Robert, bitterly. "What protection does
the colored man receive from the hands of the Government? I know of no
civilized country outside of America where men are still burned for real
or supposed crimes."

"Johnson," said Dr. Gresham, compassionately, "it is impossible to have
a policeman at the back of each colored man's chair, and a squad of
soldiers at each crossroad, to detect with certainty, and punish with
celerity, each invasion of his rights. We tried provisional governments
and found them a failure. It seemed like leaving our former allies to be
mocked with the name of freedom and tortured with the essence of
slavery. The ballot is our weapon of defense, and we gave it to them for
theirs."

"And there," said Dr. Latrobe, emphatically, "is where you signally
failed. We are numerically stronger in Congress to-day than when we went
out. You made the law, but the administration of it is in our hands, and
we are a unit."

"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "you cannot willfully deprive the
negro of a single right as a citizen without sending demoralization
through your own ranks."

"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that we are right in suppressing the
negro's vote. This is a white man's government, and a white man's
country. We own nineteen-twentieths of the land, and have about the same
ratio of intelligence. I am a white man, and, right or wrong, I go with
my race."

"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "there are rights more sacred than
the rights of property and superior intelligence."

"What are they?" asked Dr. Latrobe.

"The rights of life and liberty," replied Rev. Carmicle.

"That is true," said Dr. Gresham; "and your Southern civilization will
be inferior until you shall have placed protection to those rights at
its base, not in theory but in fact."

"But, Dr. Gresham, we have to live with these people, and the North is
constantly irritating us by its criticisms."

"The world," said Dr. Gresham, "is fast becoming a vast whispering
gallery, and lips once sealed can now state their own grievances and
appeal to the conscience of the nation, and, as long as a sense of
justice and mercy retains a hold upon the heart of our nation, you
cannot practice violence and injustice without rousing a spirit of
remonstrance. And if it were not so I would be ashamed of my country and
of my race."

"You speak," said Dr. Latrobe, "as if we had wronged the negro by
enslaving him and being unwilling to share citizens