“It would ensure safety to the South to-day, and it would open a bright and fair to-morrow, whether in this land or any other, where the colored men and wimmen can stand free and equal with the white race, where the low, ignorant ones of the white people can come up on another plane and a higher one, where they can read this text a shinin’ with the gold letters of Justice and Common Sense, where they glitter now with the sham gildin’ of absurdity—
“‘All men are free and equal.’
“For a low, vicious, ignorant person, be he black or be he white, is not equal to a high-minded, intelligent one. And the law that sets them two up side by side is an unjust and foolish law.
“But the light of the fair to-morrow is a shinin’ down; its light beckons, it inspires, it helps forward.
“It is a sure thing. Jest as soon as a man or woman is fit to vote they can vote. If they prepare themselves in ten years, there the golden prize is a waitin’ for ’em. If they fit themselves in one year to reach it, so much the better.
“It is a premium set upon effort for men and wimmen, black and white, upon noble endeavor, upon all that lifts a man above the animals that perish.
“To make one of the rulers of a great republic, a great country, what can stimulate a young man or a young woman more than this? And every prize that is open to the cultured and educated now will in that time be open to them; they can aspire to the highest place jest as soon as they become worthy of it.
“All the teachers in colored schools testify that the ability of the colored boys and girls is fully equal to the white. In Jonesville,” sez I, “my own native place, a little colored boy led the roll of honor, wuz more perfect in school than the children of ministers or judges, and they white as snow, and he as black as a little ace of spades.”
Sez I, “The idees I have promulgated to you would be apt to light up one side of the Race Problem.”