erve the Union and liberate the slaves. "Can you imagine," he went
on to say, "what would have been the condition of things eventually if
there had been no war, and the South had been allowed to follow its
course? Instead of one great, prosperous country with nothing before
it but the conquests of peace, a score of petty republics, as in
Central and South America, wasting their energies in war with each
other or in revolutions."

"Well," replied the Texan, "anything--no country at all--is better
than having niggers over you. But anyhow, the war was fought and the
niggers were freed; for it's no use beating around the bush, the
niggers, and not the Union, was the cause of it; and now do you
believe that all the niggers on earth are worth the good white blood
that was spilt? You freed the nigger and you gave him the ballot, but
you couldn't make a citizen out of him. He don't know what he's voting
for, and we buy 'em like so many hogs. You're giving 'em education,
but that only makes slick rascals out of 'em."

"Don't fancy for a moment," said the Northern man, "that you have any
monopoly in buying ignorant votes. The same thing is done on a larger
scale in New York and Boston, and in Chicago and San Francisco; and
they are not black votes either. As to education's making the Negro
worse, you might just as well tell me that religion does the same
thing. And, by the way, how many educated colored men do you know
personally?"

The Texan admitted that he knew only one, and added that he was in
the penitentiary. "But," he said, "do you mean to claim, ballot or
no ballot, education or no education, that niggers are the equals of
white men?"

"That's not the question," answered the other, "but if the Negro is so
distinctly inferior, it is a strange thing to me that it takes such
tremendous effort on the part of the white man to make him realize it,
and to keep him in the same place into which inferior men naturally
fall. However, let us grant for sake of argument that the Negro is
inferior in every respect to the white man; that fact only increases
our moral responsibility in regard to our actions toward him.
Inequalities of numbers, wealth, and power, even of intelligence and
morals, should make no difference in the essential rights of men."

"If he's inferior and weaker, and is shoved to the wall, that's his
own look-out," said the Texan. "That's the law of nature; and he's
bound to go to the wall; for no race in the wo