Unfettered: A Novel

by Sutton E. Griggs

The English speaking race holds woman in high esteem, but she has thus far been denied the right of suffrage because of the uncertainty as to what would be the resultant blend arising from her more active participation in the affairs of State.

Mr. Wm. E. Lecky, in opposing the granting of the right of suffrage to the women of England, gave it as his opinion that the emotional element in politics was already sufficiently great without the addition of the strongly developed emotionalism of woman. The same sentiment of conservatism that operates to cause woman's rejection is, beyond question, a factor in our problem.

The Negro has but lately entered civilization's parlor. He possesses an oriental nature called to service in an occidental civilization. Of remarkably quiescent tendencies he must play a part in a government born of a revolutionary spirit and so devised that revolutions may be effected whenever desired through means of the ballot box.

The remarkable manner in which we have responded to the quickening touch of civilization; the revelation of traits of a sublime nature unparalleled in the world's history (witness the keen sense of honor that led us to care for the helpless wives and children of those who were at the seat of war fighting for our continued enslavement); the successful meeting, where conditions were favorable, of every test that civilization has thus far imposed—these considerations influence us to believe that the grasping of the flagstaff by Negro hands but means that the flag will float the higher and flutter the prouder and diffuse through the earth even greater glory than before our coming.

Before we can take up the full place for which we aspire, we must meet and combat the timorous conservatism that has hitherto impeded our progress.

Thus are the lines of battle drawn. On one field stands the hopeful Negro never to be contented save with a man's place. On the opposing field stands the Southern white man with an inherited nature and cultivated sentiments that render the repression of the Negro a congenial task. To one side stands the representative of civilization at large, hesitating about doing more in our behalf until we have fully cleared our skirts of the suspicion that attaches to a new comer into civilization. With this conception of the influences which we are to combat, we now plan for the momentous struggle.

HE WHO HAS HITHERTO FOLLOWED CALLED UPON TO LEAD.

Napoleon has said that men of imagination rule the world. When society is in a transitional state, men of imagination are able through clear comprehension of the forces at work, to project themselves into the new era, and, seeing where the movement tends, place themselves at the head of the procession. Those deficient in this faculty cannot perceive the ultimate goal of the processes forming before their very eyes; and, even when new conditions have come bearing the stamp of immortality, they yet are dreaming of a relapse into old conditions that are gone forever. They are thus unfit for the duties of the new era, being devotees of the past. The ruling of the world is, therefore, left, as Napoleon asserts, to men of imagination.

The present moment is one calling for the exercise of this faculty of the mind on the part of the Negro in the United States. Hitherto the Republican party has been looked upon as the agency which was to solve all his problems. This was a very natural expectation as that party has been the agency by means of which so much tending in that direction has been accomplished.