In his native land he had been an ignorant serf whose life depended upon the temper of a despotic brute—his chief.
He exchanged a slavery for a slavery; and the slavery to which he was brought lifted him from a brute into a man.
We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we taught him how to think; we taught him how to live.
To free him from the bondage into which his own brethren had sold him, a million white men rose in arms. There were four years of terrible, horrible strife; half a million white men fell in battle; six billions of dollars were devoured in the flames of Civil War; and over all that period of strife, and over the host which finally triumphed, waved the flag which the freed negro—freed at such frightful cost—now safely denounces as a dirty and contemptible rag!
When the “Brothers’ War” was over and while the former owner of the slaves was prostrate, those who had fought that the black man might be free, clothed him in the garments of citizenship, giving him the ballot, giving him office, giving him power, at the same time that tens of thousands of white men were outlawed.
“Show to the world that you are capable of government,” said the white philanthropist to the blacks; and the result was a hideous carnival of mismanagement, incompetency and gross rascality which at last made even the professional white philanthropist sick and ashamed.
Taking out of the hands of the blacks the political power which he had shown himself unfit to wield, the whites have ever since occupied toward him the attitude of a guardian over a ward, manifesting for him a helpful sympathy, aiding his advancement with substantial contributions, leading him upward and onward by precept, example and wholesome control.
Schools were established for him. Churches were built for him. White men and white women devoted their lives to lifting the black man, the black woman, the black child into the nobler, purer paths. White men taxed themselves to put an end to the negro’s ignorance and superstition. The white man opened his purse to endow colleges for the negro’s special benefit. The white man opened the door of opportunity to the black, and gave him a chance in every field of human endeavor.
“We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we taught him how to think; we taught him how to live.”