“They were allies in war,” continued Dr. Gresham, “and I am sorry that we have not done more to protect them in peace.”

“Protect them in peace!” said 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 citizenship with him.  I think that slavery has been of incalculable value to the negro.  It has lifted him out of barbarism and fetich worship, given him a language of civilization, and introduced him to the world’s best religion.  Think what he was in Africa and what he is in America!”