“Now, no preaching, be it with the tongue of men or angels, could vanquish this ingrained, inexorable foe, this silent, overmastering force that rose up on every side to set at naught our preaching.
A BLACK.
“After twenty-five years of Christian effort it remains the same, and at the end of a century of Gospel work it will still be there just the same.
“And those who do not take into consideration this overwhelming power of antagonism between the races when they are considering the Southern question are fools.
“The whites will not look upon the negroes as their equals, and you cannot make them—”
“Wall, they be!” hollered out Josiah. “The Proclamation made ’em free and equal, jest as we wuz made in the War of 1812.”
“But oh, what a difference!” sez Cousin John Richard sadly.
“The American colonies were the peers of the mother country. It was only a quarrel between children and mother. The same blood ran in their veins, they had the same traits, the same minds, the same looks, they were truly equal.
“But in this case it was an entirely different race, necessarily inferior by their long years of degradation, brought up at one bound from the depths of ignorance and servitude to take at once the full rights awarded to intellect and character.