d
maturity, and lastly of fruitage, in which the whole form is matured in
perfectly organic completeness, manifesting despotism in government, in
orderly or scientific proportions.

Our nation, then, has not realized its highest conditions, because it is
as yet only germinal, or the national child-man; or, at best, is but the
vigorous blade, or national youth-man; while the corn, fully ripe in the
ear--the national man-man--is reserved unto the glory of the approaching
future, whose rays already dawn upon us and illustrate the clouds, that
have hitherto hung over us and darkened our way, with the power and
great glory of the coming of the Son of Man.

Let us now try to draw nearer to the mark at which we principally aimed
in projecting this article. We said that the 'let-them-alone' system,
concerning the nation's 'freedmen,' is not the system of sound
statesmanship. Why not? Because they are a people in a state of
infantile weakness and inexperience; whom, from the irrepressible laws
and conditions of the human mind, we _must_ govern and control, either
wisely and beneficently or otherwise. To unloose the chains that have
bound them, and set them adrift to contend and compete under our
methods of individualism or isolated interests, is to doom them to
conditions hardly to be preferred to those from which they are about to
escape. This is certainly true with respect to a large majority. Witness
the state of our weakest white laborers, particularly in all our large
cities, and some few years back. See them by thousands and tens of
thousands imploring for employment, and only too happy if they may find
it at the most repulsive and unwholesome labor, sufficient to stay their
famished frames and adjourn for a time the pangs of hunger and frosts.
Driven in despairing hordes to beggary, prostitution, and crimes of
every kind, how fearfully threatening are the neglected duties and
obligations that confront us in their behalf! What, then, shall we say
to those who propose to swell the frightful tide by turning loose
millions more, weaker and more incompetent, it may be, besides being
subject to the evils of the reigning prejudices against color? No, no;
it must not be done. The Government must become the visible providence
of these weak children. It must organize and direct their efforts and
interests. It must, at least, organize them into industrial legions, and
carefully direct all their educational interests. This work, too