The “party of great moral ideas,” having emancipated the slave, and enfranchised disorganized ignorance and poverty, finally finished its mission, relinquished its right to the respect and confidence of mankind when, in 1876, it abandoned all effort to enforce the provisions of the war amendments.  That party stands today for organized corruption, while its opponent stands for organized brigandage.  The black man, who was betrayed by his party and murdered by the opponents of his party, is absolved from all allegiance which gratitude may have dictated, and is to-day free to make conditions the best possible with any faction which will insure him in his right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The black men of the United States are, today, free to form whatever alliances wisdom dictates, to make sure their position in the social and civil system of which, in the wise providence of a just God, they are a factor, for better or for worse.

FOOTNOTES: 

[13] “Southerners fire up terribly, as has been noted in these columns again and again, when the subject of intermarriage between whites and negroes is discussed.  But the terrible state of immorality which exists there, involving white men and colored women, is something upon which the papers of that region are silent as a rule.  Not so the grand jury that met recently at Madison, Ga., which thus spoke out in its presentment with all plainness of the Old Testament: 

“After several days of laborious investigation we have found the moral state of our country in a fair condition, and the freedom of our community from any great criminal offenses is a subject for congratulation to our people.  But the open and shameless cohabitation of white men with negro women in our community cries to heaven for abatement.  This crime in its nature has been such as to elude our grasp owing to the limited time of our session.  It is poisoning the fountains of our social life; it is ruining and degrading our young men, men who would scorn to have imputation put on them of equalization with negroes, but who have, nevertheless, found the lowest depths of moral depravity in this unnatural shame of their lives.”

“The despatch chronicling the presentment adds:  ’The reading of this presentment in court aroused a great feeling of indignation among men who declare that the private affairs of the people should not be intruded upon.’  It strikes the Northern mind that until these ’private affairs’ do not need to be ‘intruded upon,’ Southern newspapers and Southern clergymen would with better grace bottle up their indignation upon the terrible evils likely to result from the legitimate intermarriage of the two races.”—­Newspaper waif.

CHAPTER IX

Political Independence of the Negro

The following chapter is, in the main, a reproduction of an address delivered by me before the Colored Press Association, in the city of Washington, June 27, 1882:—­