“Who is responsible for them? ourselves?  What cast them there? our own actions?  I trow not.  Mark the facts.  I pay taxes to support the public schools, and am compelled to have my children educated at home.  I pay taxes to support the government, and am denied any representation or any voice in regard to the manner in which these taxes shall be expended.  I hail a car on the street, and am laughed to scorn by the conductor,—­or, admitted, at the order of the passengers am ignominiously expelled.  I offer my money at the door of any place of public amusement, and it is flung back to me with an oath.  I enter a train to New York, and am banished to the rear seat or the ‘negro car.’  I go to a hotel, open for the accommodation of the public, and am denied access; or am requested to keep my room, and not show myself in parlor, office, or at table.  I come within a church, to worship the good God who is no respecter of persons, and am shown out of the door by one of his insolent creatures.  I carry my intelligence to the polls on election morning, and am elbowed aside by an American boor or a foreign drunkard, and, with opprobrious epithets by law officers and rabble, am driven away.  All this in the North; all this without excuse of slavery and of the feeling it engenders; all this from arrogant hatred and devilish malignity.  At last, the country which has disowned me, the government which has never recognized save to outrage me, the flag which has refused to cover or to protect me, are in direct need and utmost extremity.  Then do they cry for me and mine to come up to their help ere they perish.  At least, they hold forth a bribe to secure me? at least, if they make no apology for the past, they offer compensation for the future? at least, they bid high for the services they desire?  Not at all!

“They say to one man, ’Here is twelve hundred dollars bounty with which to begin; here is sixteen dollars a month for pay; here is the law passed, and the money pledged, to secure you in comfort for the rest of life, if wounded or disabled, or help for your family, if killed.  Here is every door set wide for you to rise, from post to post; money yours, advancement yours, honor, and fame, and glory yours; the love of a grateful country, the applause of an admiring world.’

“They say to another man,—­you, or me, or Sam out there in the field,—­’There is no bounty for you, not a cent; there is pay for you, twelve dollars a month, the hire of a servant; there is no pension for you, or your family, if you be sent back from the front, wounded or dead; if you are taken prisoner you can be murdered with impunity, or be sold as a slave, without interference on our part.  Fight like a lion! do acts of courage and splendor! and you shall never rise above the rank of a private soldier.  For you there is neither money nor honor, rights secured, nor fame gained.  Dying, you fall into a nameless grave:  living, you come back to your old estate of insult and wrong.  If