3. The ballot gave the Freedman a sense of self-respect, and commanded for him the respect of others. To him it was an education and an inspiration. It gave him the standing of a man among men, and prompted him to become worthy of his position. It was a power to him in the early days of his freedom, when he needed every help to sustain him in that freedom; and to-day, though it is held in check and almost useless, yet it is a slumbering giant, and is watched with respectful caution by the whites. For who can tell what such a slumbering power might do if aroused?
At present the black voter is politically conquered. The “white man’s government” is established, and it is the purpose of the white man that it shall remain so. This has been easily attained in the States where the white majority is undoubted. In the few States where the blacks are in the majority, the white man is determined to rule, peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must. The Chisholm murder and the Hamburg massacre are but samples of the methods that will be resorted to if the effort is pushed persistently to restore the supremacy of the black man in politics. When we remember how that supremacy in those States was abused, how can we ask the restoration if the abuse must again follow? The problem is difficult. It can be solved only by one formula. The black man must be protected in his political rights, and he must be so enlightened as to use and not abuse those rights. There will be no permanent advantage from a mere partisan triumph of the black man. If achieved, as matters now stand, bayonets will again be needed to sustain it, and will become once more a source of angry discussion at the North and of concentrated bitterness at the South. The experiment may again be necessary; but a far better thing should be speedily, steadily and efficiently pushed forward—the training of the colored voter for an intelligent and responsible manhood and citizenship.
If every colored voter could be accompanied to the polls by a file of soldiers armed with muskets, his ballot would represent the musket and not the man. But if he becomes a property owner, with all the interest in the welfare of the community which property gives; if he is educated and can take an intelligent interest in the welfare of the community; and if he acquires a weight of character that challenges respect, he will need no soldiers to guard him to the polls, and his vote will represent the man and not the musket.
When the black man shall reach such a position he conquers caste-prejudice and wipes out the color-line in politics. Color is significant only as it represents condition. Change the condition and the color is of no consequence. With that change the white and black men at the South will divide on politics as white men do at the North, from differing views as to the best measures to promote public weal.
Look on this picture: An armed and organized mob is breaking up a political gathering of the blacks and their friends, and in the background are the overawed Freedmen retiring from the polls. Look, also, on this picture: A company of United States soldiers are keeping guard over a body of legislators, mostly black, who, with reckless rascality, are squandering the public funds, to the ruin of the State and the disgrace of the nation. Turn not from these pictures with indifference, for they are no fancy sketches; nay, face them, for the history of at least two States of this Union is liable to be a perpetual oscillation between the two. But now look on this picture: A colored man is tilling his land, adorning his home, and gathering around him the refinements of life. Near by is the school-house, where his children, with hundreds of others, are receiving the instruction of skilful teachers, and not far off is the church edifice where that man and his neighbors worship God under the ministration of a well educated and pious minister.
Which picture do we choose, not as a matter of artistic preference, but as the practical model for patriotic work? The only safety is to extend that last picture till it shall cover the whole canvas and blot out the other two. In that way only can a life and death struggle between two irreconcilable forces be avoided.
“THESE MY BRETHREN.”
In the Saviour’s great “Inasmuch” there is the power of personality. “I was an hungered; I was thirsty; I was naked; I was a stranger; I was sick; I was in prison.” It was Christ in the person of these suffering and lowly ones; and service done to them was done to Him. He might well have stopped there. But the marvel of His personal identification with them is in the relationship which He claims between Himself and them—“these my brethren.” Oh, the touching condescension to name them by this title! What we do for these humble and desolate ones we are not only doing for our Lord, but for the brethren of our Lord. He takes it as a special favor to Himself. And this service is graduated to the lowest capacity—it is service done to only one of the least of these. The standard is not that we should serve the mass of these His brethren, but any one of them, according to the measure of our ability, even down to a single act done to one of them in the right spirit and as a revelation of a character in which we delight. Then the obligation runs up to as great a number as our opportunity and our ability may reach.
The intervention of organic efficiency greatly multiplies the duty and the privilege of the individual. The American Missionary Association, as has been potently said, is set for the care of the three despised races in our country. Though the Indian and the Negro and the Chinaman are the objects of prejudice and violence and injustice and hatred on the part of our people, nevertheless Christ speaks of them as among “these my brethren;” and the prayers and the sympathy, and the service and the giving of substance in their behalf He counts as rendered to Him. This organization cannot discharge any one’s personal duty, but its instrumentality is offered to all who would use it in the discharge of individual obligation to Christ and to His brethren. Its opportunities belong to all who would use them, and by these a single Christian may reach not only “unto one of the least of these,” but unto many.