xperience; the history of the black race is a little more
recent, that is all. The fact of slavery, therefore, should not impose
the slightest limitation upon the liberty of the Negro or restriction
upon his rights as a man and citizen.

The one great phase of the race question agitating the country to-day is
that of intermarriage and miscegenation. It is a serious question; it is
a vital question. No one will deny the right of any man to protect his
family stock, or the right of a group to preserve its racial integrity.
The facts show, however, that laws, however stringent, will not
accomplish it. I submit for the serious consideration of the American
people that the only danger of infusion from the Negro side is simply
one thing, and that is summed up in one word "injustice." Why is it that
thousands of colored men and women go over to the other side, "pass" as
we say? It is for no other purpose than to escape the social ostracism
and civic disabilities of the Negro. Why is it that we see so many
pathetic attempts to be white? It is simply to escape injustice. In a
country where every opportunity is open to the white, in business, in
society, in government, and the door shut against or reluctantly opened
to the black, the natural unconscious effort of the black is to get
white. Where black is a badge of an inferior caste position in society,
the natural effort of the black is to find some method of escape. I do
not advocate intermarriage; I do not defend miscegenation. The same
thing is true to-day as it was true in the time of Lincoln. In his
debates with Douglass in 1858, he noted "that among the free States,
those which make the colored man the nearest equal to the white have
proportionally the fewest mulattoes, the least amalgamation."

I submit therefore, that the only sure way to put an end to this
tendency or desire, so far as the Negro is concerned, is to accord him
all his public and political rights and to treat each individual upon
his merits as a man and citizen, according to him such recognition as
his talents, his genius, his services to the community or the state
entitles him. Make black, brown, yellow, the "open sesame" to the same
privileges and the same opportunities as the white, and no one will care
to become white.

Upon this day which commemorates the emancipation of the black and the
larger freedom of the white race, the redemption of the state and the
birth of a new nation, I would bring to y