from its German home, in
support of the contention of the second way.

As a race, we shall offer no objection to this principle of judgment. In
fact, we cannot even if we so desired. We shall, therefore, accept it
without any reluctance. We think it is a good principle upon which to
base a judgment. The only consideration we demand, in connection with
it, is that the white American, in his judgment of the Afro-American,
shall strictly observe the rule which the race he represents has set for
itself; that is to say, let him measure our race by the great and useful
men it has produced, since the immortal Abraham Lincoln issued that
Proclamation, whose fiftieth anniversary we celebrate to-day, giving
freedom to four and one-half millions of human beings. Let him measure
us by the average merit of Afro-American blood, since it first streamed
from the land of the Pharaohs, whose wills were inscribed in
hieroglyphics--long before Ph[oe]nicia invented the alphabet; long
before the conquest of Alexander the Great had enabled Eratosthenes and
Appollodorus to construct their synchrony of Egyptian antiquity; long
before the construction of the Pyramids (those silent but eloquent
tributes to the grandeur and majesty of the African intellect) had
proclaimed the immortality of the soul.

Our record in this country, Mr. Chairman, must begin with the
Emancipation period. The Emancipation is our birthday. Mankind,
therefore, in measuring our progress, must, in order to be just, make
Emancipation its starting point. Previous to that period we were like
the earth in its primeval condition, as described by Moses, the great
Lawgiver, in the Book of the Generations; namely, that the "Earth was
without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." So,
too, were we before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation; we
were without national form; void of civic rights; and moral and
intellectual darkness covered the minds and souls and spirits of the
race.

What was the condition of the race when the Emancipation Proclamation
was first issued, a half century ago? Commercially speaking, what were
the assets of this race? Had it anything to its credit in the
balance-sheets of human progress, save the evils accruing from a long
period of bondage? The facts will prove that it had nothing to its
credit but the virtues of patience and endurance, under trials and
afflictions, the horrors of which will form one of the darkest chapt