It is a popular thing nowadays to say that the ballot was given the Negro too soon, or he would be better off, if it had not been given him at all. I know not by what system of reasoning these conclusions are reached. For “freedom is the school in which freemen are taught, and the ballot box is the educator.” A man must have his political rights, in order to protect his natural rights. It is most fortunate that the elective franchise was given to the Negro so soon after his emancipation. At that time, the North, at least, was friendly to him. It looked upon him as a ward. But when we consider the attitude of hostility which the white American in all parts of the country has assumed towards the colored American in recent years, we must conclude that if the ballot had not already been given him, it would not be granted for a long time to come.
It will take time, it will require tact, self restraint and infinite patience on the part of the colored people to create a public sentiment which will finally assure them a fair and honest exercise of the ballot. They are only forty years removed from slavery. It is not a day in the life of a people. We are told that it took the Romans three centuries and a half of hard fighting to get control of the principalities about them, measuring only twenty-four miles around. But when they once got a foothold, they began their conquests, and did not stop until the world was subject to Rome’s domination.
The Negro has had his day of mushroom growth. It was one of sad experiences. He is beginning life again and moving along the lines of a natural evolution. He will win his way, not by statutes so much as by a public sentiment which will see that he gets equal and exact justice as a man and as a citizen. This may be the work of years, but the day will come when we shall see its accomplishment. There will no longer be one law for the Negro and one for the white man; one Constitution for the North and one for the South. What Charles Sumner said will then be true in practice as well as in theory: “It is vain to say this is the country of the white man. It is the country of man.”
Three centuries ago the ancestors of American Negroes were savages, inhabiting a vast continent dark with the shadow of an unrecorded past. Today the descendants of these savages dwelling in our country number ten millions. They have come in contact with a great civilization and have absorbed its elements with a marvellous rapidity. They have learned to work, have acquired the language and adopted the religion of a great people. The world knows amid what trials and sacrifices all of this has been accomplished. Though his new life and upward career did not begin until 1865, the Negro has impressed the country with his innate worth as a factor in a great civilization. He has thoroughly vindicated his capacity for indefinite improvement. The beneficiary of a splendid philanthropy, he has more than justified the hopes of his friends, and he has belied the predictions of his foes. The material progress of the former slaves in forty years is one of the marvels of a wonderful country. They have 130,000 farms worth $400,000,000; homes, not including the farms mentioned, valued at $325,000,000, and personal property worth $165,000,000, making a grand total of $899,000,000 which they present to the world for their first generation of freedom.