arrive at a proper conclusion as to what the duty of
the hour is, it would be well to review our treatment received at the
hands of the Anglo-Saxon race and note the position that we are now
sternly commanded by them to accept.

"When this is done, to my mind, the path of duty will be as plain
before our eyes as the path of the sun across the heavens. I shall,
therefore, proceed to review our treatment and analyze our present
condition, in so far as it is traceable to the treatment which we now
receive from the Anglo-Saxon.

"When in 1619 our forefathers landed on the American shore, the music
of welcome with which they were greeted, was the clanking of iron
chains ready to fetter them; the crack of the whip to be used to plow
furrows in their backs; and the yelp of the blood-hound who was to
bury his fangs deep into their flesh, in case they sought for liberty.
Such was the music with which the Anglo-Saxon came down to the shore
to extend a hearty welcome to the forlorn children of night, brought
from a benighted heathen land to a community of _Christians!_

"The negro was seized and forced to labor hard that the Anglo-Saxon
might enjoy rest and ease. While he sat in his cushioned chair, in
his luxurious home, and dreamed of the blessedness of freedom, the
enforced labor of slaves felled the forest trees, cleared away the
rubbish, planted the seed and garnered the ripened grain, receiving
therefor no manner of pay, no token of gratitude, no word of coldest
thanks.

"That same hammer and anvil that forged the steel sword of the
Anglo-Saxon, with which he fought for freedom from England's yoke,
also forged the chain that the Anglo-Saxon used to bind the negro more
securely in the thralldom of slavery. For two hundred and forty-four
years the Anglo-Saxon imposed upon the hapless, helpless negro, the
bondage of abject slavery, robbed him of the just recompense of his
unceasing toil, treated him with the utmost cruelty, kept his mind
shrouded in the dense fog of ignorance, denied his poor sinful soul
access to the healing word of God, and, while the world rolled on to
joy and light, the negro was driven cowering and trembling, back, back
into the darkest corners of night's deepest gloom. And when, at
last, the negro was allowed to come forth and gaze with the eyes of a
freeman on the glories of the sky, even this holy act, the freeing of
the negro, was a matter of compulsion and has but little, if anything,
in it deman