The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us.  They were brought here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly found by a cruel slave code.  Happily for both races, they are now free.  They have from a standpoint of ignorance and poverty—­which was our shame, not theirs—­made remarkable advances in education and in the acquisition of property.  They have as a people shown themselves to be friendly and faithful toward the white race under temptations of tremendous strength.  They have their representatives in the national cemeteries, where a grateful Government has gathered the ashes of those who died in its defense.  They have furnished to our Regular Army regiments that have won high praise from their commanding officers for courage and soldierly qualities and for fidelity to the enlistment oath.  In civil life they are now the toilers of their communities, making their full contribution to the widening streams of prosperity which these communities are receiving.  Their sudden withdrawal would stop production and bring disorder into the household as well as the shop.  Generally they do not desire to quit their homes, and their employers resent the interference of the emigration agents who seek to stimulate such a desire.

But notwithstanding all this, in many parts of our country where the colored population is large the people of that race are by various devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and of many of their civil rights.  The wrong does not expend itself upon those whose votes are suppressed.  Every constituency in the Union is wronged.

It has been the hope of every patriot that a sense of justice and of respect for the law would work a gradual cure of these flagrant evils.  Surely no one supposes that the present can be accepted as a permanent condition.  If it is said that these communities must work out this problem for themselves, we have a right to ask whether they are at work upon it.  Do they suggest any solution?  When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot?  When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?  When is that equality of influence which our form of government was intended to secure to the electors to be restored?  This generation should courageously face these grave questions, and not leave them as a heritage of woe to the next.  The consultation should proceed with candor, calmness, and great patience, upon the lines of justice and humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty.  No question in our country can be at rest except upon the firm base of justice and of the law.