“Well,” replied the Texan, “anything—­no country at all—­is better than having niggers over you.  But anyhow, the war was fought and the niggers were freed; for it’s no use beating around the bush, the niggers, and not the Union, was the cause of it; and now do you believe that all the niggers on earth are worth the good white blood that was spilt?  You freed the nigger and you gave him the ballot, but you couldn’t make a citizen out of him.  He don’t know what he’s voting for, and we buy ’em like so many hogs.  You’re giving ’em education, but that only makes slick rascals out of ’em.”

“Don’t fancy for a moment,” said the Northern man, “that you have any monopoly in buying ignorant votes.  The same thing is done on a larger scale in New York and Boston, and in Chicago and San Francisco; and they are not black votes either.  As to education’s making the Negro worse, you might just as well tell me that religion does the same thing.  And, by the way, how many educated colored men do you know personally?”

The Texan admitted that he knew only one, and added that he was in the penitentiary.  “But,” he said, “do you mean to claim, ballot or no ballot, education or no education, that niggers are the equals of white men?”

“That’s not the question,” answered the other, “but if the Negro is so distinctly inferior, it is a strange thing to me that it takes such tremendous effort on the part of the white man to make him realize it, and to keep him in the same place into which inferior men naturally fall.  However, let us grant for sake of argument that the Negro is inferior in every respect to the white man; that fact only increases our moral responsibility in regard to our actions toward him.  Inequalities of numbers, wealth, and power, even of intelligence and morals, should make no difference in the essential rights of men.”

“If he’s inferior and weaker, and is shoved to the wall, that’s his own look-out,” said the Texan.  “That’s the law of nature; and he’s bound to go to the wall; for no race in the world has ever been able to stand competition with the Anglo-Saxon.  The Anglo-Saxon race has always been and always will be the masters of the world, and the niggers in the South ain’t going to change all the records of history.”

“My friend,” said the old soldier slowly, “if you have studied history, will you tell me, as confidentially between white men, what the Anglo-Saxon has ever done?”

The Texan was too much astonished by the question to venture any reply.

His opponent continued:  “Can you name a single one of the great fundamental and original intellectual achievements which have raised man in the scale of civilization that may be credited to the Anglo-Saxon?  The art of letters, of poetry, of music, of sculpture, of painting, of the drama, of architecture; the science of mathematics, of astronomy, of philosophy, of logic, of physics, of chemistry, the use of the metals, and