A slight shade of vexation and astonishment passed over the face of Dr. Latrobe.  He hesitated a moment, then replied:—­

“I am not afraid of the negro as he stands alone, but what I dread is that in some closely-contested election ambitious men will use him to hold the balance of power and make him an element of danger.  He is ignorant, poor, and clannish, and they may impact him as their policy would direct.”

“Any more,” asked Robert, “than the leaders of the Rebellion did the ignorant, poor whites during our late conflict?”

“Ignorance, poverty, and clannishness,” said Dr. Gresham, “are more social than racial conditions, which may be outgrown.”

“And I think,” said Rev. Carmicle, “that we are outgrowing them as fast as any other people would have done under the same conditions.”

“The negro,” replied Dr. Latrobe, “always has been and always will be an element of discord in our country.”

“What, then, is your remedy?” asked Dr. Gresham.

“I would eliminate him from the politics of the country.”

“As disfranchisement is a punishment for crime, is it just to punish a man before he transgresses the law?” asked Dr. Gresham.

“If,” said Dr. Latimer, “the negro is ignorant, poor, and clannish, let us remember that in part of our land it was once a crime to teach him to read.  If he is poor, for ages he was forced to bend to unrequited toil.  If he is clannish, society has segregated him to himself.”

“And even,” said Robert, “has given him a negro pew in your churches and a negro seat at your communion table.”

“Wisely, or unwisely,” said Dr. Gresham, “the Government has put the ballot in his hands.  It is better to teach him to use that ballot aright than to intimidate him by violence or vitiate his vote by fraud.”

“To-day,” said Dr. Latimer, “the negro is not plotting in beer-saloons against the peace and order of society.  His fingers are not dripping with dynamite, neither is he spitting upon your flag, nor flaunting the red banner of anarchy in your face.”

“Power,” said Dr. Gresham, “naturally gravitates into the strongest hands.  The class who have the best brain and most wealth can strike with the heaviest hand.  I have too much faith in the inherent power of the white race to dread the competition of any other people under heaven.”

“I think you Northerners fail to do us justice,” said Dr. Latrobe.  “The men into whose hands you put the ballot were our slaves, and we would rather die than submit to them.  Look at the carpet-bag governments the wicked policy of the Government inflicted upon us.  It was only done to humiliate us.”

“Oh, no!” said Dr. Gresham, flushing, and rising to his feet.  “We had no other alternative than putting the ballot in their hands.”

“I will not deny,” said Rev. Carmicle, “that we have made woeful mistakes, but with our antecedents it would have been miraculous if we had never committed any mistakes or made any blunders.”