The love of Liberty carries with it the courage to preserve it from encroachments from without and from contempt from within.  A people in whom the love of liberty is in-born cannot be enslaved, though they may be exterminated by superior force and intelligence, as in the case of the poor Indian of our own land—­a people who, two hundred years ago, spread their untamed hordes from the icebergs of Maine to the balmy sunland of Florida.  But to-day where are they?  Their love of freedom and valorous defense of priority of ownership of our domain have caused them to be swept from the face of the earth.  Had they possessed intelligence with their more than Spartan courage, the wave of extermination could never have rolled over them forever.  As a man I admire the unconquerable heroism and fortitude of the Indian.  So brave a race of people were worthy a nobler and a happier destiny.  As an American citizen, I feel it born in my nature to share in fullest measure all that is American.  I sympathize in all the hopes, aspirations and fruitions of my country.  There is no pulsation in the animated frame of my native land which does not thrill my nature.  There is no height of glory we may reach as a government in which I should not feel myself individually lifted; and there is no depth of degradation to which we may fall to which I should not feel myself individually dragged.  In a word, I am an American citizen.  I have a heritage in each and every provision incorporated in the Constitution of my country, and should this heritage be attempted to be filched from me by any man or body of men, I should deem the provocation sufficiently grievous to stake even life in defense of it.  I would plant every colored man in this country on a platform of this nature—­to think for himself, to speak for himself, to act for himself.  This is the ideal citizen of an ideal government such as ours is modelled to become.  This is my conception of the colored man as an independent force in our politics.  To aid in lifting our people to this standard, is one of the missions which I have mapped out for my life-work.  I may be sowing the seed that will ripen into disastrous results, but I don’t think so.  My conception of republican government does not lead me to a conclusion so inconsistent with my hopes, my love of my country and of my race.

I look upon my race in the South and I see that they are helplessly at the mercy of a popular prejudice outgrowing from a previous condition of servitude; I find them clothed in the garments of citizenship by the Federal Government and opposed in the enjoyment of it by their equals, not their superiors, in the benefits of government; I find that the government which conferred the right of citizenship is powerless, or indisposed, to force respect for its own enactments; I find that these people, left to the mercy of their enemies, alone and defenseless, and without judicious leadership, are urged to preserve themselves loyal