation of them owe the progress which 
 they have made since emancipation largely to 
 the help afforded them by white people ; un 
 aided they never could have established for 
 themselves the schools which have done so 
 much for them. They have not been able to 
 properly equip, much less to endow, a single 
 school for themselves. If the white Baptists, 
 who have expended already more than three 
 million dollars for their benefit, and are to-day 
 making an annual expenditure of more than 
 one hundred thousand dollars for the support 
 of their schools and the promotion of mis 
 sionary work, should withdraw their support, it 
 would be an unspeakable calamity. After the 
 Negroes have done all that they possibly can do 
 to help themselves, and after the white people 
 have done all that they can be induced to do, 
 the Negroes will still be without the educa 
 tional advantages and religious privileges which 
 they very greatly need. To Christianize and 
 educate eight million people is a herculean task 
 and calls for the united effort of all uplifting 
 forces. Instead of seeking to separate be 
 tween the white and the black people of this 
 country, every effort should be made to unite 
 them closer and closer in all that looks toward 
 42 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 the education and Christianization of the Ne 
 groes. 
 
 The educational and missionary work which 
 the Northern Baptists are doing for the Ne 
 groes is carried on especially by four great or 
 ganizations the American Baptist Home Mis 
 sion Society, the American Baptist Publica 
 tion Society, the Women s Home Mission So 
 ciety of New England, and the Women s 
 Home Mission Society of Chicago. The New 
 England Women s Society is now co-operating 
 very fully with the parent Society in New 
 York ; the Western Women s Society co-oper 
 ates in part. 
 
 A movement is now in progress looking 
 toward the organization of Negro State educa 
 tion societies to co-operate heartily with the 
 Home Mission Society in organizing, unifying, 
 and rendering efficient all Negro educational 
 work. This plan is in very successful opera 
 tion in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and 
 Mississippi ; it is expected that other Southern 
 States will very quickly follow their lead. 
 
 There is also a plan of co-operation which 
 
 unites the Home Mission Society, the Home 
 
 Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the 
 
 white State Convention, and the Negro State 
 
 43 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Conventions, in carrying on, especially, mission 
 ary work among the Negroes. A very impor 
 tant series of " New Era Institutes " are being 
 held, where lectures are delivered by both 
 white and colored pastors, and where a great 
 deal of good is being done in fitting pastors, 
 Sunday-school superintendents, teachers, and 
 others, for more effective Christian work. This 
 plan L now in successful operation in Virginia, 
 North and South Carolina, Alabama, Ken 
 tucky, and Missouri, and it is hoped and be 
 lieved that before a great while all the Baptist 
 forces of the North and South will be working 
 together to promote the highest moral, relig 
 ious, and intellectual interests of the Negroes. 
 The progress of any people from a state of 
 savagery up through barbarism to a high stage 
 of civilization is a complex and tedious one. 
 The ancestors of the white people now living 
 in" America were savages many centuries ago, 
 and our present civilization is the result of 
 many co-operating forces. No race or people 
 has ever attained high civilization without out 
 side help, and the highest civilization is im 
 possible without co-operation. If the Negroes 
 in America are ever to become highly civilized, 
 so as to participate in all the advantages and 
 44 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 privileges of modern science, philosophy, 
 politics, and religion, they must have the sym 
 pathy and the help of white people. At the 
 same time they must do all they can to help 
 themselves, and not only this, if they are to 
 reach the highest stage of life, they must help 
 other people. No nation or people can become 
 great in the true sense who concentrate their 
 efforts upon themselves. It is just as true of 
 people and nations as it is of individuals, that 
 "no man liveth to himself." 
 
 Very many more things of interest might be 
 said concerning the Negroes in America, their 
 political life, their indus 
 tries, what they have done Negro Baptist 
 in music, poetry, painting, Young People 
 etc., and something too 
 about their social ostracism and the cruelties 
 to which they are subjected at the hands of 
 mobs, etc., but limits of space forbid. A 
 word, however, must be said about their young 
 people. There is now a host of several 
 thousand Baptist young people belonging to 
 the white Baptist churches of the North, and 
 multitudes of these have allied themselves 
 with the Young People s Union. Connected 
 with the Negro Baptist churches in the South 
 45 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 are nearly twice as many young people as are 
 found among the white churches in the North, 
 and some of these have also formed themselves 
 into unions. The work of organization has 
 not been carried forward among them as it 
 has among the white young people of the 
 North, and very few attend the great National 
 Conventions ; this is true partly because not 
 many of them can afford to spend their little 
 means in taking long journeys. 
 
 A great deal of good is being accomplished 
 among the Baptist Young People through the 
 Union. Those who are pursuing the Christian 
 Culture Courses carefully are acquiring much 
 valuable information about Christianity, about 
 Baptist churches and Baptist history, which will 
 be very useful to them as individual Christians 
 and as workers in the churches. The Negro 
 Baptist Young People need the same kind of 
 education as their white brothers and sisters 
 are acquiring. They have the same talents, 
 the same sort of religious duties to perform, 
 and they will be benefited by the Christian 
 Culture Courses and by association together 
 in local churches, in State conventions, and in 
 the great national assemblies, precisely in the 
 same manner as if they were white. Twenty- 
 46 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 five years from now, as things are going at 
 present, it looks as though there would be as 
 many Negro Baptists in America as there are 
 white Baptists, in both the North and the 
 South. Indeed, it will not be surprising if 
 before the end of the present century, which 
 is now very near, there will be more than two 
 million Negro Baptists. It is very important, 
 therefore, simply on the ground of numbers, 
 that the young men and young women growing 
 up in these Baptist churches should be well 
 educated and well trained for Christian service, 
 in order that they may be useful members of 
 society, and be able to meet the great respon 
 sibilities that the twentieth century will impose 
 upon them. 
 
 If the millions and millions of Negroes now 
 living in heathenism on the continent of Africa 
 are ever to be reached by 
 the gospel, it looks as though A Plea 
 
 it would have to be done from Africa 
 by the young men and 
 women now growing up in the Negro churches 
 of this country. What a wonderful thing it 
 would be if during the next hundred years 
 there could go back to heathen Africa ship 
 loads of missionaries to preach the gospel on 
 47 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 the Dark Continent, instead of the shiploads 
 of poor slaves that were brought from Africa 
 to America during the last century. Perhaps 
 some of the readers of this book will live to 
 see that great event. Already there is coining 
 to us from Africa an earnest plea for mission 
 aries. Ethiopia is stretching out her hand. 
 God in his providence seems to be preparing 
 the hearts of the Africans for the reception of 
 the gospel, and is also apparently preparing in 
 this country hosts of young men and women 
 who will be glad to go and give it to those who 
 are sitting in darkness. 
 
 Our fathers snatched the unwilling Negro 
 captives away from their native land, their 
 kindred, their friends, brought them here and 
 sold them into slavery ; they and their children 
 toiled, not for their own benefit, but for the 
 benefit of their masters ; they created the 
 wealth which others enjoyed. God in his 
 providence raised up Abraham Lincoln to be 
 their deliverer, and through him struck from 
 their limbs the shackles of bondage. They 
 are now free men and free women, citizens of 
 the American Republic ; nearly two millions 
 of them are Baptists, our brethren in the 
 Lord ; we have a common Father in heaven, 
 48 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 and they have a right to expect of us kindness 
 and help. When they are educated and have 
 become prosperous they will repay us for all 
 that we do for them, not perhaps by aiding 
 us, but by sending the gospel to Africa, and 
 helping to win for Christ in that dark continent 
 a multitude of followers, "whom no man can 
 number. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the regeneration 
 of Africa is to be left entirely to the Negroes 
 of America. The white Christians of this 
 country are under obligation to do all in their 
 power for the accomplishment of this mighty 
 purpose, and they cannot shift the responsi 
 bility from their shoulders to those of their 
 brethren in black. But it is nevertheless true 
 that the Negroes are better adapted to endure 
 the rigors of the climate and the deprivations 
 incident to missionary life in Africa than white 
 men are. Neither do I wish to be understood 
 as saying or implying that the Negroes should 
 content themselves with doing missionary work 
 among Negroes. They are debtors to all the 
 world as well as to Africa. 
 
 Each generation has its own great problems 
 to solve. The century now nearing its end 
 has been one of the most notable of all the 
 D 49 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 series in the world s history; great things have 
 been done ; great progress has been made. It 
 
 has been pre-eminently a 
 Twentieth Cen- century of scientific discov- 
 tury Problems eries, of inventions, and 
 
 of missions. Its crown 
 ing glory is the fact that so much has been 
 done for the religious welfare of mankind. 
 Doubtless the twentieth century will in many 
 respects surpass the nineteenth. The young 
 people now coming upon the stage of action 
 may look forward to a most interesting career. 
 Many new and strange questions will doubtless 
 arise, calling both for profound thought and 
 vigorous action. Happy they who shall enter 
 this century well equipped to play their part in 
 its great activities. 
 
 Without any doubt one of the great ques 
 tions that will insist upon solution during this 
 next century will be that of the proper rela 
 tion of the Negroes in America with their 
 white fellow-citizens. Numbering now about 
 eight millions, during the next century they 
 will probably increase to seventy-five or a hun 
 dred millions. They are here to stay. They 
 will remain an integral part of our national life. 
 They will exert a tremendous influence, for 
 5 
 
Slavery and Freedom 
 
 good or for evil. There is every reason why 
 they should be educated and Christianized. 
 If the white people do not lift the black people 
 up, the black people will pull the white people 
 down. It is manifestly to the interest of the 
 white people themselves to do everything pos 
 sible to foster education and Christianity among 
 the Negroes, and to prepare the rising genera 
 tion not only to become self-supporting, but 
 to become efficient factors in promoting the 
 common welfare of the nation. 
 
II 
 
 NEGROES IN THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 AT the outbreak of the war between the 
 Northern and Southern States, in 1861, there 
 were in the country, approximately, four mil 
 lion slaves. During the conflict nearly two 
 hundred thousand Negroes were enrolled in 
 the United States army, comparatively few of 
 .whom were enlisted from among the free Ne 
 groes of the North. The great mass of them 
 were slaves from the Southern plantations. 
 The purpose of this chapter is to consider this 
 fact in its relation to the present and probable 
 status of the race in this country. 
 
 The great body of citizens in the North who 
 sympathized with the purpose of President Lin 
 coln to suppress the rebellion were actuated, 
 primarily, by love for the Union and a deter 
 mination to preserve its integrity at any cost. 
 Patriotism was the battlecry of the hour. 
 Among those who rallied to the support of the 
 government in its hour of need were many 
 5 2 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 Abolitionists who disliked slavery, who saw in 
 the Civil War a possible means of its destruc 
 tion, and rejoiced at the prospect. It is safe to 
 say, however, that these were largely in the 
 minority. The greater portion of the army 
 was either indifferent to slavery or was in full 
 sympathy with President Lincoln s purpose to 
 save the Union with slavery if he could, with 
 out it if he must. In the early days of the 
 war, many of the Union soldiers were quick to 
 resent the taunt sometimes hurled at them that 
 they were "fighting to free the Nigger." 
 
 When the armies moved South they came 
 immediately into contact with the slaves, 
 multitudes of whom flocked within the Union 
 lines asking for service, protection, and sup 
 port. For the most part they were a motley 
 crew, many being in rags, and while some found 
 employment, the most were herded together 
 and supplied with the bare necessaries of life. 
 
 When the question was first broached of en 
 listing Negro soldiers there was a very strong 
 prejudice against it among 
 both officers and men. The The Great Debate 
 general opinion seemed to 
 be that slaves were disqualified for efficient 
 service as soldiers by reason of their ignorance 
 53 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 and the servile spirit begotten by bondage. 
 They could not be expected to be brave, it 
 was said, especially when brought face to face 
 with their former masters whom they had been 
 taught to respect, reverence, and obey. The 
 introduction of any considerable number of 
 such recruits was almost universally regarded as 
 an experiment full of hazard, and to be tried 
 only as a last resort. Among the private sol 
 diers the feeling prevailed that it would be dis 
 graceful to have Negro slaves enlisted and put 
 into the army on the same footing as them 
 selves, and murmurs of discontent at the prop 
 osition and threats of desertion if it were car 
 ried out were frequently heard. Besides this, 
 there was also a strong objection to arming the 
 slaves and using them as soldiers to fight their 
 old masters on the ground that it savored a 
 little of dishonor ; and, further, that it would 
 necessarily intensify the bitterness of the South 
 ern soldiers and people against the Union 
 army and the North. 
 
 On the other hand, those among the officers 
 and soldiers who favored their enlistment argued 
 that one of the probable results of the war was 
 to be the destruction of slavery, that conse 
 quently the slaves had more at stake than any 
 54 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 other class of persons, and hence, that they 
 should share the burden of the war and aid in 
 the suppression of the rebellion. Then too, 
 if they were to be free, their experience as sol 
 diers would prepare them for freedom as no 
 other experience possibly could. Few people 
 in the history of the world have ever gained 
 their freedom except by fighting. It was also 
 urged that they were essentially imitative and 
 obedient, that they were fond of dress and of 
 show, and would be particularly susceptible as 
 soldiers to the "pomp, parade, and glorious 
 circumstance of war." The certainty of their 
 severe treatment if captured in battle would be 
 an added stimulus to desperate courage. The 
 fact that thousands of them were serving as 
 officers servants had indirectly proved a won 
 derful preparation for service as soldiers, for, 
 although non-combatants, they had learned 
 much by observation of the duties, trials, and 
 dangers of army life. As the war progressed 
 and the destruction of human life became more 
 and more serious, there were not a few who 
 sympathized with Miles O Reily s sentiment 
 that "The right to be kilPt he d divide with 
 the Naygur, and give him the bigger half." 
 As it was often tersely put by the soldiers, "a 
 55 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 black man would stop a rebel bullet just as well 
 as a white man," and at length the opinion of 
 the army came to be that Negro soldiers, or 
 ganized and disciplined, could at least perform, 
 as has been said, invaluable service in the con 
 struction of fortifications and the guarding of 
 forts, thus liberating for service in the field an 
 equal number of veteran white troops. 
 
 In due time the enlistment of colored troops 
 was fully decided upon by the government ; 
 camps were established and the work of organ 
 ization began. The policy was adopted of 
 selecting from the Negroes themselves all non 
 commissioned officers, while commissioning as 
 field and line officers only white men, to be 
 selected chiefly from officers and soldiers who 
 had already seen service. The general princi 
 ple was followed of selecting officers for col 
 ored troops by competitive examination, and 
 this resulted in securing for the most part 
 men who were well qualified for their work. 
 Unhappily, as might be expected, some who 
 were actuated chiefly by personal ambition 
 found their way into official positions in this 
 service as a certain colonel of my acquain 
 tance expressed it, he cared nothing for the 
 niggers, except for the army rank they en- 
 
 56 
 
c 
 
 I 
 
 Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 abled him to attain." It is needless to say that 
 his success as a commanding officer of Negro 
 troops was not brilliant. 
 
 I entered the colored service in October, 
 1863, having been promoted, after examina 
 tion, from first lieutenant, in the Seventieth 
 Indiana Regiment commanded by Colonel 
 Benjamin Harrison, to the rank of major in the 
 Fourteenth United States Colored Infantry. I 
 organized the regiment and became its col 
 onel ; organized also the Forty-second and 
 Forty-fourth Regiments of United States Col 
 ored Infantry ; commanded at different times 
 more than five thousand Negro troops ; was 
 with them in battle at Dalton, Ga. ; Decatur, 
 Ala. ; Franklin and Nashville, Tenn. At the 
 last named place it was my privilege to open 
 the great battle with a brigade of Negro troops 
 and a brigade of white troops, constituting a 
 provisional division. My superior officer was 
 Gen. James B. Steadman, who was in com 
 mand of the left wing of the Army of the 
 Cumberland, commanded by Gen. George H. 
 Thomas. I thus had the opportunity of seeing 
 a good deal of service, and making a pretty 
 careful study of Negro soldiers under very 
 favorable circumstances. 
 57 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Among so large a number of troops, so 
 widely scattered over such a broad theatre of 
 
 military operations, under 
 
 Characteristics of , . , . , 
 
 Negro Troops circumstances whlch varied 
 
 so greatly, there would 
 
 necessarily be wide differences among Negro 
 troops, as there would be among white troops, 
 and any general statements are true subject to 
 qualifications. Very much depended, neces 
 sarily, upon the courage and general character 
 of the white officers who were appointed to 
 drill, discipline, and lead them. As the war 
 closed in April, 1865, there was not time 
 enough to settle definitely and permanently the 
 question of their soldierly qualities. The gen 
 eral ignorance which prevailed among them, 
 very few being able to either read or write, 
 militated very much against their highest effi 
 ciency. The contrast between the average in 
 telligence of many of the white regiments of 
 the Union army recruited from the best men 
 of the North farmers sons, clerks, school 
 teachers, and thrifty business men and a regi 
 ment made up of Negroes just out of bondage, 
 was very striking. The high character of the 
 men composing the Union army is well known. 
 No less than six of its officers have been presi- 
 
 53 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 dents of the United States, scores of them 
 have been senators and governors, and large 
 numbers have filled other high official stations. 
 The private soldiers have been found in all the 
 honorable walks of life civil and political, 
 commercial, educational, and religious. No 
 such body of intelligent men was ever before 
 enrolled in an army, and its effectiveness was 
 due largely to the high average of its intelli 
 gence, as was the superiority of the German 
 army over the French army in their late war. 
 While the cardinal virtue of the soldier is obedi 
 ence, every experienced army officer well 
 knows that the greater the intelligence among 
 private soldiers, the greater their efficiency in 
 actual war. Among the liberated slaves who 
 were enlisted as soldiers there were numbers 
 of stalwart men, some of them mixed bloods 
 who had enjoyed exceptional advantages, and 
 who possessed a fair degree of general intelli 
 gence. Many of these men, after preliminary 
 instruction and training, rendered efficient serv 
 ice as sergeants, and acquired considerable skill 
 as drill-masters. 
 
 In very many of the colored regiments schools 
 of instruction were established for giving the 
 soldiers the elements of an English education ; 
 59 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 large numbers of them availed themselves 
 most eagerly of the privilege of learning to read 
 and write. They showed themselves apt in ac 
 quiring a knowledge of tactics, and some of 
 them came to use their arms with exceptional 
 skill. Gen. George H. Thomas, a graduate of 
 West Point, and an experienced soldier, said 
 of the Fourteenth United States Colored In 
 fantry, that it handled its arms better than any 
 other regiment he had ever seen. The cour 
 age of Negro soldiers was vindicated and thor 
 oughly established on many a battlefield. I 
 had a somewhat wide and varied experience in 
 the army, was in several heavy engagements, 
 commanded both white and black troops, and 
 now, as I look back upon it, after a third of a 
 century, I am somewhat in doubt as to which 
 class of troops, white or black, I should give 
 preference for courage. The blacks were per 
 haps more dependent upon their officers than 
 white troops were ; possibly possessed less of 
 sustained courage under trying circumstances, 
 but they endured pain with wonderful fortitude, 
 and were capable of romantic heroism, such 
 as they exhibited at Petersburg. The fact that 
 several regiments of Negro troops were incor 
 porated into the regular army, where they have 
 60 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 been continued ever since the war, is pretty 
 conclusive evidence that they possess soldierly 
 qualities. 
 
 The near and remote consequences resulting 
 from their enlistment in the Union army were 
 
 many and important. One 
 
 . ^ Results of Negro 
 of the most obvious is that EnHstment 
 
 it gave employment to 
 nearly two hundred thousand able-bodied men 
 who had been thrown out of their former serv 
 ice by the progress of the war and had, as yet, 
 found no place of independent labor. In ad 
 dition to giving them something to do, it af 
 forded food, clothing, protection, and wages, 
 which many of them used either in the support 
 of their families or in the assistance of relatives 
 or friends who were partially dependent upon 
 them, and it was vastly better that they should 
 earn this help from the government than that 
 they should receive it as a gratuity. It further 
 served to greatly stimulate a healthful self- 
 respect. They are not wanting in natural pride 
 and ambition, which even in slavery was a spur 
 to success and a solace in sorrow. The ten 
 dency of slavery, however, was to degrade 
 them, or, at least to keep them degraded ; to 
 stifle the natural craving after recognition of 
 61 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 their manhood and the rewards that follow such 
 recognition. Slavery begets cringing, fawning 
 cowardice. They entertained exaggerated no 
 tions of the dignity of soldiers, and looked upon 
 the Union army as a heroic band of conquering 
 heroes with whom it would be an honor to serve, 
 even in the humblest capacity. When they 
 came to be enlisted as soldiers and to serve as 
 a part of the great army of liberation, to wear 
 a soldier s uniform, to carry a musket and be 
 addressed as " men " and treated with respect, 
 they felt that the " year of jubilee " had indeed 
 come. When they had participated in hot en 
 gagements, such as those at Nashville, Peters 
 burg, and Port Hudson, acquitting themselves 
 valiantly and winning the praise of their officers 
 and the encomium of white soldiers, they real 
 ized, not in its full significance, perhaps, but 
 partially at least, that they had crossed the 
 great gulf which separates between chattels and 
 men. They had vindicated their manhood by 
 the test which all the world has for centuries 
 recognized as a severe one, the test of courage 
 in battle. 
 
 It is to be recorded to the credit of the 
 Negro soldiers that the instances were rare 
 when they abused their powers. They "pick- 
 62 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 eted " the lines through which Southern citi 
 zens passed and treated them courteously. 
 They often guarded the property and families 
 of Southern soldiers. They captured Confed 
 erates and held them as prisoners without 
 injury or insult. 
 
 The increase in the Negroes self-respect 
 was surpassed by the increase of respect ex 
 tended them by others. I 
 
 f ^ Removal of 
 
 have already spoken of the p . .. 
 
 strong prejudice existing at 
 first against their enlistment as soldiers, and 
 the sort of contempt with which they were 
 looked upon, and it was my lot to witness a 
 revolution in the public sentiment of the army 
 in this particular. My regiment had a beauti 
 ful camp on the slope of the ridge near the 
 Tennessee River, under the shadow of Look 
 out Mountain, in Chattanooga, Tenn. The 
 camp was laid out with great regularity, was 
 kept scrupulously clean the men were well 
 clothed and finely drilled ; and when they ap 
 peared upon dress parade with their shoes 
 blacked, their belts polished, their arms glis 
 tening, their clothes well brushed, with their 
 white gloves, and went through their manual 
 of arms with great precision, promptness, and 
 63 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 enthusiasm, marching by companies from the 
 parade ground under the command of Negro 
 sergeants, they presented a most impressive 
 spectacle. Tens of thousands of soldiers and 
 citizens gathered to witness their parades, 
 among them being a large portion of Sherman s 
 army on its march to Atlanta. It was an 
 object-lesson whose significance was striking, 
 eloquent, and instantaneously effective, help 
 ing to rapidly change the sentiment of that 
 whole Western army regarding Negro troops. 
 The most common expression to be heard 
 among the visitors after witnessing a parade 
 was, " Those men will fight." 
 
 A signal instance of the prejudice which at 
 first existed against Negro soldiers occurred at 
 Nashville in the fall of 1863. At a public re 
 ception given by General Ward, an officer of a 
 Negro regiment meeting an acquaintance, the 
 lieutenant-colonel of an Ohio regiment, offered 
 him his hand, which the latter declined, remark 
 ing as he turned away, that he "did not re 
 cognize Negro officers." When the matter 
 reached the ears of Lorenzo Thomas, adjutant- 
 general of the army, the offending officer was 
 promptly dismissed from the service. 
 
 Our first engagement was at Dalton in Au- 
 64 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 gust, 1864, when we had a sharp little contest 
 with Wheeler s 1 cavalry. The Fifty-first In 
 diana Infantry fought on 
 our flank, and was so im- A First Fight 
 pressed with the coolness 
 and gallantry of my men that ever after that, 
 by way of pleasantry and of compliment to 
 the Negro soldiers, it was very common for its 
 members when asked the usual question pro 
 pounded by passing troops, What regiment ? 
 to reply, "Fifty-first Colored. " After my sol 
 diers had charged and taken a battery at De- 
 catur, Ala., in October, 1864, and had shown 
 great gallantry the following day under fire, 
 they received an ovation from the white troops, 
 who by thousands sprang upon the parapets and 
 cheered the regiment as it re-entered the lines. 
 The colonel of the Sixty-eighth Indiana In 
 fantry asked from General Granger as a special 
 privilege for his regiment, that it might be 
 brigaded with mine, giving as a reason that his 
 soldiers had such respect for the Fourteenth 
 Colored that they wanted to fight side by side 
 with it. 
 
 1 What a comment on the changes of a quarter of a 
 century, that this same General Wheeler commanded 
 a division in the American army that captured Santiago. 
 E 6 5 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Gen. George H. Thomas, a Virginian, and 
 a man of great conservatism, was deeply in 
 terested in the work of organizing and dis 
 ciplining Negro troops, frequently visiting my 
 camp, inspecting the quarters, talking with me 
 and conversing freely with the Negro soldiers. 
 He once asked me if I thought they would 
 fight, to which I of course replied : Yes, 
 general, they will." He said slowly : "Well, 
 I think they would fight behind breastworks. 
 And when I replied to this that I would prove 
 that they would fight in the open field, if he 
 would give me a chance, he answered quickly : 
 " I will give you that chance." At the battle 
 of Nashville, in the final charge on Overton s 
 Hill, which pierced the enemy s line and pre 
 cipitated his flight, black troops and white 
 troops fought and fell side by side. As Gen 
 eral Thomas and staff rode over the field after 
 the battle and looked upon the fallen black 
 soldiers he said to his officers : "The question 
 is settled ; Negro soldiers will fight. From 
 that day on they had no firmer friend than he. 
 
 The addition of the Negro contingent to 
 
 the Union army was immediately apparent in 
 
 increasing its strength and effectiveness. In 
 
 the early part of October, 1863, I began the 
 
 66 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 organization of the fourteenth regiment at 
 Gallatin, Tenn., and before the enlistments 
 were completed or any company organizations 
 effected, I was called upon by the command 
 ing officer of the Post, Gen. E. A. Payne, to 
 do picket duty. During the entire time oc 
 cupied in the organization of the first six com 
 panies of the regiment we performed regular 
 military duty, and as soon as the companies 
 were fully organized, and before they had time 
 for proper drill or discipline, we were ordered 
 to Chattanooga, where the men were employed 
 in the erection of fortifications and other serv 
 ice which had previously been performed by 
 white soldiers. What was true of my regiment 
 was true in large part of the entire force of 
 Negro troops ; every man of them counted 
 one as an additional element of strength in the 
 army. Not only did those actually enrolled 
 add their strength to the force in the field, but 
 the fact that they would make good soldiers, 
 and that a very large number of them were 
 available for that service, became at once an 
 element of encouragement to the North in its 
 stupendous work of putting down the rebellion. 
 As the war proceeded it became more and 
 more difficult to fill the ranks depleted by 
 67 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 death, wounds, and disease, and there was a 
 great public sense of relief and hope when this 
 new source of supply was brought prominently 
 forward. 
 
 While the addition of nearly two hundred 
 thousand soldiers to the Union army was an 
 
 immense factor of strength, 
 
 Two Hundred encouragement, and hope 
 
 Thousand Soldiers for the North, it was no 
 
 less a factor of discourage 
 ment to the South. The one great weakness 
 of the Southern States in their effort to sep 
 arate themselves from the Union was the lack 
 of men. It was said of them that to recruit 
 their armies they had robbed both the cradle 
 and the grave that is, that they had enlisted 
 both very young and very old men. The far- 
 sighted among them early appreciated the im 
 mense advantage which the North had in the 
 mere force of numbers. When the experi 
 ment of organizing Negro troops had proven 
 successful, the Southern people saw at once the 
 full significance of this, since it took from their 
 very homes the able-bodied, stalwart slaves, 
 upon whom rested chiefly the burden of rais 
 ing the crops which were to supply their armies, 
 and converted them into an engine of destruc- 
 68 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 tion in the hands of their opponents. That 
 the Negro contingent therefore exerted a pro 
 found influence in determining the ultimate 
 issues of the war, and hastened the overthrow 
 of the Confederacy, no one can doubt. 
 
 When it was over it was recognized by com 
 mon consent that the Negroes had been an 
 influential factor in preserving the integrity of 
 the Union, and there was at once a spontaneous 
 recognition of their right and claim to honor 
 able and generous treatment. This was one 
 of the great factors that led to their enfranchise 
 ment. In Congress and out it was argued 
 that, as the States were to come back into the 
 Union with their autonomy unimpaired, and 
 that those who had been for nearly four years 
 actively engaged in an effort to destroy it were 
 to be re-invested with all the rights and privil 
 eges of American citizenship, it seemed only 
 just and fitting that the Negroes, who had 
 fought so courageously to preserve the Union, 
 should share in these privileges. It was said 
 also, with justice, that their latter condition 
 might very naturally be worse than their first, 
 if all the rights of citizenship were restored to 
 their former masters while they were withheld 
 from them. As they had fought against their 
 69 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 masters on many a battlefield, and had thrown 
 their immense weight in favor of the Union 
 and for the overthrow of the Confederacy, it 
 was only natural to suppose that the white 
 people, restored to their political power, would 
 be swift to visit upon their former slaves and 
 late antagonists severe retribution. So it came 
 about that Negro soldiers were the precursors 
 of Negro citizens. It is not at all certain that 
 they would have been enfranchised if they had 
 not first been enlisted ; indeed, if after enlist 
 ment, their services as soldiers had been dis 
 creditable, it is almost certain that the suffrage 
 would have been withheld from them. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be cherished regard 
 ing the wisdom of conferring the right of suf 
 frage upon the vast body of lately emancipated 
 slaves, it must be conceded that enfranchise 
 ment marks an epoch in the evolution of the 
 American Negro. He has retained the ballot 
 until the present time, and there is no likeli 
 hood that it will ever be taken from him. 
 
 One of the immediate results of enfranchise 
 ment, and consequently one of the remoter 
 results of enlistment as soldiers, was the edu 
 cation of the Negroes. The need of educa 
 tion for a free people had become an established 
 70 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 truism in the American mind. If therefore 
 the Negroes were to be free men, indeed, 
 citizens of the Republic, vested with the power 
 of the ballot, they too must be educated. 
 This perhaps, quite as much as any other mo 
 tive, if not the most powerful of all, has aided 
 in establishing in the South, by Northern 
 Christian philanthropy, large schools for the 
 education of leaders among the colored people. 
 It has also been influential in the creation 
 through the South of the public school system, 
 in whose advantages they participate. 
 
 Looking back upon this question of Negro 
 soldiers after the lapse of a generation, I confess 
 to a little feeling of disap 
 pointment in its effect upon Resume 
 them as a race. It is quite 
 possible that I expected too much ; it may also 
 be true that I do not as yet fully appreciate the 
 ultimate influence of this single factor in their 
 development. We have to remember that the 
 four millions of slaves have grown to be more 
 than eight millions of freemen ; that as a race 
 they are not students of history, and hence 
 have not been so profoundly influenced by the 
 Negro army of liberation, as the American 
 people in general have been influenced by the 
 
The Negro In America 
 
 Revolutionary army, and that they are essen 
 tially a peaceable, docile, trusting, dependent 
 race, not warlike, nor revengeful. 
 
 It is still further to be considered, in making 
 an estimate of a historical fact such as that under 
 consideration, that two hundred thousand 
 black soldiers, although a large number in it 
 self was really a very small number compared 
 with the vast Union army of which it formed 
 a part, and that they were officered by white 
 men, who have received, possibly, more than 
 their share of the credit attaching to the good 
 conduct of the regiments which they com 
 manded and led. The officers and soldiers of 
 the Union army have been a dominating in 
 fluence for a generation. The Loyal Legion 
 and the Grand Army of the Republic have 
 been factors of tremendous significance in the 
 life of the nation. The national capital 
 abounds in military statues, and expensive 
 monuments have been erected there and in 
 many other places to perpetuate the memory 
 of those who gave their lives for their country. 
 The Negro soldiers have had no great organ 
 ization ; no monuments have been erected to 
 perpetuate the memory of fallen heroes, and 
 the influence that has been exerted upon the 
 72 
 
Negroes in the Civil War 
 
 development of the race by those who fought 
 during the Civil War has been incidental, in 
 direct, and comparatively insignificant. This 
 may be accounted for largely by the circum 
 stances of the case : the Negro soldiers were 
 illiterate, while thousands of the white men 
 who enlisted in the Union army were graduates 
 of colleges and universities, or were men who 
 had already achieved distinction in civil life ; 
 the Negro soldiers were poor ; were ignorant 
 of the power of organization, and on their re 
 tirement from the army dropped back into ob 
 scurity. The real heroes and leaders of the 
 colored people have been not their soldiers, 
 but those who have been trained for leadership 
 and usefulness in the schools established for 
 them since the war. 
 
 Then too it is perhaps fortunate, on the 
 whole, and in keeping with the divine purpose, 
 that the development of the Negroes should 
 be along industrial, educational, and religious 
 lines, rather than as a military or warlike 
 people. Their future seems to be inseparably 
 blended with that of the white people by 
 whom they are surrounded, and an independ 
 ent career such as they might have if they oc 
 cupied a country of their own is impossible 
 73 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 under existing circumstances. While the suc 
 cess of the experiment of Negro soldiers has 
 had, as has been indicated, a marked and 
 beneficial influence upon the subsequent his 
 tory of their people, it has not developed in 
 them the military instinct, but has fitted them 
 for more complete absorption and assimilation 
 into our national life, as citizens of the great 
 republic. 
 
 NOTE. Since the above was written, Negro soldiers 
 have achieved great distinction in battle at Santiago, 
 Cuba. As a reward for gallantry the President has 
 promoted a half-dozen enlisted men and made them 
 lieutenants. The Eighth Illinois Infantry, now in Cuba, 
 has only Negro officers from colonel down. 
 
 74 
 
Ill 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE NEGROES 
 
 A CHARACTERISTIC of the American people 
 is their love for education. Fostered by public 
 sentiment, there has grown up a magnificent 
 system of schools, maintained by taxation, at 
 an annual expense exceeding one hundred and 
 fifty millions of dollars which, including kinder 
 gartens for the very young, primary, interme 
 diate, and grammar schools, high schools, nor 
 mal schools, and State universities, is being 
 slowly perfected and is contributing very largely 
 toward the education of the masses of the peo 
 ple. It is only a question of time when, chiefly) 
 through its agency, the average popular intelli 
 gence in America will be higher than that ofl 
 any other country in the world. This magnifi 
 cent system is supplemented by great religious 
 institutions and by technical and special schools 
 founded and endowed by public-spirited phi 
 lanthropists. 
 
 It is not invidious to say that the system has 
 75 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 reached a degree of efficiency in the North 
 that is wholly unknown in the South, which is 
 easily explained, chiefly by the fact that it was 
 not established in the South until after the close 
 of the Civil War, 1865. It is also notably true 
 that most of the great universities and colleges 
 of the country, such as Harvard, Brown, Yale, 
 Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Cornell, Roches 
 ter ; by far the greater number of theological 
 schools, Andover, Newton, Union, Princeton, 
 Rochester, Chicago ; and almost all of the 
 great technical schools, are found in the 
 Northern States. Johns Hopkins University, 
 at Baltimore, is hardly an exception, since 
 Baltimore is quite as much a Northern as a 
 Southern city. The great publishing houses 
 are in the North, so also are the most pros 
 perous, widely circulated, and influential 
 newspapers. It would be very surprising, 
 therefore, if it should be maintained that the 
 South is in any respect on the same line with 
 the North in matters of education. 
 
 These facts are stated simply with a view of 
 showing their bearing upon the question of the 
 education of the Negroes. While they were 
 held in bondage and treated as chattels, they 
 were, by the very necessity of the system of 
 76 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 slavery, deprived of any educational advantages 
 whatever, except those which came incidentally 
 
 by reason of their intimate 
 
 . .u 4-u u . The Pall of 
 
 association with their white 01 
 
 Slavery 
 
 masters and overseers. 
 They were taught to work, became somewhat 
 skilled in the lower forms of industrial occupa 
 tion, and acquired habits of industry, enforced 
 by the lash, which have been of incalculable 
 service to them. Here and there one by 
 stealth learned to read and write, but the great 
 mass of them could do neither, and were kept 
 in the grossest kind of ignorance. In many of 
 the Southern States it was made a crime to 
 teach a slave his letters. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that when the exigencies of the war 
 liberated four millions of slaves, made them free 
 men, and cast them upon their own individual 
 resources, they should enter into the competi 
 tive struggle of life sadly handicapped. 
 
 Even their preachers, in most cases, were 
 grossly ignorant, unable to read a word of the 
 Bible which they were attempting to expound, 
 and there existed among them no class of men 
 who had any proper conception or any suitable 
 preparation for intelligent leadership. Behind 
 the emancipated Negroes, set free by the proc- 
 77 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 lamation of Abraham Lincoln, there stretched 
 a dark and dismal bondage of two hundred and 
 fifty years, unillumined by any except the most 
 feeble rays of light. As they emerged from 
 this dense darkness of ignorance, superstition, 
 and petty vices, they were dazed and terrorized 
 by the new responsibilities of freedom so sud 
 denly thrust upon them. The war had made 
 them free, with little or no preparation for free 
 dom ; the Constitution conferred upon them 
 citizenship, while as yet they had had no train 
 ing for it and no instruction as to what it meant. 
 Separated by their color and by the prejudice 
 against them, born of slavery, they withdrew 
 from the white congregations, organized 
 churches of their own, and installed as pastors 
 men untrained, uneducated, inexperienced, 
 and incompetent. Thrust into political life 
 with no knowledge of civics, no training or ex 
 perience in public affairs, they blindly followed 
 the lead either of designing white men or of 
 untrained and incompetent black men, and fell, 
 very naturally, into many a foolish and hurtful 
 act. 
 
 Those great steps by which, in the onward 
 march of human events, there has been con 
 ceded to the Negro in America his freedom, 
 78 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 his citizenship, his manhood, his equality be 
 fore the law, can never be retraced. The edict 
 of emancipation is as ir- 
 revocable as is the Dec- No 
 laration of Independence. 
 The rights of full citizenship, including suffrage, 
 once conferred upon a whole race of several 
 millions can never be wholly withdrawn. It 
 may be abridged, modified temporarily, ren 
 dered inoperative, but permanently withdrawn 
 or overthrown never. 
 
 A nation can no more escape the conse 
 quences of its own action than can the indi 
 vidual : "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
 he also reap. The people of America have 
 established upon this continent a republic, a 
 government of the people, having as its corner 
 stone the equality of man, and the sacred right 
 of the majority to rule. They have by per 
 suasions, entreaties, and by prodigal bestow- 
 ment of rewards, financial, social, political, 
 peopled the North with millions from Europe, 
 and by force and fraud populated the South 
 with millions from Africa. Upon all these 
 people alike they have conferred the inalien 
 able and priceless boon of American citizen 
 ship. They have incorporated all alike into 
 79 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 its body politic, into its national life. These 
 hosts are no longer separate peoples Swedes, 
 English, Irish, French, Germans, Africans 
 they are Americans. 
 
 The rising generation of colored children, 
 for whose education we are concerned, are 
 "native and to the manner born" ; sons of 
 freedom who have never known bondage ; 
 born into the inherited rights of American citi 
 zenship ; thousands of them having a just pride 
 in their ancestral history, speaking a common 
 language with us, professing a common Christi 
 anity ; thoroughly American in spirit, habits, 
 tastes, hopes, and aspirations. They are not 
 aliens, foreigners, strangers. They are part of 
 ourselves. Politically they are "bone of our 
 bone and flesh of our flesh." We must recog 
 nize this tremendous fact of vital political re 
 lationship which we ourselves have created, and 
 cannot by any possibility unmake. 
 
 We may shut our eyes to the fact, but the 
 fact remains ; we may attempt to ignore it, but 
 it will not be ignored ; we may repent the his 
 tory that established it, but repentance does 
 not in the very slightest degree modify the 
 fact. The colored branch has been ingrafted 
 into the national stock so that the very life- 
 80 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 blood of the republic flows through its veins. 
 It is impossible now to sever the branch with 
 out not only marring the symmetry, but also 
 endangering the very life of the national stock. 
 The question of the education of the Negroes 
 as a preparation for citizenship, thus thrust 
 upon the public attention, 
 demanded careful thought p *\ * 
 and prompt and radical 
 treatment. From the nature of the case, they 
 themselves were utterly incapable of grappling 
 with the problem ; the Southern white people 
 could not be expected to throw to the winds 
 all their traditions and preconceptions, admit 
 at once their former slaves into political fellow 
 ship, recognizing them as fellow-citizens en 
 titled, like themselves, to all the rights of citi 
 zenship, and especially to that education with 
 out which they could neither appreciate the 
 privileges, nor meet the responsibilities of their 
 changed status. That the Negroes have shown 
 as much interest in the cause of education as 
 they have, that they have been as receptive 
 and appreciative of the efforts made in their 
 behalf by others, and that they have made the 
 progress they have made, is a matter for con 
 gratulation. That the Southern people former 
 F 81 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 slaveholders, overwhelmingly defeated in their 
 endeavors to dissolve the Union and establish 
 a confederacy founded on slavery should 
 accept the situation with as much grace as they 
 have and should be willing to accord to their 
 slaves, torn from them by war, a recognition of 
 their rights as freemen, and that they should 
 provide for them even a rudimentary system of 
 schools maintained by public taxation, the 
 chief burden of which must necessarily fall upon 
 themselves, is creditable to their strong Anglo- 
 Saxon sense. 
 
 It is, however, true that the credit for estab 
 lishing public schools in the South is due chiefly 
 to Northern men who, during the period of re 
 construction, secured in the South political 
 pre-eminence ; and it is especially noteworthy 
 that the most influential schools for the Negroes, 
 those which have been the greatest factors in 
 promoting their education, were established by 
 Northern benevolence. The North, in addi 
 tion to grappling with its own serious problem, 
 has shown a willingness to lend a helping hand 
 to the South and, because it believes profoundly 
 in education, has made large contributions for 
 the establishing of schools for the training of 
 Negro citizens. For this purpose the Friends 
 82 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 have given one million dollars ; the Presbyte 
 rians, one million, two hundred and fifty thou 
 sand ; the Baptists, over three million ; the 
 Methodists, six million ; the Congregational- 
 ists, twelve million. Besides this, Mr. Slater 
 contributed one million, and private individ 
 uals and churches not named have added 
 largely to the amount. Shaw University, at 
 Raleigh, N. C. ; Richmond Theological Semi 
 nary ; Spelman Seminary, Atlanta University, 
 at Atlanta, Ga. Roger Williams and Fisk 
 Universities, at Nashville, Tenn. ; Leland and 
 Straight Universities, at New Orleans, La. ; 
 Bishop College, at Marshall, Texas, and similar 
 schools, have done for Negro education since 
 the war what Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and 
 other institutions, wrought in the early history 
 of education in the North. 
 
 The present status of Negro education, while 
 encouraging, and possibly creditable in greater 
 or less degree to all parties 
 
 concerned-to the South- The Resent 
 
 Status 
 
 ern whites, the Northern 
 
 philanthropists, and the Negroes themselves 
 has in it, nevertheless, elements that call for 
 very serious consideration. The Negroes now 
 number not less than eight millions, seven mil- 
 
 83 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 lions of whom are in the South ; in some of 
 the States, notably South Carolina and Missis 
 sippi, they outnumber the whites ; and in all, 
 their numbers are so great that they must, of 
 necessity, exert a very marked influence upon X 
 Southern life, character, and progress. Under 
 the improving conditions, it is reasonable to 
 expect that their natural increase will be cer 
 tainly as great in the future as in the past. - 
 Their number has doubled within a period of 
 thirty years, and it is probable that it will 
 double again within the next thirty, possibly 
 within twenty-five years. Travelers in the 
 South are impressed with the large families 
 which everywhere appear among them. 
 
 We must recognize the great fact that they 
 are here to stay, and to rapidly increase in 
 
 number. Any scheme for 
 They are Here theif forced colonization 
 to Stay 
 
 would be a wrong second 
 
 only to that of slavery itself. Humanity would 
 cry out against it. A scheme of voluntary ex 
 patriation is chimerical. We may anticipate 
 the emigration of all the sons of Israel from 
 America to Palestine much sooner than that of 
 the sons of Ham to Africa. Missionaries and 
 teachers in increasing numbers will doubtless 
 84 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 go from this favored land to carry the gospel of 
 knowledge and salvation to their countrymen 
 in Africa, and traders and adventurers will fol 
 low. Colonies may be planted there, and a 
 century hence thousands may overflow from 
 our fast-filling territory to the more attractive 
 portions of Africa. But the movement of col 
 ored people is far more likely to be in the di 
 rection of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, lower 
 California, and even Alaska, than toward 
 Africa. They have been transplanted to Amer 
 ican soil and are as thoroughly American in 
 tastes, habits, spirit, as any other element of 
 our population. They are no more Africans 
 than we are Europeans. They are an inde 
 structible part of our nationality. 
 
 From whatever point of view we contemplate 
 this great and increasing mass of human beings, 
 
 whether simply as so many 
 
 . An Urgent Need 
 
 men and women, with hu 
 man instincts, tastes, temptations, and possi 
 bilities ; whether as masses of humanity, exert 
 ing, of necessity, a tremendous influence upon 
 the social, religious, industrial, and commer 
 cial life of the entire South ; whether as Ameri 
 can citizens, wielding the dreaded power of the 
 ballot and having, by reason of their numbers, 
 
 85 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 accentuated by the doctrine of majority rule, 
 the right to control the political destiny of en 
 tire communities, counties, districts, and States; 
 or whether as a vast body of professedly Chris 
 tian people, Protestant almost entirely, develop 
 ing a religious life among themselves, and 
 necessarily modifying that of those about them ; 
 or as an important constituent element of our 
 national life, destined to overthrow some of 
 our most cherished political theories unless 
 they can be assimilated and rendered thoroughly 
 homogeneous from- whatever point of view 
 we contemplate them, the question of their 
 education is seen to be full of urgency. 
 
 Whatever reasons can be advanced for the 
 education of any class of men, can be with 
 
 reference to the education 
 Diversified c ., . , 
 
 Schools f thlS P e P le ; whatever 
 
 can be urged for a perfected 
 public school system for the white children of 
 the North, has equal significance in behalf 
 of a perfected public school system for the 
 Negro children of the South. There is no 
 argument for the endowment and equipment 
 of great institutions of learning, colleges, the 
 ological seminaries, technical schools, for the 
 favored white children of the North, that 
 86 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 would not have probably equal weight in 
 behalf of establishing similar institutions for 
 the black children of the South : Kinder 
 gartens for the little ones, to awaken and 
 train their senses, develop their consciences, 
 and start them in a career of quickening 
 growth and development ; elementary schools, 
 to give them the mastery of the instruments 
 of learning reading, writing, spelling, arith 
 metic and to bring them into touch with 
 the educational forces of the day ; indus 
 trial education, to fit them to earn an hon 
 est living, and especially to show them the 
 vast possibilities of improved and diversified 
 industries that lie everywhere about them in 
 the as yet undeveloped sunny Southland ; 
 business schools, to fit them for the ordinary 
 pursuits of commercial life ; normal schools, 
 to provide for them competent teachers capable 
 of training those committed to their care, ac 
 cording to philosophical principles and modern 
 approved methods ; colleges, to furnish them 
 with an all-around intellectual development, 
 to open to them vistas into untrodden fields of 
 learning, to fit them for independent investiga 
 tion, to arouse within them consciousness of 
 power, and to awaken aspirations after worthy 
 8? 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 achievements and conquests in all the varied 
 departments of mental activity ; professional 
 schools medical, legal, and theological, to 
 train a body of men competent for the im 
 portant duties and responsibilities that rest 
 upon the pastor, the physician, and the legal 
 adviser ; technical schools, to develop among 
 them architects, artists, engineers, master- 
 mechanics, superintendents of mines, over 
 seers of mills, and men capable of leading 
 their people in the fierce competition that 
 must grow in intensity as the resources of the 
 South are developed, and as the expected im 
 migration from the North increases in volume. 
 If the question is raised, what sort of schools 
 are required for them ? we answer, schools 
 
 modeled after those of like 
 Culture is , , ,. , , r , .^ 
 
 ~ . . grade established for white 
 
 Colorless 
 
 people. There are required 
 the same qualifications in the teachers, the 
 same text-books, the same course of study, 
 the same kinds of discipline that are found 
 in similar institutions. There seems to be 
 no point in the equipment or general man 
 agement of these institutions where they can 
 diverge safely from those which the history 
 of education has shown to be most desirable 
 88 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 and best adapted to their purpose. The 
 grounds, buildings, furniture, libraries, text 
 books, apparatus, endowments of a Negro 
 school in Georgia, do not differ in any re 
 spect from the equipment of a similar insti 
 tution for a white school in Massachusetts. 
 
 The fundamental endowments of the human 
 mind the five senses of sight, touch, taste, 
 smell, and hearing j the memory, imagination, 
 and the reasoning powers ; the desire for 
 wealth, power, knowledge ; the conscience 
 are essentially the same in every human being ; 
 they are the constituent elements of the soul ; 
 they belong in common to Negroes and to 
 Caucasians. 
 
 The chief aim of culture is the development 
 of these fundamental faculties. Education 
 aims to evolve power, capacity. The law of 
 development of the senses, the desires, the 
 reasoning powers, or the moral nature, are the 
 same for all races. They all grow by use ; 
 they are trained by exercise ; are called into 
 activity by methods and means which are alike 
 for all. 
 
 The principal agent for the unfolding of 
 mental power is knowledge knowledge of 
 language, science, philosophy, mathematics, 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 history, etc. Knowledge is one. Mathe 
 matics knows nothing of race, color, or con 
 dition ; philosophy and history are utterly in 
 different to the color of the skin of the student 
 who consults them ; the spelling book, the 
 dictionary, and the encyclopaedia tell the same 
 story to every class of inquirers. There is not 
 one multiplication table for the whites and 
 another for the blacks ; the Ten Command 
 ments were not published for one fragment of 
 the human race. 
 
 The chief outcome of culture is character ; 
 self-respect; love of the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good ; firmness of will ; sensitiveness 
 of conscience ; refinement of taste. Character 
 is a quality of the soul and independent of the 
 physical features. Indians, Negroes, half- 
 breeds, whites, are alike amenable to the im 
 mutable laws by which men are judged, and 
 require, in their process of preparation to meet 
 these demands, the same course of training. 
 
 In this country the destiny of men and 
 women is not determined by any fixed lines ; 
 more and more there is public recognition of 
 talent, preparation, fitness, merit. Breadth 
 of opportunity should have a corresponding 
 breadth of preparation. The old chasm that 
 90 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 separated the free and the slave has been not 
 bridged over, but filled up by the costly debris 
 of a civil war. In the eye of the law all 
 American citizens are equal ; preparation for 
 American citizenship must take this great fact 
 into consideration. 
 
 God, who made of one blood all nations of 
 men, looks not upon the color of the skin or 
 the texture of the hair, but upon the quality 
 of the soul. Christian culture, which seeks to 
 fit men and women for service in the kingdom 
 of God and for participation in the joys of 
 heaven, must build its foundations, not upon 
 the accident of birth, but upon the indestruct 
 ible image of God which every soul bears 
 within itself. Heaven is not divided into 
 compartments ; it recognizes neither caste nor 
 color. 
 
 The human soul is God s masterpiece. To 
 develop it, train it, awaken all its energies, 
 prepare it for the broadest sphere of useful 
 ness and the noblest plane of activity, is one 
 of life s highest privileges; the teacher is 
 God s co-worker. The spirit, method, and 
 means of education should correspond to the 
 dignity of the work to be done. 
 
 How these various institutions are to be pro- 
 9* 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 vided is the serious, practical question that 
 meets every man who has any official relation 
 
 to it. Will the Southern 
 Who will ~ 
 
 Provide Schools ? States a PP reciate the im ~ 
 portance of the situation 
 
 and tax themselves sufficiently to maintain for 
 all the colored people an adequate, efficient 
 system of public schools ? Their own self-inter 
 est demands it, but it is possible they may not 
 recognize this. Will the Negroes themselves 
 appreciate the peril that confronts them, and 
 recognize that they are at the parting of the 
 ways," where they can, on the one hand, set 
 tle down to a position of hopeless, indifferent 
 degradation and contempt, disgraceful to them 
 selves, harmful to their neighbors, and possibly 
 disastrous to free institutions and the cause of 
 human liberty ; or, on the other hand, where, 
 by self-sacrifice, persistence, and zeal, they 
 may insist that their children shall be edu 
 cated, that they shall have an equipment for 
 life equal in all respects to that enjoyed by 
 their white competitors, that they will be satis 
 fied with nothing less than an all-around and 
 thorough training, and that they will be will 
 ing to pay the cost of it, so far as lies in their 
 power? Would they might do so. 
 92 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 In addition to paying taxes to maintain 
 public schools, they are doing what they can to 
 establish and support higher 
 Christian schools, and are 
 showing a spirit of zeal and 
 sacrifice to secure the proper education of 
 their children ; but they are distressingly poor. 
 Their energies are, and must be for a long 
 time to come, largely absorbed in the struggle 
 for existence. To improve their condition by 
 the purchase of property and the erection of 
 homes will tax them severely. In their present 
 condition it is a great strain upon them to meet 
 the current expenses of their churches and pay 
 their taxes. Those of them who are attempt 
 ing to give their children an academic or col 
 legiate education, find the cost very heavy. 
 It cannot be expected that a people, just 
 emerging from slavery, with its attendant bar 
 barism, should have any but the most crude 
 ideas relating to education. They cannot be 
 expected to appreciate the incalculable advan 
 tage to their children of institutions of higher 
 learning. They are doing something, and in 
 deed many of them are making great sacrifices 
 for these institutions, but unless they can have 
 help, speedy, generous help from the North, 
 93 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 their efforts to secure for their children the 
 education which their circumstances impera 
 tively demand must end in failure. 
 
 Will the philanthropists in the North see in 
 the emancipation of the slaves clear indications 
 
 of the Providence of God 
 A Call to , .. , ^ . . . , 
 
 Philanthropists and reallze what 1S mvolved 
 for human liberty, for re 
 publican institutions, for Christianity, for civil 
 ization itself, in the thorough education of the 
 masses of Negro American citizens ? 
 
 This is a crisis in the history of the colored 
 people. They are on trial. They have been 
 faithful servants in bondage, patient sufferers 
 in tribulation, brave soldiers on the battlefield. 
 Elevated suddenly to the exalted plane of free 
 dom, citizenship, manhood, will they prove 
 equal to the demands of the hour? Are they 
 hopelessly inferior to the white race? Are 
 they fit only for servitude ? Are they doomed 
 to degradation ? Is all Africa to be abandoned 
 to barbarism? 
 
 Surely we ought not to expect them to vie 
 with their white competitors in the great race 
 without equal advantages. For centuries we 
 have had the accumulated treasures of knowl 
 edge, the inherited glories of literature, the 
 94 
 
Education of the Negroes 
 
 inspiration of great leaders in science and 
 philosophy, and the invaluable help of count 
 less schools of learning. 
 
 We ask for them what we have had our 
 selves. Give them a fair chance ; open to 
 them the school, the academy, the college, 
 the university ; call out their latent talent ; 
 give them time for development of great 
 preachers, lawyers, physicians, philosophers, 
 scientists, and statesmen, as well as captains of 
 industry, master workmen, successful farmers, 
 and skillful mechanics. Africa has need of 
 them. Notwithstanding the teeming millions 
 already there, there is room for multitudes of 
 others from here who will carry with them the 
 seeds of a new civilization. Not in our day, 
 but in the future, largely through the instru 
 mentality of educated Christian Negro Ameri 
 cans, there is to be doubtless are generation of 
 the Dark Continent. It will be a new and 
 glorious chapter in the history of humanity. 
 
 95 
 
IV 
 
 THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF NEGRO WOMEN 
 
 BEFORE entering upon the discussion of this 
 theme it may be well to prepare the way by 
 a few simple definitions. Education is a some 
 what vague term, and may mean much or little, 
 according to the intent of him who uses it. The 
 new-born babe is simply a bundle of possibilities. 
 If normally constituted, it may develop a strong, 
 healthy, vigorous body, an active mind, and a 
 sound moral and religious nature. Left to it 
 self absolutely, it will necessarily perish, the 
 young of the human species being among the 
 most helpless of God s creatures and the most 
 dependent upon parental care. If it is pro 
 vided with food, raiment, shelter, and asso 
 ciation with others, it will, in process of time, 
 acquire a certain degree of physical, intel 
 lectual, and moral development. 
 
 There is a sense in which this natural growth 
 may be called education. "We are born 
 weak, we need strength ; we are born destitute 
 96 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 of all things, we need assistance ; we are born 
 stupid, we need judgment. All that we have 
 not at our birth, and that we need when grown 
 up, is given us by education." Ordinarily, 
 however, when we use the term education we 
 mean by it that special process of development 
 of mind and body and acquisition of knowledge 
 which are the result either of conscious effort 
 on the part of the child or of instruction and 
 training given by others. When the mother 
 is teaching the child to talk, she is training 
 it in language ; when she teaches it to count, 
 she is educating it in mathematics ; when she 
 tells it the names and habits of the dooryard 
 fowls or the domestic animals, she is teaching 
 it zoology ; when she teaches it the names and 
 uses of its own hands, eyes, etc. , it is a lesson 
 in physiology ; when she describes the flowers 
 that bloom in the garden, she is instructing it 
 in botany ; when she takes it with her on her 
 walks to her neighbors, and points out to it 
 the names and direction of places, she is in 
 structing it in geography ; when she points out 
 sun and moon and stars, she is educating it in 
 astronomy when she reproves it for miscon 
 duct, rewards it for good behavior, and incul 
 cates into its young mind principles of conduct, 
 G 97 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 she is instructing it in morals ; when she tells 
 it of the great God above us, and of the love 
 of Christ for us, she is training it in theology ; 
 when she directs its energies in useful ways, 
 teaching it to perform little acts of service 
 about the house, she is giving to it industrial 
 education. A child s first lessons in handling 
 the needle, sweeping the floor, whittling a 
 stick, washing dishes, chopping wood, running 
 a sewing machine, comprise the rudiments of 
 manual training. In these rudimentary and 
 homely efforts are found all the elements in 
 volved in the science and practice of educa 
 tion j these are the beginnings of a process 
 which differs only in degree, from the time it 
 begins in the mother s arms until it culminates 
 in the higher classes in the university. It is a 
 process of communicating knowledge, impart 
 ing impulses, directing energies, controlling 
 activities, developing character. 
 
 When the child enters school it passes from 
 one grade of instruction to another, from the 
 acquisition of one class of facts to that of 
 another class, from informal to formal instruc 
 tion ; from isolated training to class or asso 
 ciated training ; from parental tuition to the 
 instruction and discipline of a teacher ; from 
 98 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 the study of nature to the study of books. 
 There is no necessarily radical change either 
 of topics or methods ; and it still studies the 
 language, geography, arithmetic, botany, zo 
 ology, etc., which have already engaged its 
 attention in its mother s arms or at her side. 
 Happy is the child whose earliest years have 
 been blessed with careful, loving, intelligent, 
 parental training, and who passes from the 
 home into the school with a desire for knowl 
 edge and with such a foundation laid as will 
 enable it to profit in the highest degree by the 
 enlarged advantages which the school affords. 
 
 It is by no means easy to draw a sharp line 
 through this process of education which shall 
 
 separate it into two clearly , 
 
 J Higher and Lower 
 
 discriminated degrees, one 
 
 of which we may call the lower education 
 and the other higher education. In the 
 sense of being fundamental and important, 
 it may be said, paradoxically, that the low 
 est is the highest; and, since the entire fu 
 ture development of the soul depends so 
 largely upon the start the child receives in its 
 earliest years, the greatest significance attaches 
 to the methods employed and the results at 
 tained during the first few years of its life. 
 99 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 The foundations of the attainments in knowl 
 edge, discipline, and power are laid while the 
 child is still young, and before it has entered 
 upon that which we commonly call the higher 
 studies. For the purposes of convenience, we 
 are accustomed to apply the term secondary 
 education to all those processes and results 
 characteristic of education prior to the student s 
 entering upon a full college course of study ; 
 by higher education we usually mean that which 
 is comprised within a college or university 
 course. When the question is asked, Shall 
 women have a higher education ? we generally 
 mean by it, Shall they go to college and shall 
 they pursue university studies ? Higher edu 
 cation simply means better education, better 
 mental discipline, a stronger grasp of funda 
 mental principles, a broader outlook, a clearer 
 judgment, a firmer will ; more knowledge, 
 more power, a nobler character. 
 
 It is now well-nigh universally conceded by 
 all who are interested in and acquainted with 
 the present condition of the colored people, 
 that the girls and young women ought to have 
 a common-school education. That is, that 
 they should be able to read the English lan 
 guage with fluency and intelligence, to spell 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 correctly, to write legibly and with a fair degree 
 of facility, so as to express themselves intelli 
 gibly; that they should be acquainted with 
 the principles of arithmetic, know something 
 of geography and history, and have, at least, 
 a rudimentary knowledge of physiology, bot 
 any, chemistry, and physics. There is no dif 
 ference of opinion either regarding the desira 
 bility of their special training in the perform 
 ance of household duties, or their preparation 
 for the responsible position of trained nurses, 
 or in such other lines of industrial acquire 
 ments as will fit them to earn an independent 
 livelihood. It is also generally conceded that 
 the time has now come when the average at 
 tainment among the colored women calls for a 
 much more thorough training and a higher de 
 gree of culture than was called for ten years 
 ago. There is a sense in which this secondary 
 or academic work is a high education ; that is, 
 it is higher or more advanced than has been 
 given heretofore. But this is not the higher 
 education for which I now plead. 
 
 In my judgment it is wise that the oppor 
 tunity should be afforded to these young 
 women to pursue college studies, to secure 
 those advantages of higher education which 
 101 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 are offered to white girls in the best organ 
 ized colleges and universities in the country. 
 
 White women are now 
 Shall Negro fred admitted not onl 
 Women Go to .,, ,,, n , T 
 
 College ? Smith, Wellesley, Vassar, 
 
 and other women s colleges, 
 where the curriculum of study is as high, as 
 thorough, as in men s colleges of the same 
 grade, but they are likewise admitted on terms 
 of intellectual equality to the classes in many 
 of the best equipped colleges and universities 
 of the country, such as Michigan and Chicago 
 Universities. Without going into an elaborate 
 discussion of the subject, I will instance three 
 reasons, somewhat comprehensive, which to 
 my mind are conclusive arguments for offering 
 to the young Negro women of the present 
 day the opportunities for acquiring this higher 
 education. 
 
 i. The first is because they are women. 
 The worthiest conceivable outcome of educa 
 tion is the development of 
 
 A Completed ., . , 
 
 Womanhood the SOul Educatlon P r P- 
 erly conducted results in 
 
 training all the powers to their greatest and 
 
 healthiest activity. The educated person is 
 
 he who is able to make the best use of his 
 
 102 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 powers of observation, in the acquisition, at 
 first hand, of elementary knowledge of nature ; 
 the educated eye sees, the educated ear hears, 
 the educated palate tastes, the educated nose 
 smells, and the educated hand touches as the 
 uneducated cannot, and thus makes it possible 
 for the educated soul to enjoy a boundless 
 range of rich experiences to which the unedu 
 cated soul is a stranger. All the glories of the 
 oratorio are in germ in training of the ear, and 
 all the boundless pleasures of form and color, 
 architecture, painting, sculpture, landscape, 
 are patent to the eye trained to see them ; 
 likewise the reasoning powers, analysis, com 
 parison, inference, judgment, reach their 
 grandest development only through the pro 
 cess of education. Man is a rational animal ; 
 reasoning is one of his distinctive characteris 
 tics ; he fulfills his position in the scale of be 
 ing in proportion as he is in full possession of 
 his reasoning faculties ; whatever promotes the 
 development of his mental powers adds to his 
 happiness and his dignity ; the same is true in 
 a certain degree of the development of his 
 memory, his imagination, his power of expres 
 sion, and also of his moral nature. The glory 
 of the elm tree is in the strength of its trunk 
 103 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 and its wide-spreading, graceful branches ; it 
 does not attain its true dignity until it is fully 
 grown. The glory of the human soul is in the 
 full stature and vigor of all its powers ; so long 
 as any of these are undeveloped, it falls short 
 of its true dignity. Education is the process by 
 which these powers are developed, and higher 
 education is simply the higher degree of activ 
 ity, exercise, growth, attainment, develop 
 ment. The fact that an elm tree is an elm 
 tree entitles it to whatever of soil, sunshine, 
 and opportunity will secure for it the complet- 
 est unfolding of all the possibilities of its nature 
 which, lie wrapped up in the tiny seed. So 
 too, the fact that a colored woman is a w r oman, 
 made in the image of God, bearing his like 
 ness, capable of high attainments, is a suffi 
 cient reason why she should have the oppor 
 tunity, at least, of bringing her powers to 
 their normal unfolding. 
 
 A generation ago the colored women of the 
 South were slaves, chattels, without person 
 ality ; to-day they are free, and in the enjoy 
 ment of many of the privileges of liberty. 
 They are recognized as women, who, by virtue 
 of their womanhood, are entitled to the pro 
 tection of the laws and the shield of public 
 104 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 opinion. By the slow process of education 
 there is being evolved among them a class of 
 women having enlarged capacity for culture, a 
 truer self-consciousness, a keener sensitiveness, 
 purer and loftier aspirations, and greater possi 
 bilities of achievement, a new and improved 
 type of womanhood, destined by their influence 
 upon their race to mark a new era in its his 
 tory. 
 
 The noblest thing in nature is man. The 
 noblest thing in man is mind. The highest 
 attainments of mind are conditioned on educa 
 tion. There is no sex in culture. The mind 
 is the woman, and soul culture is woman s 
 birthright because she is a woman. 
 
 He that made us with such large discourse, 
 Looking before and after, gave us not 
 That capability and godlike reason 
 To rust in us unused. 
 
 2. I urge as a subordinate reason why col 
 ored women should have the opportunity of 
 
 higher education, the fact 
 
 The ResponsibiU 
 that m most cases they are .^ Qf wifehood 
 
 to be wives. The home is 
 at once the humblest, the highest, and the 
 holiest place on earth. It is there that we 
 I0 5 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 come into the most intimate relations with each 
 other. It is there that character is most se 
 verely tested ; it is there that the experiences 
 of life are most concentrated ; it is there that 
 character is most fully developed ; and it is 
 there where is heard the loudest and most im 
 perious call for all the help that knowledge, 
 training, and experience can render. A happy 
 home, where order, intelligence, thrift, and 
 love reign, is a miniature heaven on earth. In 
 such an atmosphere men and women enjoy to 
 gether the sweetest experiences of living, are 
 refreshed, strengthened, and equipped for the 
 burdens, toils, and conflicts of life. The 
 happy home takes from life s disappointments 
 and sorrows their keenest sting, and gives to 
 existence its truest and holiest significance. 
 
 The home is what the wife makes it. She 
 reigns there as sovereign ; its atmosphere is a 
 reflection of her own mind. If she is a woman 
 of intelligence, taste, tact, resources, character, 
 she can make the rudest cabin seem a palace 
 and the humblest home an Eden. All her de 
 fects in mental and moral equipment will ex 
 press themselves in some bitter fashion in the 
 daily life of the home. How dependent upon 
 the wife the husband is none know so well 
 106 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 as he who has been blessed with one whose 
 higher education has fitted her for the noble 
 functions of her position. 
 
 It hardly need to be said that the children 
 carry through all subsequent life the impress 
 
 made upon them in their 
 
 The Mother s 
 
 earliest years by the mother. . 
 
 It is her molding and guid 
 ing hand which, more than any other agency, 
 shapes their destiny. Their future is in her 
 keeping. If she herself has enjoyed the ad 
 vantages of a liberal education, and has ac 
 quired thereby that knowledge, skill, self-dis 
 cipline, power of directive energy, high ideals 
 of life, and practical common sense that ought 
 to come from college training, she will be able 
 out of the fullness of her own life to impart to 
 her children such impulses, principles, meth 
 ods, tastes, and habits, as will secure for them 
 a larger place in life s enjoyments and duties 
 than they otherwise could possibly occupy. If 
 we desire to improve the condition of the race, 
 purify our homes, renovate society, promote 
 the highest public welfare, impart new energy 
 and fidelity to the church, and to secure the 
 best results to human civilization, we must seek 
 to promote the education of the wives and 
 107 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 mothers. If the reservoir is sweet, all the 
 faucets in the city will send forth pure water. 
 
 3. A third reason for the higher education 
 of colored women is, that such education fits 
 
 them for work. Life is ac- 
 Preparation for . ., 
 
 Work tivity ; we are called upon 
 
 to labor ; none are exempt. 
 Colored women are no exception to the rule. 
 They are born neither to leisure nor to laziness, 
 but because they are women, and especially 
 because they are colored women, perhaps, they 
 are called to a life of service. Not all of them 
 are to be servants, as we commonly use that 
 term, and spend their days in the kitchen, the 
 laundry, and the nursery ; but even if this 
 were the case, higher education would be very 
 helpful to them in this sphere of life. 
 
 The suffering, the annoyances, the losses of 
 time, to say nothing of the diseases and death 
 occasioned by unintelligent service in our 
 homes would be appalling if merely stated. 
 There is a science of housekeeping and a 
 philosophy of cooking, and our homes will 
 never be what they ought to be until our 
 cooks are philosophers and our housekeepers 
 are scientists. 
 
 There is among the colored people, both in 
 108 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 America and in Africa, a wide-open door for 
 the highest sort of missionary service, which 
 can be rendered most effectively by colored 
 women of strong character and liberal culture. 
 Such women will have an influence upon the 
 home life, the religious culture and activities 
 of the colored people, limited only by their fit 
 ness for their work. A thousand such women, 
 distributed throughout the churches of the 
 South, would slowly but surely lift the general 
 average of piety, morality, intelligence, and 
 character of the whole mass. 
 
 But passing now to the wide domain of 
 teaching, where so many colored women will 
 
 find their life-work, we are 
 
 Teaching 
 
 confronted at once with the 
 
 fact that we are committing to them, in a 
 very large measure, the destiny of the Afro- 
 Americans of this country. The eight mil 
 lions of that race are destined, within an 
 other century, to become probably not less 
 than fifty millions, and to exert an enormous 
 influence in the development of our national 
 life. The vast multitudes of their children 
 will receive what education they get almost ex 
 clusively at the hands of colored women school 
 teachers. The stream can rise no higher than 
 109 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 its source ; if these women are ignorant and 
 unqualified, the schools which they teach will 
 be of low grade, and the instruction which 
 they impart and the characteristics they develop 
 will be accordingly dwarfed and unsymmetrical. 
 Heretofore the efforts of philanthropists and 
 statesmen who have taken cognizance of this 
 need for competent colored teachers, have been 
 directed chiefly toward providing them with a 
 rudimentary normal training which has con 
 sisted to a very large degree, in giving them a 
 common school education. It has been rightly 
 estimated that in order to teach the Three R s 
 the colored women need themselves to be 
 taught, and very little has been attempted be 
 yond the simplest forms of instruction. We 
 are now entering upon a second stage of this 
 process of preparing school teachers, by giving 
 them the elements of pedagogical training ; 
 they are taught something of psychology, some 
 thing of school management, something of the 
 history of education, a little of the philosophy 
 of teaching. This professional work is yet in 
 its earliest stages, and will require some years 
 for its complete evolution. That there is the 
 same necessity for strictly professional, normal 
 school education among the colored people of 
 no 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 the South that there is among the white people 
 of the North, where so much has been done in 
 this direction, hardly needs argument. 
 
 Within a comparatively few years great 
 progress has been made in public sentiment as 
 to the need of a college training as the basis 
 for normal professional training. Accuracy of 
 information in the common school branches, 
 breadth of general knowledge, maturity of 
 mind, discipline of mental power, and that in 
 describable something which we call culture, 
 are recognized as being, if not absolutely essen 
 tial to him who would make the most of a 
 normal school course, as at least giving to the 
 normal school graduate a preparation for a 
 grade of work entirely beyond the reach of 
 those who have been denied the privilege of 
 college education. Teaching is one of the 
 most exalted and dignified among human voca 
 tions. It is the privilege of the teacher to de 
 velop character, and he does this largely by 
 imparting to the pupil something of his own 
 inner life. The higher and the richer his life, 
 the more inexhaustible his own resources, the 
 greater and grander will be the results of his 
 work. 
 
 It is not extravagant to say that there is a 
 in 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 present demand, far outrunning the supply, for 
 college -bred women as teachers in the colored 
 schools, public and private. Unless this want 
 can be supplied, these schools will lack the vi 
 tality, vigor, and virtue so essential to their 
 highest success. No work for the colored 
 people exceeds in urgency and importance 
 that of training, in the best possible way, a 
 select class of women who shall be fully compe 
 tent to take their places in the colleges, acade 
 mies, high schools, grammar schools, and nor 
 mal schools, where at present so many colored 
 women are engaged in attempting to do a work 
 for which they have had no adequate prepa 
 ration. 
 
 We are about to enter upon the twentieth 
 century of the Christian era. The human race 
 
 is making great progress up- 
 The Twentieth d d . thi is this 
 
 Century 
 
 progress more marked than 
 
 in the place it accords to women. Their 
 spheres of activity have been enlarged and 
 multiplied, and to-day the women, especially 
 in America, are making their influence felt 
 more and more, not only in the home, but in 
 society, in the church, and in all great intel 
 lectual, social, missionary, and religious activi- 
 
 112 
 
The Higher Education of Negro Women 
 
 ties. The education of women ought to keep 
 pace with their opportunities. Privilege and 
 power should go together. Higher education 
 is coming to be universally recognized as one 
 of the essential elements that shall prepare 
 women both for the enjoyment of all the 
 privileges that the age offers to them and 
 for the performance of the multiplied duties 
 that it exacts from them. While the mass 
 of women, both white and colored, are un 
 doubtedly destined for many years to come 
 to grow up in comparative ignorance, with 
 limited education, and with little fitness either 
 to enjoy or to do, there is an increasing recog 
 nition of the necessity of offering to all those 
 who will avail themselves of the opportunities, 
 wider and wider privileges for study. We 
 only ask for the colored women that they shall 
 share in this general progress of the race. We 
 believe that the same considerations which 
 justify any systematic attempt to develop the 
 minds of the young through any lower stage, 
 prove the desirability of offering to the few the 
 opportunity for continuing the process through 
 its higher stages. The spelling-book is the key 
 to knowledge. If we give the key to the col 
 ored woman, we do not see why we should not 
 H 113 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 offer her the privilege of using it to unlock 
 whatever treasure-house of learning she wishes 
 to explore. 
 
 These three reasons, then, because they are 
 Women, because most of them will be Wives, 
 because all of them will be Workers, seem to 
 me to be ample justification for the statement 
 that colored women ought to have the advan 
 tages of the higher or college education. 
 
 114 
 
RELIGIOUS LIFE AMONG THE NEGROES 
 
 THE African contingent of American life pre 
 sents many interesting questions in sociology, 
 among the most important being that of the de 
 velopment of the religious life. In addition to 
 the knowledge gained by personal observation, 
 extending through many years, including ex 
 perience as an officer of colored troops, sup 
 plemented by information gleaned from books 
 and other sources, I have recently addressed a 
 series of questions to a number of men, white 
 and black, Northern and Southern, who have 
 had exceptional opportunities for observation, 
 and shall now attempt, as far as such a thing is 
 practicable, to state a few generalizations, fully 
 realizing how imperfect the sketch must be. 
 
 The American Negroes comprise several dis 
 tinct classes. First, those who were imported 
 into this country from Africa ; second, those 
 born in America of African parentage ; third, 
 the full-blood African born in this country, 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 whose parents were likewise natives of America ; 
 fourth, the mixed race, varying from those who 
 have merely a suggestion of white blood, to 
 those who have only a trace of Negro blood 
 left. The imported Africans, brought here in 
 slaveships, were heathen, grossly ignorant, 
 full of superstition, and having only the 
 crudest conception of religion. These poor 
 creatures, emerging from African barbarism 
 into American bondage, did not offer a very 
 promising field for the development of a pure 
 and intelligent Christianity, for, though the soil 
 was rich enough, it hardly seemed adapted to 
 such a harvest. African nature is simply human 
 nature bound in black " God s image carved 
 in ebony" but neither an African barbarian 
 nor a Negro slave is the ideal of an enlightened 
 Christian. 
 
 There are minor differences which differen 
 tiate the African from the Caucasian, and yet 
 in essential elements they are alike. They are 
 both human. Many of the differences are 
 traceable to environment. The conditions of 
 life which surrounded them in Africa were 
 widely different from those which confronted 
 them in their new home in the United States. 
 There was unbroken heathenism of a very de- 
 116 
 
Religious Life Among the Negroes 
 
 graded type ; here they were surrounded on 
 all sides by a Christian civilization, with its 
 schools, churches, and the other fruits and 
 agencies of progress, and the white men to 
 whom slavery introduced them were easily 
 recognized as vastly superior to the black men 
 in Africa with whom they had formerly asso 
 ciated. In due course of time Christianity 
 made very considerable progress among them. 
 Many of them received faithful Christian in 
 struction in the homes of their masters, and 
 large numbers were converted by the earnest 
 preaching of white pastors. They were cor 
 dially welcomed at least to the galleries and 
 back seats in white churches, and no inconsid 
 erable number of them were admitted into full 
 membership, where they enjoyed practically 
 the same religious instruction. But, of course, 
 they were neither able to receive it in the same 
 way that it was received by their more cultivated 
 white friends, nor to embody their religious as 
 pirations in order and form with any great de 
 gree of freedom, although occasionally some 
 of those who exhibited extraordinary aptitudes 
 were allowed to devote a considerable portion 
 of their time to preaching. 
 
 Speaking in general terms of the eight million 
 117 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Negroes in this country at the present time, I 
 think it is safe to say that in the main, subject 
 to local modifications, their religious status 
 may be approximately characterized in the fol 
 lowing statements : 
 
 An unusually large proportion of them are 
 professing Christians. It is reported that more 
 than one million six hundred thousand of their 
 adults are communicants in regular Baptist 
 churches, while more than another million are 
 enrolled in the Methodist churches ; besides 
 these, other thousands are found in connection 
 with other evangelical denominations. The 
 progress of Christianity among them since the 
 war has been phenomenal, unsurpassed, if 
 equaled at any time during the history of 
 Christian missions. 
 
 They have shown a remarkable degree of lib 
 erality in contributing toward religious purposes. 
 Notwithstanding their poverty and the discour 
 aging circumstances surrounding them, they 
 have, in addition to the ordinary expenses of 
 maintaining religious worship, including pas 
 tors salaries, contributed probably not less 
 than ten million dollars for the erection of 
 meeting houses. Some of these buildings are 
 large, costly, convenient, and attractive. 
 118 
 
Religious Life Among the Negroes 
 
 They have done remarkably well, consider 
 ing all the circumstances, in the matter of edu 
 cational, missionary, charitable, and philan 
 thropic work, many of their religious institutions 
 of learning being managed by Negro Boards of 
 trustees, taught by Negro teachers, and sup 
 ported largely or entirely by themselves. They 
 are also represented on the Boards and in the 
 faculties of the schools maintained for them by 
 Northern benevolence. The aggregate amount 
 which they pay annually toward the education 
 of their children in Christian institutions is a 
 very considerable sum. They have their local, 
 State, and national educational and missionary 
 organizations, and are year by year making 
 progress in the art of organization and admin 
 istration. While they have very much yet to 
 learn in the matter of systematizing their be 
 neficence, of keeping and rendering accurate 
 accounts of money received and disbursed, they 
 are apt learners and are making good progress. 
 They edit and publish numerous religious peri 
 odicals, some of them evincing vigor, independ 
 ence, and no little ability. They have not pro 
 duced any noteworthy books. 
 
 Religious life among them is still character 
 ized by a predominance of the emotional ele- 
 119 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 ment. They are fond of music, and singing 
 constitutes an important part of their worship. 
 Those who have never heard the unrestrained 
 outburst of melody in a Negro congregation, 
 singing under religious excitement, cannot 
 understand the completeness with which a soul 
 may empty itself in song. The preaching 
 which affects them most powerfully is that which 
 deals in vivid description and appeals to their 
 imaginations. Strong statement, frequent rep 
 etition, apt illustration, are much more force 
 ful to their understanding than severely logical 
 appeals. 
 
 The divorcement between religion and mo 
 rality is still painfully apparent among many 
 Negro Christians, but several of my correspon 
 dents insist that it does not exist to a greater 
 degree than it does among white people of a 
 similar grade of culture. From a somewhat 
 wide observation, I am strongly inclined to the 
 opinion that this judgment is just. When we 
 reflect that lynching in the South and the sup 
 pression of the ballot by fraud, intimidation, or 
 violence are catalogued among the vices charge 
 able to the whites and not to the Negro ; when 
 we recall the fact that in almost all cases the 
 mixed bloods call the white man father ; and 
 120 
 
Religious Life Among the Negroes 
 
 we also remember that in the North large 
 numbers of white saloon keepers and mul 
 titudes of criminals in our prisons are church- 
 members, we are obliged to broaden our gen 
 eralization when we attempt to characterize 
 Negro religion as lacking in morality. 
 
 It is, I believe, the universal testimony of 
 all well-informed persons, that the type of piety 
 among the Negroes generally is slowly and 
 steadily improving. It is becoming more intel 
 ligent, more moral ; less superstitious, less 
 emotional, and conforms more and more fully 
 to the New Testament ideal. 
 
 Assuming now for a moment, tentatively and 
 diffidently, the role of a prophet, I venture to 
 suggest that in another half-century, when the 
 Negro population of this country will number 
 from twenty-five to thirty millions, their relig 
 ious life will be characterized chiefly by the 
 following marks : Their form of church gov 
 ernment will be largely congregational, with 
 special emphasis upon the independence of the 
 churches, tempered by some stress upon the 
 power and authority of the pastor ; their mode 
 of worship will throw off that which is now 
 grotesque and offensive to refined taste, while 
 retaining as peculiarly its own an especial 
 
 121 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 warmth of feeling. It will be a religion of the 
 heart rather than of the head. While education 
 will make its impress both upon the pulpit and 
 upon the pew, it will develop, not intellectualism, 
 but a softened, chastened, intelligent emotional 
 ism. Faith, while not wholly discarding philos 
 ophy, will vindicate itself as the highest expres 
 sion of feeling. While not sternly and severely 
 ethical, their religious life will be moral and 
 be marked by approaching conformity not only 
 to the Ten Commandments, but to the ethical 
 teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Dis 
 carding the allurements of aesthetic and gor 
 geous ritualism, the Negroes will cultivate and 
 bring to a high state of development pulpit 
 oratory and sacred music. Negro religion will 
 add to its other graces the grace of liberality, 
 pouring its contributions freely into missionary, 
 philanthropic, and charitable channels. 
 
 122 
 
VI 
 
 NEGROPHOBIA 
 
 RACE antipathies are universal. The German 
 dislikes the Frenchman ; the Frenchman has an 
 antipathy for the Spaniard ; the Irish and the 
 English are separated not only by the channel, 
 but also by race prejudice. To the ancient 
 Greeks all other people were barbarians, while 
 the Jews characterized the rest of mankind as 
 Gentiles, pronouncing the word with a frown 
 and injecting into it a lofty scorn. It is fre 
 quently the case that two races of people will 
 live side by side, generation after generation, 
 each preserving its own language, manners, and 
 customs, cherishing its own hauteur, looking with 
 disdain upon even the virtues of its neighbor. 
 It is indeed rare that separate and distinct peo 
 ples ever completely blend into one nationality. 
 The persistence of the Anglo-Saxon, the Scotch, 
 the Irish, and the Welsh types of character, ex 
 isting side by side for centuries, under a com 
 mon government, is a case in point. 
 123 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 In America, where there is a greater blend 
 ing of different peoples than has ever occurred 
 
 before, the process of as- 
 National . ., ,. , .- ,. 
 
 . .. ,. similation and unification 
 
 Assimilation 
 
 has gone on with increasing 
 
 rapidity, and were it not for the tides of immi 
 gration emptying upon our shores, year by 
 year, vast numbers from the different nations 
 of the old world, the day might be predicted 
 with some degree of certainty when the people 
 of the United States would be substantially one, 
 and when the lines that now separate them 
 into national classes Germans, Irish, Scandi 
 navians, Poles, Russians, Americans would 
 disappear. The forces at work, a common 
 language, the public schools, the newspapers, 
 free intercourse, the leveling process of repub 
 lican institutions, are well-nigh irresistible, and 
 are serving to destroy, except as a reminiscence 
 and a bit of race sentiment, all distinctions 
 based upon previous nationality. The third 
 generation is American and divides into classes 
 along other and artificial lines, wealth, culture, 
 occupation, and not upon those of race. 
 
 One of the marked exceptions to this process 
 which attracts the attention of every student of 
 American life, is the persistence of the race 
 124 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 line that separates the Negro from the Cau 
 casian. While this statement is subject to 
 
 slight modifications, it is 
 
 A Notable 
 true as a general proposi- Exception 
 
 tion that the Negroes, or as 
 they are commonly called, the colored people, 
 are a class by themselves, who are separated 
 from others by a well-known, impassable gulf. 
 Out of a total population of about seventy 
 millions, there are, approximately, eight mil 
 lions who are classed as Negroes, and though 
 there is a large illicit mixture of Caucasian 
 blood, they are regarded not as Americans 
 simply, but as Negroes. There is a well- 
 marked antipathy to them ; sometimes this is 
 very slight, indeed, scarcely perceptible, and 
 in individual cases it disappears. But, speak 
 ing in general terms, there exists on the part 
 of the Caucasian element of American life a 
 strong, deeply seated prejudice against the 
 Negro ; he is looked upon as an inferior, 
 treated as an alien, and is denied the privileges 
 that are freely accorded to others. There is a 
 marked discrimination against the Negroes as 
 Negroes. 
 
 It would not be fair to say that they are 
 hated, that there exists well-defined Negro- 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 phobia among us, as characteristic of our na 
 tional life; and yet in some portions of the 
 country the unreasoning and unjust dislike 
 amounts practically to a disease, and is not 
 inaptly described as Negrophobia. This dislike 
 shows itself primarily, and in its most marked 
 form, in social ostracism. Negroes are practi 
 cally banished from the society of the Caucasian. 
 While intermarriage between all other constit 
 uent elements of the American people is com 
 mon and excites no comment (the Chinese 
 scarcely offer an exception to this), intermar 
 riage on the part of the Negroes with white peo 
 ple is tabooed. Such alliances serve to alienate 
 from the white race, in some States the law pro 
 hibiting them and setting the seal of illegitimacy 
 upon the offspring. There is practically no 
 social intermingling of the races ; Negroes are 
 not invited to social entertainments by white 
 people, and only in exceptional cases are they 
 allowed to sit at the same table. They do not 
 frequent the same hotels nor occupy the same 
 boarding-houses ; ordinarily they do not live 
 in the same quarter of the city occupied by 
 white people. Even in the North the sale of 
 a house to a Negro in a fashionable part of a 
 city would probably cause an immediate decline 
 126 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 in the price of real estate in that section. In 
 many of the Northern cities there are spots 
 known as "Little Africa," occupied chiefly by 
 Negroes, with a sprinkling of the lower grade 
 of whites. Everywhere throughout the South, 
 and generally throughout the North, they have 
 their separate churches, and are seldom seen 
 in any considerable numbers in white congre 
 gations ; in theatres and other places of en 
 tertainment, frequently in the North and uni 
 versally in the South, they are separated from 
 other spectators. 
 
 There are two curious features about this 
 race antipathy between the Caucasian and the 
 
 African ; one is, that it is 
 
 r , i i i Two Curious 
 
 confined almost exclusively p 
 
 to the Caucasian. Negroes 
 manifest, in most cases, a good deal of affec 
 tion for the white people, and are very ready 
 to accept service of any sort which brings them 
 into relationship with them. As house servants, 
 body servants, nurses, field hands, porters, 
 waiters, they are faithful, docile, affectionate, 
 and in extreme cases almost servile. It is 
 true that there has been since the war an in 
 creasing disposition, on the part of ambitious 
 colored men, " to draw the color line," and to 
 127 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 insist, partly, it is to be feared, for selfish pur 
 poses, that all positions of honor and profit, 
 especially in the Negro schools, shall be filled 
 by Negroes, to the exclusion of even more 
 competent white people. 
 
 The other fact is, that the antipathy of the 
 white man against the Negro is, apparently, 
 
 chiefly a matter of caste and 
 Caste and 
 Cultur culture, and not a native 
 
 instinct. In the days of 
 slavery, white and colored children mingled 
 together in the most unrestrained freedom, 
 and they do so still. It was very common for 
 the master and the mistress of the plantation to 
 commit their children, while infants, to the 
 care of black nurses, who had the entire over 
 sight of them and showed them the most ten 
 der affection. The children reciprocated this 
 affection, and oftentimes seemed to cherish a 
 stronger love for their black nurses than they 
 did for their white mothers. It is very com 
 mon even now to hear eminent Southern men, 
 publicly and privately, speak rather boastingly 
 of their affection for their "black mammy." 
 Blood-blending of the races in the South, 
 fostered by slavery and still prevalent in spite 
 of the restrictions of liberty which recognize the 
 128 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 black man as the natural protector of his family 
 would, apparently, in the course of time, re 
 sult in complete amalgamation if left to the op 
 eration of natural laws. 
 
 While at the North Negroes are admitted to 
 the public schools, colleges, and universities, 
 
 on terms of equality with 
 
 , .. . Color Line 
 
 other students, it is not so 
 
 in Schools 
 
 at the South, where the 
 
 doors of the higher institutions patronized by 
 the whites are locked and barred against the 
 entrance of any person, however worthy, in 
 whose veins there is a suspicion of colored 
 blood. The public schools are divided into 
 two distinct classes, one for the whites and 
 one for the Negroes ; and even in sparsely set 
 tled rural districts, where it is difficult to main 
 tain free schools, this expensive and arbitrary 
 distinction is kept up. In some of the South 
 ern States separate coaches on the railroad 
 trains are set apart for them, and though they 
 pay the same fare and may be well dressed, in 
 telligent, virtuous, clean, polite, sensitive, they 
 are obliged to accept inferior accommodations, 
 and are often subjected to indignities and in 
 convenience on account of their color. 
 
 The prejudice against the Negro shows itself 
 i 129 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 in his practical exclusion from most of the de 
 sirable positions in business. He may be a 
 porter on a train, but not a conductor ; a fire 
 man, possibly, but not an engineer ; he may 
 run a barber shop, but not be a master carpen 
 ter ; he may drive a hack or keep a saloon, but 
 he must not be a merchant ; he may be a 
 watchman in a bank, but he cannot be a book 
 keeper or cashier. Of course there are excep 
 tions to what is here said, but the general 
 statement remains true, that the Negroes are 
 debarred from active participation in the most 
 desirable and remunerative forms of industry 
 and of business. 
 
 A notable exception to this general rule is 
 found in their employment by the government 
 in responsible positions under the Civil Service 
 rules. In many of the departments at Wash 
 ington there are Negro men and women who 
 have secured their places by competitive exam 
 ination ; even here, however, it is true that color 
 serves as a bar to appointment, and not unfre- 
 quently, it is said, is an occasion for dismissal. 
 
 While the Negro is made a citizen by the 
 United States Constitution, and is entitled to 
 all the rights and privileges attaching to citi 
 zenship, and while the theory of the republican 
 130 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 government is the right of every legally quali 
 fied voter to participate in political affairs, to 
 vote and be voted for, and 
 while the fundamental ele- 
 ment that underlies Ameri 
 can institutions is the right of the majority to 
 rule, the fact remains as a curious anomaly, 
 that, practically, he is disfranchised in a consid 
 erable portion of the South. The un-Ameri 
 can dictum which embodies the political phi 
 losophy that results in his practical disfranchise - 
 ment in many portions of the country is, " This 
 is a white man s government," which is a plain 
 and explicit repudiation of the Constitution, 
 and a revolutionary denial of republicanism. 
 It is political Negrophobia, the denial to a 
 whole class of people, simply on the ground 
 of color, of the rights and privileges incident 
 to manhood, and guaranteed by the most 
 august political document in the world. It is 
 not meant here that Negroes are not allowed 
 to vote in some places, nor that in certain lo 
 calities they are not even elected to office. 
 There is probably an improving public senti 
 ment at the South, as a whole, in regard to 
 their political rights ; nevertheless, the fact re 
 mains as stated, that by reason of race preju- 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 dice they suffer restriction, limitation, and in 
 justice in political matters which are not suffered 
 by any other class of American citizens. 
 
 Dislike of the Negroes because they are Ne 
 groes manifests itself also in certain portions of 
 the country in acts of injus- 
 Injustice tice. It is said, and be 
 lieved, that in many cases 
 they are convicted and punished for offenses 
 against the law, where white men would be 
 either acquitted or more lightly punished. In 
 some cases the presumption appears to be, not 
 that they are innocent until proven guilty, but 
 that they are guilty as charged unless they can 
 establish their innocence. This is doubtless an 
 extreme statement, and yet its accuracy is 
 vouched for. The numerous cases of lynching, 
 putting men to death without trial by judge or 
 jury, oftentimes on the mere suspicion of 
 crime, is, perhaps, the most startling manifesta 
 tion of the disease of Negrophobia which has 
 thus far shown itself. Doubtless there are 
 cases that are very aggravating, where crimes of 
 great enormity and brutality have been com 
 mitted and where the slow and sometimes te 
 dious processes of law are very trying to the 
 public patience ; nevertheless, the fact seems 
 132 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 to be established beyond question that Negroes 
 have suffered from lawlessness out of all pro 
 portion to the crimes committed, and far be 
 yond any other class of citizens. 
 
 Every man of whatever condition when ac 
 cused of crime is entitled to a fair trial. No 
 man should be hung on suspicion. 
 
 Among the unhappy results flowing from 
 this unreasoning prejudice a prejudice that 
 
 voices itself in such op- 
 
 , . ... Some Fruits of 
 
 probnous epithets as Pre j udice 
 
 "niggers," "darkies," 
 "coons," "bucks," "wenches," is that it 
 places a stigma upon an entire class of human 
 beings, numbering millions of people ; it fails 
 to recognize personal character and individual 
 merit. However talented or cultivated or re 
 fined or sensitive or worthy a man or woman 
 may be, his colored blood dooms him to igno 
 miny, and classifies him with the outcast. 
 There are positions of usefulness and honor 
 which he could creditably fill, to which he 
 cannot aspire by reason of his color. The 
 public sentiment against him, like an untimely 
 frost, destroys even in its germ the noblest as 
 pirations of his soul. Why should he study to 
 become a scholar ? Why should he strive after 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 intellectual discipline and power ? Why should 
 he cultivate the graces ? Why should he resist 
 temptation to evil, and seek to show himself 
 noble and Christian, if all his best endeavors 
 are to be met by a sneer ? Why should he 
 strive to equal the white man in his virtues if 
 the white man refuses him recognition and de 
 nies him the opportunity of utilizing his attain 
 ments? The great motive force of human 
 progress is hope, the desire of achievement, 
 and the expectation of reward that comes from 
 earnest and worthy effort. What, then, can 
 be expected of a race from which these rewards 
 are withheld, and from whose breast hope is 
 plucked out ? 
 
 Along with this discouragement, which is 
 well-nigh fatal to progress, there is on the part 
 
 of the sensitive and refined 
 Wounded , 
 
 Sensibilities a dee P sense of m J ur > r - 
 The Negro knows that he 
 
 is not personally responsible for his color ; he 
 was not consulted in the choice of his race 
 connections ; he cannot remove the obstacles 
 to his progress that his more fortunate white 
 neighbor has put in his way ; he is largely 
 helpless, and when he is met by rebuff and in 
 sult, and with limitation and restriction, espe- 
 134 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 cially when he sees his best endeavors treated 
 with ridicule, and beholds life s most cherished 
 rewards bestowed upon men whom he knows 
 to be his inferiors in everything except color, 
 he feels deeply wounded and oftentimes even 
 almost crushed. He keenly recognizes the in 
 justice of his treatment, and cannot help cher 
 ishing in his heart of hearts a feeling of resent 
 ment against those who assume to degrade him 
 because of his color. Undoubtedly, in some 
 instances, this feeling of wounded honor, of 
 injustice, of resentment, may take the form of 
 revenge, and he may seek to inflict upon his 
 oppressor the punishment which he honestly 
 feels belongs to one who will wantonly inflict 
 evil upon a fellow human being without cause. 
 It is possible that in many cases among the 
 lower grades of them, crime may be insti 
 gated, partly at least, by this feeling of injus 
 tice. The Negro feels that he suffers injustice 
 from the white people, and that the only way 
 in which he can avenge himself, or punish 
 wrong, is by himself violating law. As every 
 white man s hand is against him, he feels justi 
 fied in lifting his hand against the white race. 
 These acts of resentment, of revenge, of crime, 
 resulting from the injuries they suffer by reason 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 of the prejudice against them, react upon the 
 white race and give to them an excuse, at least, 
 for continuing their course of injustice ; and 
 thus these two evils act and react, and in some 
 instances utter demoralization in a community 
 results. 
 
 If it be asked, " What is the remedy for this 
 unhappy state of things ? the answer is diffi 
 cult to formulate. If the 
 Is There a .. .. 
 
 R . _ antipathy results from con 
 scious superiority on the 
 part of the white man and from inherent infe 
 riority on the part of the African, then there is 
 apparently no help for it, unless it be in the 
 exalted magnanimity of the white race, the 
 outgrowth of culture and of the Christian 
 religion, which is willing to recognize, even in 
 the weakness of the Negro, a reason for con 
 siderate treatment. "The Ethiopian cannot 
 change his skin," and it is possible that he 
 must always suffer by reason of that fact, so 
 long as he attempts to live on terms of equality 
 under the same flag with the white man. In 
 so far as the prejudice against him results from 
 his ignorance, inferiority, barbarity the sad 
 heritage of slavery the only remedy is that 
 which results from education, industry, and 
 136 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 civilization. His hope is in the spelling-book. 
 When he can establish beyond peradventure 
 that he has the same fundamental qualities of 
 mind, the same possibilities of culture, and 
 when he achieves scholarship and is able to 
 meet the white man on his own ground and 
 contend with him successfully as a laborer and 
 organizer, a thinker, a leader, he will get the 
 recognition that is always accorded to strength. 
 Those of the rising generation must avail 
 themselves of the opportunities for education 
 now offered to them, and must be satisfied 
 with nothing less than the broadest attainments 
 possible, if they are to wrest from their white 
 associates recognition of their manhood. It is 
 also, doubtless, true that they will be respected, 
 generally, in proportion to their real moral 
 worth. If they are honest, truthful, law-abiding, 
 pure in life, self-restraining, charitable, gener 
 ous, and just, they will by these high qualities 
 be able, in a certain measure, to enforce from 
 their white neighbors the recognition of the 
 dignity of their character. The transforming 
 power of Christianity will do for them what 
 no other force can possibly accomplish ; just as 
 far as the character of Jesus Christ is illustrated 
 in their lives will they receive from other men 
 137 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 the recognition due to those made in the image 
 of God. 
 
 History seems to teach that no people ever 
 yet secured a recognition of their rights in their 
 
 fullness and entirety who 
 Violence to be .... ._ , 
 
 Avoided were not wlllm S> lf need be 
 
 to fight for them. Justice 
 sometimes waits on slaughter, and liberty on 
 victory. It would be inexpressibly sad if the 
 conclusion should be forced upon us in this 
 country of liberty and of enlightenment, that 
 the Negro would be compelled to achieve his 
 complete emancipation by force. No one 
 doubts his right to defend his person, his 
 family, and his home against unlawful assault ; 
 and it may be that unless he manifests at least 
 a willingness to fight he never can become ab 
 solutely free. Let us hope, however, that the 
 inherent justice of his claim to the treatment 
 that belongs to manhood, fortified and empha 
 sized by thrift, industry, and excellence of 
 character, may secure for him without violence 
 that which belongs to him as an American 
 citizen. It should do so in a Christian land. 
 
 Social equality is not a question of law nor 
 of compulsion, but of taste and inclination. 
 The Negro has no right to demand, nor will he 
 138 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 himself concede, any claims for social considera 
 tion based upon any other than social merits. 
 His political rights, however, he may claim 
 under the Constitution, and the right to earn 
 a living and to have the reward of his labor he 
 may claim under a higher law than the Consti 
 tution the law of immutable right. What 
 soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 
 The time is already approaching when unrea 
 soning prejudice against any class of people 
 will cease to work injustice, and when the po 
 litical philosophy of equal manhood and the 
 divine teaching of the Fatherhood of God and 
 the brotherhood of man will efface any arbi 
 trary, unreasoning, harmful lines that separate 
 one class of American citizens from another. 
 
 One of the most noticeable facts in regard 
 to the relation of the races is the rare pa 
 tience and self-control thus , 
 
 ...... , XT Negro Patience 
 
 far exhibited by the Ne 
 groes under the most exasperating circum 
 stances. During the days of slavery they 
 were, for the most part, obedient, trust 
 worthy, and faithful ; insurrections were al 
 most unheard-of, and acts of revenge un 
 known. Here and there a slave, more reso 
 lute and adventurous than his fellows, escaped 
 139 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 from slavery and found refuge in the North. 
 During the war, notwithstanding they generally 
 understood that slavery hung in the balance, 
 and that the welfare of the slave was condi 
 tioned on the success of the Union arms, most 
 of them remained patiently on the plantations, 
 toiling for their absent masters, who were in 
 the Southern army, fighting to render slavery 
 permanent, and by their tender solicitude for 
 the white women and children entrusted to 
 them, awakened the wonder of the South at 
 their magnanimity and fidelity. They have, 
 in most instances, quietly submitted to the in 
 justice and cruelty of the mobs that have, on 
 mere suspicion of wrong-doing, put hundreds 
 of them to cruel death, and with only a mild 
 protest have allowed themselves to be robbed 
 of their political rights and privileges. 
 
 In spite of all obstacles, there has been 
 steady growth of wealth, culture, self-respect, 
 
 and power among them, 
 Growth of , * .. , 
 
 Public Opinion and Wlth lt has come a 
 growing consciousness of 
 
 the wrongs they have suffered, and an increas 
 ing demand for a recognition of their rights. 
 There is also, if we mistake not, a steady 
 change taking place in the minds of thoughtful 
 140 
 
Negrophobia 
 
 white people, North and South, regarding 
 them. Privileges are cheerfully conceded to 
 day which fifty years ago would have been re 
 garded as impossible. Perhaps it is not too 
 much to predict that public sentiment, which 
 generally moves in right directions, with accel 
 erated ratio, will in another half-century, with 
 out violence, concede to them every right and 
 privilege of every kind of which they are 
 deserving. 
 
 In this discussion it is worthy of note that 
 the continuance of an unreasoning prejudice 
 against the Negroes will work injury not only 
 to them, but to the white people as well. 
 Slavery was a curse to the master no less than 
 to the slave. No class of people can cherish 
 irrational sentiments toward another without 
 themselves being thereby corrupted. The 
 eight million Negroes of this country, des 
 tined to become fifty millions at no distant 
 day, will of necessity exert an influence of in 
 creasing potency upon the welfare and progress 
 of the republic. If they are kept down they 
 will drag their oppressors to their own level ; 
 if they are permitted to rise, socially, indus 
 trially, intellectually, religiously, politically, 
 they will stimulate and help, if not compel, 
 141 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 corresponding advancement in all respects on 
 the part of all their white fellow-citizens of even 
 the lowest class. We are a solidarity, and what 
 affects one class must, of necessity, affect all 
 classes. Injustice will work disaster, while 
 justice will promote the public welfare. 
 
 142 
 
VII 
 
 THE NEGROES UNDER FREEDOM 
 
 THE progress of the Negroes since emanci 
 pation is noteworthy. Indeed, it is doubtful 
 
 whether any race of people 
 
 Progress 
 
 has ever accomplished as 
 
 much along the lines of civilized development 
 in the same period of time. While it is true 
 that this progress has not been such as to in 
 dicate the possession on their part of any ex 
 ceptional endowments, it has been sufficient to 
 show that they are possessed of all the ordinary 
 faculties of humanity, and to give great satis 
 faction to those who have stoutly contended 
 for their essential manhood. Those, however, 
 who are disposed to take an especially opti 
 mistic view of the future of the Negroes be 
 cause of their progress since emancipation, will 
 do well to bear in mind that when this is 
 measured by that of the race with which they 
 come into competition, it is evident that they are 
 not only not overtaking the white people, but 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 that they are, relatively, falling behind. It is 
 probably safe to say that the distance which 
 separates between the average white man of 
 to-day and the average Negro is greater than 
 that which separated them in the days of 
 slavery. 
 
 All progress is relative, and in estimating the 
 advance in educational matters, it is a little 
 difficult to form a just judgment based upon 
 the number of those who have been pupils in 
 higher institutions of learning. It is, of course, 
 a matter of congratulation that many thousands 
 of them have been pupils in Negro colleges, 
 universities, and theological seminaries, for a 
 considerable time, where they have received 
 an education far in advance of that possible in 
 former days, and which will be greatly to their 
 advantage in the practical affairs of life. When, 
 however, we come to analyze the facts we find 
 that, for the most part, the grade of instruction 
 in all of these so-called higher institutions has 
 been necessarily of a low order, and that com 
 paratively few have really completed the 
 courses of study. The number of college 
 graduates is, in comparison with the whole 
 number, very small, and that of those who 
 have graduated from a Northern college is 
 144 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 necessarily very much less. It is, therefore, 
 not untrue nor unfair to the Negroes to say 
 that the body of men and women among them 
 who can be said to be well educated is very 
 small indeed. While some of them have taken 
 good rank, even at Harvard and other great 
 institutions, few, if any, either men or women, 
 have achieved any distinction in the line of 
 scholarship. Among the one million six hun 
 dred thousand Baptist Negroes, which host in 
 cludes a very considerable number of those who 
 have had the advantages of more or less edu 
 cation, it is rare to find one who can properly 
 lay claim to any broad attainment, accurate 
 scholarship, or liberal culture. Using the term 
 as it applies to the white race, to include those 
 who have had exceptional advantages from 
 childhood, and who have carried their culture 
 to a high degree, it may be said, without in 
 tending to make any invidious comparison, 
 that, strictly speaking, there is to-day among 
 them no educated class. If one were looking 
 for men to fill important professorships in the 
 great universities of the country, he would not 
 expect to find any Negro candidates qualified 
 for the position. 
 
 In estimating the value of the Negro public 
 K 145 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 schools of the South as a factor in their devel 
 opment we should not be misled by familiar 
 
 terms. Compared with the 
 Public School XT , ... 
 
 Education Northern public schools, 
 
 those for the Negroes, gen 
 erally speaking, are very poor, and the results 
 must necessarily correspond with the means 
 used. The masses of the Negro children of 
 to-day are receiving the most primitive sort of 
 education. In order that the public schools 
 may do for them what the public school system 
 of the North is doing for its rising generation, 
 they must have better buildings, better equip 
 ment, better teachers, better supervision, in 
 deed, betterment of every kind. " The foun 
 tain cannot rise higher than its source," and 
 until the teachers are properly educated for 
 their work it must necessarily be poorly done. 
 There is the most urgent need everywhere in 
 the South for a common sense system of normal 
 training that shall prepare colored men and 
 women, in some measure at least, for the diffi 
 cult, delicate, important, and urgent work of 
 promoting the moral and intellectual advance 
 ment of its rising generation. Until this need 
 is supplied their progress must be slow and un 
 satisfactory compared with what it might be. 
 146 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 Moreover, the contrast between the de 
 nominational schools of the North acade 
 mies, colleges, and theolog- 
 
 . . , . .. Religious 
 
 ical seminaries and similar c . , 
 
 dcnoois 
 institutions for the Negroes 
 
 is very striking. Nowhere in the South, 
 among the Baptists at least, is there a sec 
 ondary school or academy which can for a mo 
 ment be compared, for instance, with the Bap 
 tist Academy at Worcester, Mass. While the 
 secondary schools are doing valuable work, 
 and are contributing toward the elevation of 
 the race, they are sadly handicapped in equip 
 ment and in teaching force. A striking illus 
 tration of the existing disparity is found in the 
 fact that while among the less than one million 
 white Baptists of the North there are five strong, 
 well-manned, well-equipped theological semi 
 naries which are every year adding to the 
 number of men thoroughly trained for the 
 work of the pastorate : for the one million six 
 hundred thousand Negro Baptists of the South 
 there is but one theological seminary, poorly 
 equipped, with a small faculty. The lack of 
 properly trained pastors and religious guides is 
 one of the very discouraging features of the 
 situation. 
 
 147 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 One of the marked indications of progress is 
 the number of men who are engaged in the 
 editing of newspapers, or 
 in the practice of med icine 
 or law. The care of the 
 sick among eight millions of people is a matter 
 of the highest concern, and their future de 
 pends in great degree upon the manner in 
 which this is done. It is frequently said that 
 the race is deteriorating under the new condi 
 tions of freedom, and the startling death rate 
 is often cited as confirming this theory. Un 
 der the conditions surrounding them since 
 emancipation, they have been peculiarly ex 
 posed to the ravages of disease ; for ignorance 
 and poverty are great destroyers of human life. 
 The laws of hygiene, of sanitation, and the 
 elements of good housekeeping, as taught in 
 the better schools, are, in some measure at 
 least, mitigating the evils of neglect, and will 
 more and more assist in preventing or check 
 ing disease. Those who have been trained as 
 nurses in such schools as Spelman Seminary 
 have become very skillful, and show remark 
 able adaptation to the delicate and important 
 duties of caring for the sick. Others, educated 
 as pharmacists, exhibit good capacity and find 
 148 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 ready and remunerative employment. The 
 Leonard Medical School at Shaw University, 
 Raleigh, N. C., has a faculty composed of 
 Southern white men of recognized ability and 
 professional standing ; their testimony is uni 
 form and emphatic, that the students master 
 the difficult subjects of the course, and that 
 their graduates have no need to blush when 
 they come to take the State examination which 
 admits them to practice on precisely the same 
 terms as white physicians. The number of 
 men who are finding a career for themselves 
 and an opportunity for wide usefulness as phy 
 sicians is steadily increasing. 
 
 While there is a wide-open door for lawyers 
 there are many difficulties, obvious and serious, 
 tending to hinder the rapid increase of those 
 who seek to earn a livelihood by practising 
 law. Enough, however, have overcome these 
 difficulties and established their claim to re 
 spectful consideration, to warrant the conclu 
 sion that the legal profession will have hereafter 
 an increasing number of Negroes capable of at 
 tending to all the ordinary legal interests of 
 their colored clients. This will probably re 
 sult in securing for them a larger measure of 
 justice in the courts. 
 
 149 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 As yet they cannot be said to be a reading 
 class. Their poverty and ignorance, as well as 
 their lack of interest in public affairs, are hin 
 drances to the large success of efforts to estab 
 lish journals upon a paying basis. Their news 
 papers, as a whole, are small and are issued 
 weekly they are not published in the best 
 style, and show all the limitations which are in 
 cident to a limited circulation, lack of sub 
 scribers, and of advertising patronage. With 
 all its shortcomings, no one, however, can dis 
 pute the fact that the Negro press has become a 
 power. Il affords an opportunity for the race 
 to voice its highest aspirations, to assert as well 
 as to defend itself; and nothing, perhaps, 
 more emphatically marks the transition from 
 the ante bellum days of slavery to the period 
 of liberty than the fearless independence and 
 forcefulness of its editorial utterances. Negro 
 editors are at once the proof and the prophecy 
 of Negro progress. 
 
 To the question, Is there a professional class 
 among them ? I must give a negative reply. 
 As has been seen, there are teachers, preach 
 ers, lawyers, doctors, and editors ; there are 
 men of good abilities and respectable attain 
 ments ; but their status as men of learning, re- 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 sources, and effectiveness, as independent fac 
 tors in promoting the progress of civilization, is 
 yet to be fixed. Tanner s " Raising of Laza 
 rus," and Paul Dunbar s verses, are prophecies 
 of aesthetic talent. 
 
 It is not so easy to measure, or to state with 
 definiteness, the industrial progress made by 
 
 the Negroes since emanci- 
 
 Industrial 
 
 pation. Slavery was a sys- Progress 
 
 tern of enforced labor which 
 developed among them no small degree of in 
 dustrial skill and practical intelligence as body 
 servants, domestics, coachmen, gardeners, 
 farmers, mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, 
 etc. A very considerable number acquired 
 valuable habits, and no small amount of self- 
 directing productive industry. Even in the 
 cotton fields and sugar plantations, and amid 
 the hardest conditions, thousands learned the 
 lesson of steady toil. For the most part, how 
 ever, such labor was not only compulsory and 
 irksome, but was unaccompanied by thrift, 
 economy, or any of the pleasures that are a 
 part of the daily work of free men. 
 
 When they were set free, many of them 
 naturally looked back upon labor as a badge of 
 servitude, and confounded their newly acquired 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 freedom with idleness. It could hardly be ex 
 pected that four million slaves, suddenly liber 
 ated from bondage, without capital, without 
 industrial appliances, without experience in 
 self-directed labor, should at once become in 
 dustrious, economical, thrifty, and efficient. 
 On the whole, however, the transition from 
 slavery to freedom was characterized by less 
 retrogression, idleness, shiftlessness, suffering. 
 and pauperism, than might have been antici 
 pated. As a class they have shown an aptitude 
 for self-support. Their toil, while often both 
 unintelligent and unremunerative, has been re 
 markably general and constant. Multitudes 
 have acquired homes of their own ; they pay 
 taxes upon hundreds of millions of dollars 
 which they have accumulated, and they are 
 to-day, as they ever have been, the chief 
 wealth producers of the South. In the cotton 
 fields and the cane brakes, on the farms, in the 
 laundry and the kitchen, on the railroads, in 
 the mines, and wherever service of a rough and 
 unskilled kind is required, they are found per 
 forming it. 
 
 There has been a steady tendency toward 
 eliminating them from the realm of skilled 
 labor, and wherever they come into sharp com- 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 petition with white men they are generally 
 forced to give way. Multitudes of them still 
 find employment, however, as waiters in hotels, 
 as porters on the cars, as cab drivers, and in 
 other occupations requiring more or less intel 
 ligence and skill, and it is unquestionably true 
 that their education, with its increase of gen 
 eral intelligence, has improved the quality of 
 their labor of all kinds. This is notably true 
 in the matter of home keeping, although vast 
 improvement is yet possible and desirable. In 
 connection with almost all of the schools of a 
 higher order, there has been more or less at 
 tention given to what is called industrial edu 
 cation. Pupils have been required to care for 
 their own rooms, to share in keeping the school 
 buildings in proper order, and in looking after 
 the yard and grounds. Young women have 
 been taught the rudiments of cooking, darning, 
 sewing, dressmaking ; here and there have been 
 printing establishments, where they have been 
 instructed in the " mysterious art " ; and occa 
 sionally farms have been worked in connection 
 with the school by pupil labor, but not with 
 marked success. There have been attempts 
 made to teach the trades, as at Tuskeegee, 
 Ala. , as well as the use of tools in wood and 
 153 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 iron work, as at Hampton, Va. , and Marshall, 
 Tex. As yet, however, no systematic scheme 
 of industrial training, such as is carried on at 
 the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, the Drexel 
 Institute of Philadelphia, or the School of 
 Technology in Boston, has been undertaken. 
 Such schools need to be established for them 
 unless they are to be permanently excluded 
 from the higher walks of industry. 
 
 The political status of the Negroes is quite 
 anomalous. As slaves they had no political 
 
 privileges whatever, and, 
 Political Status J 
 
 with the single and curious 
 
 exception that they were reckoned as a factor 
 in determining the number of congressmen to 
 be allotted to the slave-holding States, they 
 were political nonentities not persons, but 
 property. When liberated from slavery they 
 were, necessarily, wholly without experience in 
 the performance of civic duties, and had no 
 true sense of the responsibilities attaching to 
 citizenship. Not only this, but their long sub 
 jection to the absolute dominance of the white 
 man and their entire ignorance regarding po 
 litical matters, being unable to read, seemed 
 to exclude them from even the possibility of 
 sharing in political privileges. The conferring 
 154 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 upon them of the right of suffrage, with all the 
 privileges and responsibilities of citizenship, 
 without any preparation on their part, was an 
 unprecedented, radical, and revolutionary act, 
 full of peril both to themselves and to the re 
 public. Thoughtful men at the North as well 
 as the South stood aghast at the spectacle of 
 giving over the destinies of several Southern 
 States into the hands of a horde of ignorant, 
 degraded, inexperienced, suddenly liberated 
 African slaves. The justice of this drastic 
 measure was stoutly disputed, and its wisdom 
 as an act of statesmanship is still denied by 
 multitudes of thinking men. 
 
 It is impossible, in a brief outline, such as is 
 this, to go into the details of this strange ex 
 periment, and any general statements that may 
 be made regarding it will doubtless be open to 
 criticism. It is worthy of consideration, how 
 ever, that after the lapse of a generation, the 
 Negroes of the South, now twice as many as 
 when enfranchised, are still nominally in pos 
 session of the ballot, and with no marked pub 
 lic sentiment, either North or South, looking 
 toward depriving them of it. It is true that in 
 some of those States where they greatly out 
 number the whites, or where their numbers are 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 such as to make Negro dominance a menace, 
 they are largely deprived of the power that is 
 supposed to attach to majorities ; nowhere in the 
 South are they in control. Over against this, 
 however, it should be said that tens of thousands 
 of Negroes throughout the South exercise the 
 right of suffrage freely, and have their votes 
 counted. In many of the States they occupy 
 seats in the legislature, and fill other important 
 public positions. Political freedom is a political 
 school. In no other way than by the exercise 
 of the rights of free men could they have ac 
 quired self-consciousness as Americans, and 
 have been stimulated to prepare themselves for 
 the discharge of the duties devolving upon 
 them as the citizens of a free republic. Slowly 
 but surely there is coming to them in its com 
 pleteness the recognition of their rights as inte 
 gral factors of the commonwealth, and this is a 
 great gain. The fact of their citizenship, and 
 the conviction that it is irrevocable, is a potent 
 factor in securing for them the benefits of the 
 public schools maintained by the States, and 
 the advantages of the higher schools supported 
 by Christian philanthropy. 
 
 Since Frederick Douglass, no Negro of com 
 manding ability has appeared as a political 
 
 156 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 leader or statesman. Nevertheless, a very 
 considerable number have filled high public 
 offices acceptably, and many have shown an 
 intelligent appreciation of the responsibilities 
 involved in official position. 
 
 Perhaps the severest test of their progress in 
 civilization is their social status. They are 
 
 surrounded on every side 
 
 Social Status 
 
 by a strong white race, 
 
 chiefly Anglo-Saxon, accustomed to lordship, 
 proud of its prestige, and with a strong inclina 
 tion to refuse to recognize the claims of the Af 
 rican to any consideration other than that 
 prompted by pity or general humanity. That 
 this spirit is relaxing, however, and that there 
 is a growing disposition on the part of the 
 white people to recognize the manhood of the 
 Negroes, is evident. The commencement ex 
 ercises at some of the Negro schools are now 
 attended by white people of high social position, 
 who go, not to gratify their curiosity, least of 
 all to express their contempt, but to indicate 
 their interest, appreciation, and sympathy. At 
 the Ministers Institutes held in several South 
 ern States, under the direction of Negro super 
 intendents, the ablest white men participate 
 without hesitation as public lecturers. What the 
 157 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 final solution of the relation of the races will 
 be does not yet appear, but this much is cer 
 tain, that manhood, culture, worth of character, 
 and dignity of conduct, will assert themselves 
 and command respect. The Negroes will in 
 the end receive whatever is their due. 
 
 The conclusion reached by this re-study of 
 the present status of the eight million Ne- 
 
 gr es > thirt > - five 
 
 Summary r 
 
 after emancipation, may 
 
 be summarized thus : 
 
 1. In almost all the elements of civilization 
 the race, as a whole, has made distinct progress. 
 While the condition of multitudes of them is 
 still deplorable, it is encouraging to note that 
 the degree of illiteracy among them is less than 
 that of the inhabitants of Spain, who have en 
 joyed centuries of freedom and so-called civil 
 ization. 
 
 2. The progress of the Negroes has been 
 due to the fact of their relationship to civilized 
 white men ; they have shown a capacity to 
 adopt rather than to originate, to follow, 
 rather than to lead, to imitate, rather than to 
 create. Thus far they have shown very little 
 ability to organize and direct, except in local 
 and limited aifairs. 
 
 158 
 
The Negroes Under Freedom 
 
 3. The supreme test of their capacity to 
 contend with the white man, on equal terms, 
 is yet to come. The struggle for industrial 
 recognition and Yor political equality promises 
 to be a bitter one, and the Negroes are badly 
 handicapped in entering it. 
 
 4. What is needed pre-eminently, to-day, 
 to insure not only the welfare and progress of 
 the Negroes, but the well-being of the States in 
 which they live and the republic in its entirety, 
 are: (i) The strengthening of the great Chris 
 tian schools established for their benefit by 
 Northern beneficence ; these are their chief 
 hope ; (2) the improvement of the public 
 school system by lengthening the terms, ex 
 tending the period of attendance, and supply 
 ing them with a large increase of well-trained 
 teachers ; (3) the creation of a few well- 
 equipped industrial schools where men can be 
 trained for leadership. 
 
 5. There is imminent peril in any scheme 
 which seeks to segregate the Negroes. Their 
 interests are identical with the interests of 
 their white fellow-citizens. Co-operation has 
 in it "the promise and the potency" of great 
 things for the race. 
 
 159 
 
VIII 
 
 THE IDEAL AMERICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 THERE is a consensus of opinion among in 
 telligent Americans as to the form of govern 
 ment and the character of laws and institutions 
 which are most desirable for us and for our 
 neighbors, for our children, and ultimately for 
 the world. We cherish in common a lofty con 
 ception of a free government, in which every 
 citizen is a sovereign, and every sovereign a wise, 
 patriotic, and just man. Our loyalty is philan 
 thropic, and not selfish ; zealous without bitter 
 ness. "With malice toward none, with charity 
 for all, with love for the right as God gives us to 
 see the right," we earnestly strive for the real 
 ization and perpetuation of an ideal republic, 
 whose foundations are truth, and whose bless 
 ings are for humanity. 
 
 1 The following paper was not prepared originally for this series 
 but is inserted here because of the pertinence of the discussion. 
 The Ideal Republic is based not on race distinction but on man 
 hood. To call this a " white man s government " is a denial of the 
 doctrine of human equality the basal idea of our civilization. 
 
 160 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 We are ruled by our ideals. A thought of 
 purpose clearly conceived is a dominant force 
 
 in human life. Tell me 
 
 , . , , r . ,. Reasons for this 
 what the ideals of an mdi- Discussion 
 
 vidual are, and I will tell 
 you the secret forces and controlling tendencies 
 of his life. The ideals of a people are pro 
 phetic of their destiny. The character of the 
 government, or the ideal of the republic which 
 the present generation most strongly cherishes, 
 will very largely determine the final outcome 
 of that momentous experiment of self-govern 
 ment which is now being tried on so large a 
 scale on this continent. We do well, therefore, 
 to examine that ideal with two purposes in 
 view : first, to correct it if it be faulty. 
 
 The thought of human liberty and aspiration 
 after freedom is as old as the race, and history 
 records no struggles which have been more in 
 tense and magnificent than those that have 
 been waged for the attainment of these ends. 
 The difficulties attending the adjustment of the 
 machinery of government so as to secure liberty 
 for the individual and safety and prosperity for 
 the masses, have ever been so many and so 
 great that the record of the efforts to establish 
 free government is largely a record of failures. 
 L 161 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Republics have arisen only to fall ; great victo 
 ries in the struggle for freedom have been won 
 only to be followed by disaster and defeat ; and 
 freedom has lifted its voice only to be drowned 
 in anarchy and strangled in despotism. Nev 
 ertheless, there has been progress running 
 through the centuries, and human freedom is 
 to-day more nearly within the reach of the 
 common people than ever before in the history 
 of the world. 
 
 It is perhaps not too much to say that the 
 republic of the United States at the present 
 time more fully conforms to the hopes and aspi 
 rations of the lovers of liberty than any govern 
 ment which has ever existed. The ideal of what 
 men desire has become clearer and clearer as 
 time has gone by, and they have made suc 
 cessive and gratifying steps in the advancement 
 toward its complete realization. Much remains 
 to be done, however, before these lofty concep 
 tions shall be fully embodied in law and prac 
 tice, and it is, perhaps, possible that what men 
 are striving for is not wholly attainable. If we 
 of to-day are cherishing vague and ill-founded 
 hopes, and are trying to establish a government 
 that can exist only in the imagination, that has 
 no counterpart in history, and that must be 
 162 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 always deluding and disappointing to us an 
 ignis fatuus then it is well that we should 
 modify our ideals and moderate our expecta 
 tions, for an impossible Utopia is not worth 
 striving for. Certainly nothing can be lost by 
 an intelligent, searching discussion of the ideal 
 we cherish of the possible republic. It will 
 make clearer to us our thought ; will expose 
 whatever of error may be in it, and will open 
 the way for such modification of our conceptions 
 as logic or fact may necessitate. No true ideal 
 has anything to fear from the most rigid analysis 
 or the most critical examination. 
 
 A second reason for the discussion of the 
 ideal republic is that it affords an opportunity 
 to discern the hindrances or dangers that may 
 lie in the way of its complete realization. No 
 great truth relating to human well-being ever 
 yet embodied itself in institutions without op 
 position. The history of liberty is a history of 
 struggle, of conflict, of carnage, of resistance, 
 of victory, of defeat ; triumph over difficulties ; 
 progress in spite of enemies ; success purchased 
 at enormous cost. "Eternal vigilance is the 
 price of liberty. 
 
 When we scrutinize our ideal of the republic 
 as it ought to be and contrast that ideal with 
 163 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 the state of things that actually exists around 
 us, we shall be spurred to increased zeal in 
 behalf of all agencies that promise real help in 
 bringing facts into harmony with theory. It 
 should kindle our enthusiasm for liberty. 
 
 When we set over against this ideal the 
 medieval, despotic theory of a State that still 
 finds among us so many adherents, we shall be 
 startled at the contrast and awakened to the 
 perils that beset us. Light has no fellowship 
 with darkness. Liberty and despotism are im 
 placable foes. 
 
 Standing as we do, looking back over more 
 than a century, tracing the progress that we 
 
 have already made, taking 
 Our Possible r , 
 
 n . a survey of the present con 
 
 dition of affairs and of our 
 relations to the future, we are able, without the 
 assumption of any extraordinary powers, to fore 
 cast the time not far removed, as we reckon 
 historic periods when the United States may 
 embrace even a much larger territory than that 
 already comprised within its magnificent limits ; 
 when its population will be numbered by the 
 hundreds of millions ; when its wealth will be 
 fabulous and its commerce enormous ; and 
 when its influence upon the world will far sur- 
 164 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 pass that ever exerted by any other nation. 
 All the signs of the times and the teachings of 
 history clearly indicate the almost limitless 
 possibilities in the development of the internal 
 power and the worldwide influence of this re 
 public. 1 
 
 The ideal which many have set before them 
 selves who to-day are engaged in the active 
 work of molding public opinion, of shaping the 
 character of our institutions, of determining 
 our destiny, is no narrow one. It is as broad 
 as human liberty, as comprehensive as the 
 varied human interests concerned, and as far- 
 reaching as our influence may ever extend. It 
 can make very little difference to those of the 
 present generation who are now actively en 
 gaged in the responsibilities and cares of life, 
 what conception of the republic may ultimately 
 obtain in the popular mind, and find expres 
 sion in law and in institutions, because in our 
 time no radical changes are likely, even if they 
 are possible. Our liberties are secure. It 
 does concern future generations, however, 
 whether the institutions that we are now es- 
 
 1 This was written before the late Spanish war gave us Porto 
 Rico directly and indirectly Hawaii. Will Cuba and the Philip 
 pine Islands come next? 
 
 165 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 tablishing, the laws that we are enacting, the 
 philosophy that we are inculcating, the spirit 
 that we are engendering, are to be consonant 
 with the highest ideal of liberty and progress, 
 or whether they are such as to bring about a 
 curtailment of their liberty or an abridgment 
 of their highest happiness. 
 
 Our thinking of to-day is for the future ; our 
 discussions are for the benefit of unborn gen 
 erations, and our conten- 
 Building for . . . , . , 
 
 the Future tlon 1S for an ldeal that 
 concerns the race. We are 
 
 striving to establish American institutions whose 
 beneficent privileges shall be enjoyed by suc 
 cessive generations for a thousand years to 
 come. In the future, those who are living in 
 the full exercise of whatever privileges or op 
 portunities are then afforded, will regard those 
 of the present time who are helping to deter 
 mine the nature of our institutions either with 
 gratitude for the blessings they enjoy, or with 
 feelings of bitterness or contempt if we fail 
 to transmit to them these free institutions un 
 impaired. 
 
 What, then, are those fundamental concep 
 tions which underlie our experiment of self- 
 government, and which we believe ought to 
 166 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 give character to our nation and its institutions ? 
 
 What, in broad outline, is the Ideal Republic ? 
 
 The first element is the sovereignty of the 
 
 people. The fundamental truth is that the 
 
 government derives its pow- 
 
 f , , - . , Source of 
 
 ers from the consent of the p 
 
 governed. The people are 
 sovereigns. A republic is self-governed. It 
 " is a government of the people, for the people, 
 and by the people." It is the assertion of the 
 radical doctrine of the inherent right of the 
 people to govern themselves. There is here a 
 denial of the fiction of the "divine right of 
 kings." Government is simply an expression 
 of the will of the governed ; and those who, 
 for the time being, exercise rule or authority, 
 do it, not by virtue of their own right, nor by 
 the law of inheritance, nor by divine appoint 
 ment, but because of the simple fact that they 
 have been chosen by the free suffrages of the 
 people as their representatives or rulers to ex 
 ercise the power temporarily delegated to them 
 for the benefit of those who confer it. The 
 people who elect rulers to-day can, in accord 
 ance with the terms of the Constitution which 
 they themselves prescribe, elect another set 
 to-morrow to take their places and to exercise 
 167 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 full authority during their term of office. Ac 
 cording to this conception, there can be no 
 such thing as royalty or aristocracy, and conse 
 quently, no such broad distinction between the 
 people and their rulers as necessarily obtains 
 in monarchical, aristocratical, or hierarchical 
 governments. The people are kings and 
 rulers ; their will is law. The proud monarch 
 proclaims himself the State ; the highest offi 
 cials in a republic are the servants of the 
 people. We, the people, ordain constitu 
 tions, make legislatures, establish courts, cre 
 ate judges, elect governors, constitute armies, 
 levy taxes, regulate and execute laws. We sit 
 on juries, and are entitled to trial by our peers. 
 Our liberties are in our own keeping, our rights 
 are inviolate, our homes are our castles. We 
 call no man lord, because we ourselves are the 
 sources of power. The great chasm between 
 the government and the people, as two separate 
 forces with distinct and conflicting interests, is 
 filled up and sodded over. The people are 
 themselves the government. There can be, 
 according to this idea, no privileged classes, no 
 haughty monarchs, no blue-blood aristocrats, 
 no titled nobility, no arrogant hierarchy : no 
 distinctions based on race or color. 
 168 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 Growing out of this fundamental conception, 
 and necessarily connected with it, is the doc 
 trine of equal rights. The 
 
 , c -. -r\ -i Human 
 
 ringing words of the Decla- Equality 
 
 ration of Independence 
 that "all men are created equal," sweep away 
 at one stroke all class distinctions and recognize 
 the far- reach ing principle that in the eye of the 
 law, as members of the commonwealth, the 
 rights of one man are just as sacred as those of 
 another. However men may differ in intel 
 lectual endowments, in moral character, in 
 possessions, color, or social position, polit 
 ically they are equal. The vote of one man 
 has the same weight as that of another man ; 
 the vote of the laborer goes just as far as that 
 of the capitalist in fixing the character of the 
 government under which he lives and in deter 
 mining the persons who are to exercise author 
 ity. This truth blots out at once all distinctions 
 growing out of race, color, or condition, and 
 lays broad, deep, enduring foundations in the 
 doctrine of the essential dignity of human 
 nature. Whatever artificial or incidental con 
 ditions may separate men socially or financially, 
 "a man s a man for a that." This recogni 
 tion of the inherent dignity of the soul, this 
 169 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 radical doctrine of human equality, this em 
 phatic declaration of the right of each and 
 every man to his own life, liberty, and pursuit 
 of happiness, as embodied in the fundamental 
 charter which underlies- our political super 
 structure, marks a tremendous advance in the 
 progressive civilization of the race. 
 
 This great doctrine of human equality fur 
 nishes the basis of a true socialism. The con 
 sciousness among the toiling 
 A True 
 . .. masses of their own inherent 
 
 worth as men, and the deep- 
 seated aspirations cherished by many of them 
 for better conditions, underlies much of the 
 unrest of our times, and is slowly but surely 
 working out great revolutions in social rela 
 tions, industrial conditions, and political insti 
 tutions. We are rapidly passing through suc 
 cessive stages of a mighty change, and are 
 tending toward a form of socialism that has in 
 it the promise and potency" of a vast ame 
 lioration of economic evils, social inequalities, 
 and political disabilities. Equal rights is a 
 mighty solvent of the problems of discontent. 
 Another way of stating the doctrine of equal 
 rights, is to say that our Republic rests upon 
 individualism. The individual is the political 
 170 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 unit. Each man stands or falls for himself. 
 It does not matter, so far as the conception 
 
 of his rights is concerned, 
 
 Individualism 
 
 whether he is wise or ig 
 norant, strong or weak, rich or poor, white, 
 black, or red, he stands for what he is an in 
 dividual, a personality whose rights and privi 
 leges are as dear to him as are those of any 
 other person in the world. For political pur 
 poses he stands alone ; his personality is invio 
 late ; his rights are sacred. Within his own 
 domain he is an autocrat. The emperor upon 
 his throne is not more complete in himself than 
 the humblest voter in a republic. The indi 
 vidual is endowed with all the essential attri 
 butes of humanity. He has intellect, con 
 science, and will. He is himself an epitome 
 of man. Whatever concerns humanity con 
 cerns him ; whatever affects human rights 
 affects his rights ; whatever enhances human 
 dignity enhances his dignity. Whatever limits, 
 dwarfs, or hinders the race, equally and in the 
 same manner, ceteris paribus, affects him ; 
 whatever principles of justice apply to the 
 masses of people apply to him individually. 
 Politically he calls no man master ; acknowl 
 edges no authority greater than his own. He 
 171 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 recognizes no caste from which he is rightfully 
 excluded, no class that has rights or privileges 
 that he cannot aspire to ; and he submits to no 
 limitations of his liberty that are not necessi 
 tated by consideration for the liberties and 
 rights of his fellow-men. 
 
 Man, created in the image of his Maker, is 
 complete in himself. He is a free moral agent, 
 
 capable of choice and com- 
 The Dignity of f ir 
 
 Human Nature P etent for self-government. 
 
 He is responsible directly to 
 God for his conduct and character, and no 
 man can stand between him and the judgment 
 to come ; he must appear for himself before his 
 Maker and "give an account of the deeds 
 done in the body." No human daysman can 
 interpose as advocate ; he must bear his own 
 burden. This is the plain teaching of Scrip 
 ture, that sets forth man s autonomy as a moral 
 being and his responsibility as a free agent. 
 
 Our theory of government gives to man po 
 litically the same status that the Bible gives to 
 him morally and religiously. He is a political 
 entity ; an independent citizen ; must act as an 
 individual, and bear the responsibility of those 
 actions. He is entitled to that freedom which 
 ensures him the fullest unfolding of all his pow- 
 172 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 ers, the largest exercise possible of all his nor 
 mal activities, the greatest practicable enjoy 
 ment of the pleasures he most desires, and the 
 widest career that is compatible with his rela 
 tions to his fellow-men. Then the responsibility 
 for his action must rest with himself. If he 
 makes mistakes he must surfer the conse 
 quences. If he will not work neither shall 
 he eat. If he violates law or interferes with 
 the rights of his neighbor he must surfer pun 
 ishment. No plea of ignorance will avail him. 
 He cannot hide behind any society, or screen 
 himself by any plea of coercion or oath of 
 obedience. He is a subject of the Republic, 
 a citizen of the nation which has enfranchised 
 and ennobled him. Each American voter 
 walks erect among his fellow-citizens, the peer 
 of the noblest and the equal of the highest. 
 
 As one of the sovereign people, the source 
 of political power, a constituent member of the 
 
 body politic for which all 
 
 , n . . . The Man Greater 
 power and all authority is Than the of(ice 
 
 exercised, an integral ele 
 ment of government itself, he not only has all 
 the rights that pertain to the most favored pri 
 vate citizen, but he himself may aspire to the 
 highest office ; a sovereign de jure, he may be- 
 173 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 come a sovereign de facto, by the free suffrage 
 of his fellow-citizens. Aspiration after high 
 political honors and power is entirely conso 
 nant with his position as an equal member of 
 the Republic. This doctrine confers upon him 
 the highest dignity. His simple manhood is 
 his title to respect. Exalted ability or excep 
 tional attainment by virtue of which he may 
 be elected to office enables him to confer 
 dignity upon the place which he is called to 
 fill, if he fills his office with ability and 
 fidelity, and when he lays aside the temporary 
 authority with which he may be clothed, he 
 loses none of his dignity, but returns to private 
 life with the consciousness that the man is 
 greater than the office. 
 
 If there is any institution upon which rests 
 the special divine favor, it is the family. God 
 
 has constituted the home 
 The Autonomy , , . . . . . 
 
 of the Family as the s P here m whlch 1S to 
 be developed many of the 
 
 sweetest graces of womanhood and strongest 
 virtues of manhood. The relation of husband 
 and wife, of parents and children, of brother 
 and sister, are peculiarly tender and strong. 
 It is in the family that children are to learn to 
 be affectionate, patient, helpful, respectful to 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 age, tender to helplessness, obedient to au 
 thority, and reverent toward God. The father 
 is the founder of the family, the head of the 
 household, the priest of the home circle. The 
 mother is the helpmeet for him. Within the 
 sphere of the home they should be supreme. 
 No external power should obtrude itself into 
 its sacred precincts. The parents, as long as 
 they are competent and willing to discharge 
 aright their parental obligations, should be left 
 free to follow their own choice as to the educa 
 tion and training of their children. 
 
 The doctrine of individualism recognizes the 
 inestimable value to the individual of associa 
 tion with his fellows. Man 
 
 , , . , . , Value of 
 
 never reaches his highest _ . 
 
 development intellectually 
 or religiously, or achieves his greatest successes, 
 apart from society. The anchorite is doomed 
 to failure. Monasticism is a perversion of life. 
 Men need the attrition that comes from active 
 association with other men in business ; each 
 sex needs the constant influence of the other. 
 The art of living together is one of man s 
 noblest achievements. Sociology is a science 
 second in importance only to theology. The 
 great thing to be insisted upon is that society 
 175 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 shall be free to form and reform on planes of 
 ascending development. 
 
 But these facts in no wise militate against the 
 great truth here stated, that the relation be 
 tween the citizen and the Republic is a personal, 
 individual relation. He is recognized by the 
 government under which he lives as a man, 
 capable of performing a man s duties, and of 
 exercising a man s privileges. It confers upon 
 him the dignity of citizenship, and it has a right 
 to his personal loyalty. Individualism bestows 
 honor and imposes obligations. 
 
 Whatever subordinate relations he sustains 
 to his family, his associates, or to society, his 
 prime allegiance is to the Republic. He is 
 first of all an American. He hoists no other 
 flag above the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 Man was born for freedom ; his highest in 
 tellectual and spiritual development, indeed, 
 the perfection of his man- 
 
 tially upon his liberty. He 
 should, as far as practicable, be free from all 
 external restraints. His actions should be 
 self-originated, self-controlled, and should be 
 unrestricted just as far as the circumstances by 
 which he is surrounded will admit. One of his 
 176 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 characteristics as an individual, a personality, 
 a moral being, is freedom in choosing his own 
 vocation, determining his own activities, select 
 ing his own companions, deciding upon his 
 own home, educating his own children, set 
 tling his own creed, and electing his own 
 rulers. In as far as he is restricted in his lib 
 erty he is robbed of his birthright ; and in as 
 far as he weakly and voluntarily surrenders his 
 own freedom to another he emasculates himself. 
 
 Liberty is not license. Freedom is conduct 
 self-regulated in conformity with reason and 
 the eternal verities of the universe. Only a 
 moral being can be free, and morality implies 
 responsibility. 
 
 Of course, when men live in communities 
 there must be restriction by government 
 
 some rule of action that 
 
 ,, . , , c Government a 
 shall preserve the rights of , T 
 
 Necessity 
 
 the community on the one 
 
 hand and the rights of the individual on the 
 other. Men living together can no more dis 
 pense with government than they can dispense 
 with air ; it is a condition of society. The ne 
 cessity of some regulative power, of some re 
 strictive agency, of some authoritative execu 
 tion of punishment for wrong-doing, grows out 
 M 177 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 of man s ignorance, selfishness, and other nat 
 ural limitations. Anarchy, which rebels against 
 all law and denies the necessity of any govern 
 ment, is wholly irrational, ignoring as it does 
 the essential nature of man and the plainest 
 teachings of history. In its revolt against the 
 cruelty of despotism it swings to the opposite 
 extreme of no government, and for the op 
 pression of the tyrant or the misrule of the 
 legal authorities it would substitute the savage 
 fury of the mob. Because governments are 
 imperfect it would utterly abolish them. It 
 would destroy the sun to get rid of the spots 
 on its surface. Mobs are symptoms of political 
 rottenness. Anarchists are the haters of gov 
 ernment and the enemies of freedom. 
 
 Men have an unbounded right to combine 
 for just purposes and to use righteous means to 
 obtain them. Trades unions, labor organiza 
 tions, combinations of capitalists, are praise 
 worthy, as long as permeated by justice. But 
 the individual laborer mechanic, business 
 man, or capitalist has the right of liberty in 
 disposing of his labor, his skill, or his capital. 
 When trusts ruthlessly crush out the small capi 
 talist, and labor unions resort to violence to 
 prevent individuals working to earn bread for 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 their families, they do violence to the great 
 doctrine of individualism. 
 
 Government, however, does not exist for its 
 own sake ; its only raison d etre being its utility 
 as an agency for the ad 
 vancement of the common Government a 
 
 welfare and the promotion . . . ean ^ 
 
 Not an End 
 
 of individual prosperity. If 
 
 all men were wise, moral, and strong, there 
 certainly would be need of less government 
 than there is now ; but as long as they are ig 
 norant, selfish, and weak, there will continue 
 to be, for their own sakes, as well as for the 
 good of the community, the necessity of a cen 
 tral power of regulation. Just as soon, how 
 ever, as this central power arrogates to itself 
 undue importance, or seeks self-aggrandizement 
 at the expense of the people, it becomes an 
 impertinence and an evil to be remedied or 
 removed. 
 
 Returning to the idea of liberty, let us ask, 
 What is meant by liberty ? What are the ele 
 ments that enter into the 
 
 conception of human free- A f , ^ . 
 
 Analyzed 
 
 dom? 
 
 Free Thought, The first, most obviously, is 
 freedom of thought. Man is an intellectual 
 179 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 being and every normal individual possesses all 
 that is necessary to constitute him an indepen 
 dent thinker. He is endowed with powers of 
 observation, self-consciousness, memory, imagi 
 nation, logical faculties, and is able to observe, 
 analyze, compare, and decide for himself all 
 the ordinary questions that present themselves 
 to his mind and call for judgment as the basis 
 of action. 
 
 Of course he is limited by the ineradicable 
 distinctions between truth and error which he 
 cannot, by any process of thought, change. 
 The axioms of mathematics, the laws of 
 physics, and the established rules of philosophy, 
 are not the products of the human mind, but 
 of the divine mind ; and a man in his thinking 
 is necessarily limited by the laws of thought 
 and the facts of creation. Within these limits, 
 however, he should have great freedom ; in 
 deed, there can be no thinking, properly so 
 called, which is not free. The acceptance of 
 propositions formulated by others does not 
 necessarily imply thinking. Faith, in so far as 
 it is merely an assent to an intellectual dogma, 
 or the acceptance of the result of another s 
 thinking, without an understanding of its pro 
 cesses, is not an attribute of freedom. To 
 180 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 think is to bring one s self into immediate con 
 tact with facts and truths, and to see for one s 
 self the relations that facts and thoughts sustain 
 to each other and that premises sustain to con 
 clusions. Free thought is one of our most 
 precious privileges, and any limitations laid 
 upon its exercise is a curbing of our liberty, an 
 abridgment of our manhood, a species of en 
 slavement. No man is free who is forced to 
 blindly accept the conclusions of another man s 
 reasoning. Every free man creates his own 
 creed. 
 
 The Historic Spirit. I, of course, recognize 
 the fact that any intelligent thinker will be 
 helped by other men s thinking, and that all 
 progress in thought, whether in the line of 
 science, philosophy, or religion, is immensely 
 aided by a genuine historic spirit, and that no 
 one who seeks a firm foundation in great ques 
 tions can afford to ignore the work already done 
 in the line of his investigations by the great 
 minds that have preceded him. No man, with 
 any safety, can break violently, suddenly, or 
 capriciously with the past. Nevertheless, every 
 individual, in as far as his capacities will allow 
 and his circumstances will admit, should, be 
 fore adopting them as his own, re-think the 
 181 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 thoughts of other men, examine the relations 
 of their conclusions to their premises, and de 
 cide for himself as to the soundness of their 
 reasonings. In other words, every man should 
 put the stamp of his own originality on every 
 article of his belief; but whether he can do 
 this, or is willing to do it, the great and unde 
 niable truth the truth for which I most ear 
 nestly contend remains, that he should be 
 free to do so. Freedom of thought is his in 
 alienable right, and is that for which he should 
 battle as for his life. 
 
 If it should be said that men are incapable 
 of thinking for themselves, and must therefore 
 accept the formulas elaborated for them by au 
 thority, I answer that such creeds have about 
 the same value for them that a sword has for a 
 man without hands. 
 
 If it be said that men who attempt to think 
 for themselves may fall into error and be led 
 astray, I reply, that to profess to believe what 
 one does not understand, and to accept a creed 
 as an act of obedience, is to be very far astray 
 and involved in most hurtful error. Nothing 
 could be more irrational than to assert that 
 "we believe a thing because it is absurd." 
 This is to make a denial of the trustworthiness 
 182 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 of our mental processes, the basis of our high 
 est mental attainments. We declare ourselves 
 fools in order that we may be accounted wise. 
 
 A Free Bible, Recognizing as I do the in 
 comparable place occupied by the sacred Scrip 
 tures as the inspired word of God, given for 
 man s spiritual illumination, I lay special stress 
 upon the right of every man to read that great 
 book for himself. The Bible should be free. 
 The right of private interpretation should be 
 sacred. No other book ever wrought so pow 
 erfully for the enfranchisement of the race as 
 has the Bible. No people can be permanently 
 enslaved who are familiar with its pages and 
 animated by its spirit. The Bible is the great 
 charter of human liberty. The enemies of 
 freedom hate the Bible. The progress of soul 
 liberty received a vast impulse when Wycliffe, 
 Luther, and others gave it to the common 
 people, translating it into their mother tongue. 
 
 Free Speech. Closely connected with free 
 dom of thought is freedom of speech ; for it is 
 just as necessary for a man to give utterance 
 to his thought as it is for him to think it ; in 
 deed, thought in any wide, true sense, is prac 
 tically impossible without communication with 
 other minds. It is of little avail to me that I 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 am untrammeled in thought, if I may not bring 
 myself, by means of my thinking, into soul re 
 lationship with my fellow-beings. If I have 
 arrived at some great truth, it is my privilege, 
 if not my duty, to communicate the truth to 
 those about me. If I am in doubt as to my 
 own processes or acts, the results of my own 
 observations and reasoning, it is my right to 
 confer with those about me, either privately or 
 publicly, and to seek, by their assistance, to 
 test my conclusions, the validity of my thought, 
 or by their aid to modify my views. 
 
 Limits of Free Speech. Of course there are 
 practical limitations to the freedom of speech. 
 The State should protect the reputation of its 
 subjects, and it must preserve its own existence. 
 Mobs are intolerable, and speeches that incite 
 to riot and murder justly subject the speakers 
 to the danger of arrest and punishment as dis 
 turbers of the peace. There must be due 
 vigilance in the maintenance of public order, 
 but it may and should be used without any in 
 fringement of true freedom of speech. Govern 
 ment, generally, is perhaps more liable to err 
 on the side of severity than on that of laxity. 
 The blasphemies of infidels, the tirades of sand- 
 lot orators, and the wild utterances of anarchists, 
 184 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 are less to be dreaded than is the brutal force 
 of a czar suppressing free speech. 
 
 Freedom of speech for men who are neces 
 sarily limited in their powers, and are feeling 
 their way toward wise conclusions, is essentia.1 
 for the common progress of the race in its pur^ 
 suit after truth. Without free speech intel 
 lectual progress would be confined largely to 
 individuals ; by means of it the conclusions 
 reached by the few become the possession of 
 the many, and the progress of the one great 
 thinker becomes the stimulus for the advance 
 ment of the multitude. 
 
 Unnecessary rigor in suppressing open-air 
 meetings, violence used to punish or intimidate 
 men from speaking the truth, are crimes against 
 liberty. Any institution or cause that cannot 
 endure the light of the nineteenth century 
 should retire to the darkness of the fifteenth. 
 
 Freedom of debate is not a meaningless 
 phrase to juggle with. It is a great weapon for 
 exposing error, refuting falsehood, removing 
 prejudice, uncovering fallacies, establishing 
 truth, and awakening enthusiasm for it. 
 
 A Free Press. Closely allied to freedom of 
 speech, and, indeed, separable from it only by 
 an arbitrary line of distinction, is the liberty of 
 
 185 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 the press. If I have a right to utter my 
 thoughts privately to others, or in public dis 
 cussion or discourse, I have the right to print 
 them in the columns of newspaper, tract, 
 magazine, or book. Libraries are the great 
 storehouses of thought which register the 
 achievements ol individuals and of the race. 
 They are among the mightiest monuments of 
 human greatness, and are the most valuable 
 treasures handed down by one generation to 
 another. They are the milestones marking the 
 advance of the race in its search after truth ; 
 the/<7 in which are collected the great lights 
 of all places and of all ages ; the fountains to 
 which each succeeding generation goes to drink 
 from the treasured store gathered for them in 
 the centuries past. They are the centers of 
 ever-widening, radiating influence ; the indis 
 pensable aids to progress; and to interpose 
 any obstacle in the way of making books is to 
 throw obstruction in the upward pathway of the 
 race. An index expurgatorius is a shackle 
 upon the development of civilization. No man 
 is as wise as all men ; no party knows as much 
 as all parties ; no ancient ever stood on the 
 same high level as the moderns. This age is 
 wiser than all preceding ages ; the men of to- 
 186 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 day are better prepared to sit in judgment on 
 any question of interest to human thought than 
 the men of any other generation. Those that 
 come after us will be wiser than we are. To 
 attempt to hinder the advancement of thought 
 by limiting the liberty of the press is an at 
 tempt to fly in the face of God himself. He 
 created man in his own image ; implanted 
 within him an insatiable thirst for knowledge ; 
 inspired him with an irrepressible desire not 
 only to know and to think, but also to commu 
 nicate his thought, and to put it into perma 
 nent shape for the benefit of future generations. 
 
 It hardly needs to be added that the freedom 
 of the press, the unrestricted right to make 
 books that contain discussions of all kinds of 
 questions political, philosophical, scientific, 
 social, theological does not imply that men 
 are at liberty to make and circulate immoral 
 literature for the corruption of the young, but 
 it does remove the ban from books that may 
 be regarded as false in doctrine or unsound in 
 teaching. 
 
 The freedom of the press, so characteristic of 
 
 our country to-day, is one of the safeguards of 
 
 liberty and one of the strongest aids in our 
 
 progress. The great secular dailies and relig- 
 
 187 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 ious weeklies stimulate intellectual activity, 
 foster intelligence, and assist in creating a 
 sound public opinion on all the vital questions 
 of the hour. 
 
 Whenever the press is palsied by the touch 
 of intolerance or of fear it loses its freedom, its 
 power, its usefulness. A. muzzled press in a 
 free country is an anachronism. 
 
 Liberty of Conscience. Not less important 
 than either of the elements mentioned is free 
 dom of conscience. Every moral creature 
 must determine his own activity ; an activity 
 controlled from without ceases to be moral. 
 When we perform an action under restraint it 
 is not our own action ; we are no longer free 
 men, but slaves. In its final analysis every 
 moral action rests upon the deliverance of con 
 science, and freedom is simply the power that 
 I have to act in accordance with that deliver 
 ance. If I do that which it condemns I wrong 
 my own nature, do violence to the fundamental 
 conception of freedom, and recognize myself 
 as no longer a moral being, but an immoral 
 one, doing slavishly the behests of another. 
 No act of mine and no line of conduct can be 
 of any avail to me, except it be the outgrowth 
 of my own conviction of its righteousness. 
 188 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 Freedom of Worship. The people of the 
 United States, in amending the Constitution 
 so as to prohibit the establishment of religion 
 by the government, took a great stride forward 
 in securing the establishment of soul liberty 
 the essence of all freedom. Any governmental 
 infringement of the right of the individual to 
 worship God according to the dictates of his 
 own conscience is an invasion of the very cita 
 del of his manhood. 
 
 Worship of the Almighty God is a spiritual 
 act, not a formal one ; consists in right attitudes 
 
 of the heart, and not in 
 
 a 4.- c 4.u v, j Spirituality of 
 
 genuflections of the body. Worshi p 
 
 It expresses the relationship 
 that the individual sustains directly and imme 
 diately with his Maker, and there can, by no 
 possibility, be any intermediary. The moment 
 the so-called act of worship is controlled by a 
 third person, or influenced by any object, it 
 ceases to be worship and becomes form. Man 
 as a spiritual being is closely allied to the Spirit 
 that made him, and finds his highest privilege 
 in spiritual relationship with his Father in 
 heaven. Nothing can take the place of per 
 sonal communion between the spiritual man 
 and the Divine Spirit. The act of worship, 
 189 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 in order to be genuine, must be free ; for when 
 it ceases to be free it ceases to be worship. 
 Unless it is spontaneous and correctly repre 
 sents the man s individual religious experience, 
 his own deep-seated convictions, hopes, and 
 aspirations, it loses its significance. * God is 
 a spirit, and they that worship him must wor 
 ship him in spirit and in truth. 
 
 God only can forgive sins. Forgiveness is 
 the prerogative of Deity the moral judge of 
 the universe. God alone is the one in whom 
 inheres divine attributes. He only is worthy 
 to be adored. He only can hear prayer. He 
 only can answer prayer he that hath made us 
 and redeemed us, who feeds, clothes, and sus 
 tains us, "in whom we live, move, and have 
 our being." The only true God is to be 
 feared and worshiped. I must worship him 
 for myself. I must make my confession to 
 him ; pay my vows to him and him only. 
 
 The right to do this, according to the dictates 
 of his own conscience, is one of the most sacred 
 prerogatives of man, and the abridgment of 
 that right is an irreparable injury. Whatever 
 tends to mar the reality of worship, or to sub 
 stitute for the spontaneous spiritual outgoing 
 of the individual the lifeless form prescribed 
 190 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 by another, to which he conforms by stress, is 
 a violent interference with his inestimable 
 privilege of coming directly, personally, sin 
 cerely, into religious relationship with his 
 Maker. 
 
 Liberty of Action. In speaking of freedom 
 of thought, of speech, of the press, of con 
 science, of worship, I have necessarily confined 
 myself to man s inner self. Soul liberty, how 
 ever, is incomplete if it is not supplemented by 
 civil liberty. Man should not only be free to 
 think, but free to act ; his "pursuit of happi 
 ness" is necessarily conditioned by his tastes, 
 and he himself must be his own judge of what 
 will best contribute to that happiness. Some 
 men find it in exploring wildernesses, in search 
 ing for the North Pole, in traversing unknown 
 seas, in sounding the depths of the ocean, in 
 studying the habits of the wild beasts of the 
 forest ; some men find it in mercantile pur 
 suits, in the accumulation of wealth ; some in 
 the development of great industries, or the 
 building of railroads ; some in philosophic pur 
 suits, others in missionary enterprises. It is 
 evident that the happiness of the individual and 
 of the race is conditioned upon freedom in its 
 pursuit. Pursuit of happiness is happiness. 
 191 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 Of course men are to be restrained in their 
 liberty of action when such liberty leads them 
 unwisely or unjustly to do that which interferes 
 with the happiness or prosperity of their neigh 
 bors or is clearly inconsistent with the general 
 welfare. Government has a right to interpose 
 to prevent individuals from doing those things 
 which are hurtful to the community, and, un 
 doubtedly, in rare instances, it has a right to 
 interpose in behalf of the individual himself, to 
 restrain him from doing that which will be man 
 ifestly to his own detriment this, however, 
 only on the supposition that he is incompetent 
 to govern himself. The welfare of the indi 
 vidual, as well as of society, requires the free 
 dom of the individual in his own line of activity, 
 and it is better for society and better for the in 
 dividual, even if in the exercise of his freedom 
 of choice he prefers a line of conduct that may 
 bring him disaster and disappointment instead 
 of success. The government has a right to es 
 tablish asylums for the confinement of the in 
 sane and prisons for the punishment of the 
 vicious ; and it may lay its restraining hand 
 upon the individual to prevent him from fol 
 lowing a line of conduct which in its example 
 is clearly harmful to the young and thus detri- 
 192 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 mental to the public weal. Nevertheless, the 
 great, general truth remains that the individual 
 should be free to select his own vocation, to 
 follow his own chosen line of pursuit, to transact 
 business in his own way, to be in all essential 
 particulars a free man. 
 
 In a republic based upon the popular will 
 and recognizing the equality of the subject and 
 
 the freedom of the individ- 
 
 i J.L u 11 j. j.i 1-1 Freedom of the 
 
 ual, the ballot is the symbol R ll t 
 
 of liberty. To vote is a 
 high privilege and an unquestionable duty. It 
 is the right of a ruler to rule, and any inter 
 ference with his right is a just cause for war. 
 It is the duty of a ruler to exercise authority, 
 to execute the functions of his office, and failure 
 to do this is justly condemnable. The voter 
 in the United States is a ruler ; he expresses 
 his authority in the ballot ; it is his right to ex 
 press it without restraint ; any attempt to lay 
 restrictions upon the freedom of his vote is to 
 deprive him of his authority. In a republic 
 resting upon popular suffrage an attempt to in 
 terfere with the free exercise of the suffrage is 
 a blow at the very foundation of the republic 
 itself. To substitute force for freedom at the 
 ballot-box is revolution. To interpose undue 
 
 N 193 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 authority so as to control against their will the 
 action of voters, is anarchy. It is a crime 
 against the republic, and threatens the exist 
 ence of government. Freedom of the ballot is 
 the very essence of republicanism. Inasmuch 
 as it is the symbol of authority, its use should 
 be hedged about with proper safeguards. The 
 law should protect the voter from constraint in 
 the casting of his ballot ; should punish bribery 
 or intimidation ; should restrict suffrage to 
 those who have been long enough in the 
 country to become Americanized ; should re 
 quire some educational qualification ; and 
 should disfranchise confirmed criminals. 
 
 The function of the State is the preservation 
 of social order the protection of the individ 
 ual in his rights of personal 
 A Free State 
 
 property and reputation. It 
 
 has nothing whatever to do with determining 
 his religious duties further than to afford him 
 protection in the exercise of his religious 
 privileges. The State should, therefore, be 
 free to perform its functions without ecclesias 
 tical let or hindrance. Grounded, as it is, in 
 the constitution of human nature, it is as 
 clearly divine as the church itself. Indeed, in 
 one sense it may be said that it antedates the 
 194 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 church, as a prior expression of the divine will. 
 Its functions are sacred. The high office that 
 it fulfills is the promotion of the well-being of 
 the race. In its relation to its subjects it must 
 be impartial. This cannot be if it lends itself 
 to any sect or branch of the Christian church 
 and attempts to use its vast power as an agency 
 for the propagation of any form of religious be 
 lief. As soon as it enters on work of this kind 
 it not only departs from its legitimate sphere of 
 action, but it loses its essential character as a 
 civil institution ; it abdicates its own freedom, 
 and by subordinating itself to the church, be 
 comes the servant of the church. It is no 
 longer free, it is bound ; it is no longer impar 
 tial, it is partisan ; it is no longer a judge, it is 
 an advocate ; it no longer sustains to the whole 
 of its people the relation of friend and pro 
 tector, but it becomes, to a portion of them, 
 at least, a possible enemy. Its acts of legisla 
 tion and administration cease to be free, deter 
 mined only by considerations of the common 
 welfare, and become narrow, bound, restricted, 
 misdirected, harmful. A free State is a State 
 untrammeled by ecclesiastical chains, unham 
 pered by religious functions, unhindered by 
 sectarian considerations. 
 195 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 I recognize the supreme importance that at 
 taches to genuine religion. Christianity, while 
 
 it concerns the individual 
 A Free Church 
 
 in his relation to his Maker, 
 
 has at the same time a profound influence in 
 determining his relations to the government 
 under which he lives and to the fellow-citizens 
 among whom he resides. An irreligious man 
 may be a patriot, but he cannot be in the high 
 est sense of the word a good citizen. The ob 
 ligations of men to deal justly and to respect 
 the rights of their fellow-men, are moral obliga 
 tions, resting ultimately upon religion, and are 
 determined in their practical working largely by 
 religious convictions. It is hardly conceivable 
 that a republic such as ours could long con 
 tinue to exist even, much less to perform its 
 high functions as the conservator of popular 
 liberty and the promoter of public weal, if it 
 were thoroughly irreligious. " Only the school 
 bell and the church bell can prolong the echoes 
 of the liberty bell. The restraining force of 
 reverence for God, and the fear of judgment, 
 the sacredness of the oath, the enormity of 
 perjury, the necessity of truthfulness, the bind 
 ing nature of obligations and contracts, the in 
 violability of justice, the potency of love for 
 196 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 our neighbors, and the strength of the Golden 
 Rule as a practical guide in the affairs of men, 
 are as enduring as truth itself. These all find 
 their highest sanction in the Christian religion. 
 
 The Christian church, while primarily de 
 signed for the development of the moral and 
 religious nature and for the rectifying and puri 
 fying of the relations between man and his 
 Maker, and while serving as an agency and 
 means for promoting the true worship of Al 
 mighty God, has, nevertheless, vital relation 
 to the welfare and the perpetuity of the Re 
 public. It can accomplish its work as an aid 
 to the State far more effectively when left free 
 from any interference, so that it may embody 
 in its life the great principles of its founder. 
 
 The State should let the church alone. It 
 need hardly be said that the church, being a 
 religious institution, having to do with religious 
 doctrines and religious practices, and being 
 confined chiefly to the relations between its 
 members and their God, cannot accomplish its 
 work and fulfill its mission in any other way 
 than by freedom. The moment an external 
 power attempts to influence it in its doctrines, 
 its life, its polity, it becomes dwarfed and 
 warped. For a political body, such as a State, 
 197 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 composed necessarily of large masses of men 
 who are not in sympathy with the church, who 
 have no proper understanding of its functions, 
 no intelligent knowledge of its doctrines, no 
 appreciation of its life, to undertake to control 
 the church, to legislate for it, to direct its ac 
 tivities, and influence its life, is irrational. It 
 is setting men to the performance of duties for 
 which they are totally unqualified. It is like 
 children playing with edged tools. The history 
 of the Christian church is conclusive in favor of 
 the idea of a church wholly free from civil con 
 trol and from political alliances. 
 
 The idea of the complete separation of 
 Church and State has been one of the great 
 
 forces that have worked in 
 Roger Williams 
 
 our history to the advantage 
 
 of both the State and the Church. His advo 
 cacy of this great truth, and the practical em 
 bodiment of it in the State which he founded, 
 has given to Roger Williams a place among the 
 world s great thinkers, benefactors, and legisla 
 tors. Although our progress toward the full 
 realization of this idea has been slow and tedi 
 ous, the popular mind is at length becoming 
 thoroughly imbued with its soundness. 
 
 I come now to speak of that prime condition 
 198 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 of liberty, free education. If the sketch which 
 I have here set forth of the fundamental con 
 ceptions that enter into the 
 
 , .. Free Schools 
 
 ideal of the republic com 
 monly held is a correct one, it at once be 
 comes apparent why there should be a strong 
 insistence upon the necessity of free popular 
 education. In a government by the people 
 each individual voter has entrusted to him the 
 final arbitrament of all national questions, the 
 destiny of the republic. Upon his individual 
 vote may hinge the constitution of legislatures, 
 the character of legislation, the policy of the 
 State, the organization of the Congress of the 
 United States, and possibly the fiscal and eco 
 nomical policy of the entire government. It 
 is safe to say that never before in the history of 
 the world has so much been left to the decision 
 of the common people ; never have such mo 
 mentous issues rested upon the ballot of the in 
 dividual voter. The safety of the State and all 
 that is involved in it hangs suspended upon the 
 vote of the merest tyro that presents himself for 
 the first time at the polls. The self-preserva 
 tion of the State, therefore, requires that pro 
 vision shall be made for the proper education 
 of those into whose hands such great issues are 
 199 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 to be placed. Its only safety is in popular 
 education, and by no other means yet devised, 
 except public schools, has the education of the 
 masses of the people been attempted or possi 
 ble. The free school is indispensable to the 
 free State. 
 
 If it be true that the citizen of the United 
 States is to be a free man ; free in his own con 
 science, his own thought, in his expression, in 
 his action, independent of all extraneous and 
 impertinent authorities ; free to investigate for 
 himself, to form his own conclusions, and to 
 act upon his convictions, it follows that there 
 must be provided for him some system of train 
 ing that shall call into fullest exercise all those 
 powers of mind which are essential to this free 
 dom. Such a system has been provided in the 
 public schools, where the course of study is de 
 signed to make the pupils acquainted with the 
 rudiments of an education, to put them into 
 possession of their powers of mind, accustom 
 them to sound thinking and to independent 
 utterance, while at the same time so developing 
 moral conceptions and awakening active con 
 sciences as to prepare them for the career of 
 freedom that opens before them. The free 
 school is the buttress of our liberties, the bul- 
 200 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 wark against the waves of ignorance and vice 
 that surge continually against the State. It is 
 the nursery of manhood and womanhood ; the 
 training-place of citizenship ; the home of in 
 dependence. Out of it springs excellence of 
 character and preparation for civic duty. To 
 destroy the free school is to strike a deadly 
 blow at the very roots of the tree of liberty. 
 No system of private or parochial schools can 
 compare with the public schools as an agency 
 of universal education. 
 
 This, then, is my conception of the ideal 
 
 republic. It contains nothing new, nothing 
 
 , revolutionary, but is simply 
 
 Resume a restatement o f w hat i s i n 
 
 the minds of thousands of earnest thinkers and 
 zealous patriots of the present day. It is the 
 goal toward which human history for centuries 
 past seems to have been slowly tending. It 
 has been more or less completely grasped by 
 the great thinkers of the past, and has con 
 sciously or unconsciously swayed the minds 
 and activities of multitudes of those who have 
 thought and fought and wrought for its attain 
 ment since the landing of the Pilgrims at Ply 
 mouth. The sublime ideal of a free Church 
 within a free State ; of a republic of free men ; 
 201 
 
The Negro in America 
 
 of a government having for its sole function the 
 promotion of the welfare of its subjects ; of a 
 community of intelligent free men dwelling in 
 peace together, untrammeled by needless re 
 strictions, each man free to follow his own in 
 clinations, work out his own destiny, achieve 
 his own success ; at the same time the individ 
 uals uniting to promote the public weal, to se 
 cure general prosperity, and to enable, if pos 
 sible, all classes to share equally in the benefi 
 cent results of a higher, purer civilization than 
 any yet known in human history, has been one 
 of the great factors that has made us what 
 we are to-day, one of the strongest, richest, 
 wisest, and most progressive of nations. It 
 has kindled the eloquence of our orators, 
 guided the pens of our authors, stimulated the 
 researches and labors of our statesmen, illumi 
 nated the pages of our poets, aroused the en 
 thusiasm of our generals, given courage and 
 heroism to our patriot armies. It has nerved 
 the arms of the sturdy toilers in our fields, 
 shops, and mines ; kindled the ambition of the 
 youth in our schools ; and has thrown a halo 
 of beauty around our homes. It has been the 
 beacon light burning upon our shores, seen by 
 all the nations of the earth, alluring to our land 
 202 
 
The Ideal American Republic 
 
 as to an asylum the vast millions who have fled 
 from the despotism of the old world to the free 
 dom of the new. 
 
 The flag of the Republic is to-day a symbol 
 of liberty the world over. It represents the 
 priceless toil and struggle of the past, the un 
 exampled power and splendor of to-day ; and 
 it stands for the achievements and glories more 
 resplendent in the future. We of to-day are 
 charged with the sublime duty and entrusted 
 with the lofty privilege of defending this ideal, 
 of guarding our country from encroachments 
 from any source whatever that would seek to 
 take from it any one of the elements of its 
 glory and its strength. The Republic which 
 we have received from our fathers, rich in the 
 legacy of heroic history ; the Republic under 
 which we live, whose freedom makes life sweet 
 and rich; the Republic of the future, modified 
 and changed only in as far as may be necessary 
 to embody in fact more absolutely the essential 
 elements that enter into its constitution ; the 
 ideal American Republic is ours to establish, 
 cherish, love, protect, and hand down to the 
 generations yet to be. Esto Perpetua. 
 
 203 
 
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