s of sectional strife.
But in their beautiful simplicity and kindness of heart and fidelity to
the sacred and amazing trust reposed in them--the most sacred and amazing
ever reposed in a slave race by a master race in the history of the
world--they let their terrible opportunity for revenge pass them by and
seized instead the noble one to feed and cherish the helpless women and
children of masters who were fighting to rivet the chains of slavery on
them and on their children forever. This behavior of the slaves is the
supreme example which American Christianity has yet given of the vital
presence of the spirit of its divine founder in its midst. No other act in
its whole history approaches it in simple grandeur of forgiveness and
service. And it came literally out of the humble lives of a much oppressed
and long suffering race.

This simple and kindly black folk issued then out of their two and a half
centuries of bondage without malice toward the whites, without any of the
violent emotions which lead to the commission of great crimes. The only
violent emotion which stirred their child-like minds, which filled almost
to bursting their kindly hearts was deep thankfulness to God and to Mr.
Lincoln for their deliverance--an emotion which no pen can describe and no
tongue can put into words. Out of such kindly hearts, out of such deep and
holy emotions crime does not come and it would not have come had there
been no injection into the race soul of the Negro of new and bitter
experiences of wrong at the hands of the whites. But this is exactly what
actually took place. On the simple and kindly hearts of the new freedmen
the old master class might have graven large the law of peace and
goodwill. All that this child-like race needed at this initial stage of
their education and forming character were wise and sympathetic guidance
and treatment on the part of the whites in order to convert all their deep
and holy emotions into moral and civic values, into social and industrial
service to the South and to the nation at one and the same time. Did the
blacks get this wise and sympathetic guidance and treatment at the hands
of the whites? To answer this question is to open up the whole subject of
the causation of Negro crime during the last fifty years. And this I will
try to do as concisely and clearly as possible.

The first act of the South after the war was most unfriendly to the
blacks. For it was state legislation which remand