leges of the land, so great was the combination
against our mental development.

What was our status in the business pursuits and gainful occupations at
that time? The year 1863 is as far back as we desire to go for this
enquiry, when the entire race, with but a few exceptions, were servants,
restricted to menial employment and plantation occupations.

What was the moral status of the race at that period? Here there are two
sides involved in any answer which might be given to this question. The
evidences of unlawful miscegenation present themselves to every traveler
throughout this country, and is in itself a pertinent answer to this
query. Our women have had to fight against indescribable odds in order
to preserve their womanhood from the attacks of moral lepers, who, very
often, were their masters and overseers. Yet, in spite of these
well-known facts, we have produced women among us of pure and good
morals, with unimpeachable reputation for virtue and purity. Sometimes
it is a little amusing to hear the white American expatiate on the
immorality of Negro women. They certainly cannot forget their own record
in their dealings with the helpless Negro women of this country. But
here, we will let the curtain of secrecy fall upon such a scene, while
we shall advance to a higher and nobler plane upon this day when nothing
but good feeling must be allowed a place on the programme.

"Watchman, what of the night?" What tidings does the morning bring, if
any? Has the future nothing in store for America's greatest factors in
her industrial and commercial development?

Let us turn from the past; what of the present? In spite of the
dehumanizing and other efforts to destroy the fecundity of the race, the
twenty Africans of 1620, by the close of the Revolution, had increased
to 650,000, and these 650,000, at the close of the Civil War, had
reached the alarming number of four and one-half millions; and these
four and a half millions, had, according to the last Federal Census,
reached the astonishing number of ten millions or more of native-born
citizens--entitled, though sometimes denied, to every right and
privilege granted by the Constitution of the United States and by the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments thereof; the making and sustaining
of which our fathers contributed much of their blood and sacrifice, in
peace, as well as in war.

For we have been present, not only as spectators, but as active
participants in every t