is country are so wrapped up together that it is impossible to
oppress the one without eventually oppressing the other. The white man
of the South was cursed by slavery as much almost as the black man whom
he robbed of life, liberty, and virtue. In many parts of the South
to-day the masses of poor white men are no better off in any sphere of
life than the colored people, with the single exception that their faces
are white. The rights and liberties of the common people of this entire
country have grown less secure, and their ballots have steadily
diminished in power, while the colored man has been robbed of his
franchise by the South. The trusts and the favored classes of this
country have seen the rights of millions of loyal black citizens taken
from them by the South in open violation of the Federal Constitution,
and that with the indirect approval of the highest courts of the land.
And these trusts and interests have come to feel that constitutions and
laws are not binding upon them, and that the common people--white and
black--have no rights which they are bound to respect. The South alone
cannot right these gigantic wrongs nor restore to the white people (not
to mention the Negroes) within her own borders the liberties and
privileges guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States.

In discussing the South's attitude towards the colored man we seek only
to hold up to scorn and contempt the spirit which pervades the majority
of the people who live in that section; and we desire to condemn only
the men of the South who hate their fellow men; we wish to bear
testimony now and here to the truth that there is an undercurrent in the
South which is making for righteousness, and that there are a few noble
and heroic souls in every Southern State who believe that the Negro
ought to be treated as a man and be given all the rights and privileges
accorded any other man. This righteous spirit must, however, be
encouraged and strengthened, and the number of noble and fair-minded men
and women in the South must be greatly augmented, or the battle for
human liberty and the manhood and political rights of both races in that
section will never be won.

We beg to say that all the enemies of human rights in general, and of
the rights of black men in particular, are not in the South; the wrongs
complained of by the Negro in that section are, for the most part, the
same as those bewailed by him in the North, with this differenc