race, this battle for his rights so long and so persistently denied him.

The attempts made in this line during the period of reconstruction only prove how impossible and futile is the undertaking.

If backed by National bayonets his case was hopeless, how much more so must it be when alone and unaided he is left to work out his own destiny. This "working itself clear," that politicians of late talk about so much, means just this no more, to wit: a race war, just so soon as the intelligence of the negro becomes sufficiently acute to grasp the situation and his bravery sufficient for the encounter.

Should this time ever come and he should follow the bad counsel of reckless demagogues who are arguing that the happy solution of his difficulties will come when he dares, by force, defend his rights, then, in the conflict thus precipitated, the black race will be exterminated.

The statesmanship of to-day should, however, be equal to the emergency.

Seven millions of people could not be conquered in such a race war by sixty millions without such ruin to all as is fearful to contemplate.

There seems to be but one sensible course to pursue and that is to admit the danger which threatens and at once seek to provide the proper remedy.

The author of this book names as such remedy "The removal of the negro from our country to his own, or from America to Africa."

One thing is certain the negro who has been made a citizen by law cannot now be deprived of his citizenship. He must be dealt with as a citizen, and to his entire satisfaction. Knowing as he does that he can not hope for any change of public sentiment towards him and that this prejudice is more likely in the future to increase rather than diminish, he should be easily persuaded to accept some sort of compromise by means of which he may be able to develop his capabilities unchecked or unintimidated by white interference.

Amalgamation is of course out of the question, and social equality and the enjoyment of equal rights upon present lines, without it, an impossibility.

There can be but one outlet to the difficulty. His people must have a territory of their own, some place where congregated together they may have room and opportunity to work out their destiny.

There should be no implied threat in this of colonization or rather deportation with or without his consent, to some outlandish foreign clime.

The place selected for him must be one suitable for his racial characteristics and must be within and a part of the American Union.

A country large enough to give a reasonable promise for a future home for him and his descendants should be provided by the Nation and set apart to be solely and exclusively his own.

It

may be that some one or more of the Southern States, say Alabama and Mississippi, would be the most natural and desirable selection for this purpose.

Largely in the majority now, as the blacks are in these two States, let the vested rights of the white minority be extinguished therein by National purchase, and then these two States be set apart for this new racial experiment.

If, however, the cost could be reduced by purchasing the necessary territory in the West India islands lying near our shores, this might be still better.

There is no doubt as to the probability of our being able to buy Cuba from Spain for a reasonable price if the attempt was but seriously made by our government.

Here, then, either at home within the limits of the present Union or upon an island so near to our shores that it is considered an acquisition necessary for our safety, there should be established a Territorial government for such blacks as might be willing to emigrate thereto from this country.

All officers appointed for this new Territory should be negroes, and this country is not lacking in plenty those who would be eminently fit to fill such places.

Such Territorial organization should be, as in the case of our white Territories, but a preliminary step to the more important one of Statehood.

Dividing the island into two States or Territories, each of about the size of South Carolina, the full machinery of self-government by the blacks, for the blacks, would be set in motion, and in due time Senators and Representatives from such black States would appear at Washington to participate in the control of National concerns.

There would be no friction in the new States between whites and blacks, for the whites would have no business there except as they might be tolerated by their colored fellow-citizens.

No one should be compelled to emigrate to the new State, it being reasonable to suppose that when it was understood by the colored people that within sight of our own shores was an opportunity to enjoy all the blessings of freedom, and all the rights of citizenship unmolested and unharmed, the exodus from the overcrowded Southern States would be sufficiently large to relieve the country of the danger which now ominously threatens it.

It is not by this scheme expected that the Southern States would be depopulated of their negro population. Thousands upon thousands would remain, no doubt, to be as now mere "hewers of wood," servants, the disfranchised representatives of racial prejudice, but the feeling of dissatisfaction now justly prevailing among them because of this disfranchisement would be removed.

The new Cuban State would be the Mecca to which the aspiring, ambitious black man would turn his face, knowing that there, under the flag of his country, his race was to be forever in the ascendant.

Recognizing the fact that the two races cannot and should not wipe out this racial antipathy by marriage, both races should show their wisdom by the adoption of some such amicable arrangement.

Instead of vainly trying to overcome the prejudice of ages against his race, by a struggle under the lead of white demagogues, to have his vote counted, or a seat given him at a dinner table, or a fair distribution made to him of caucus nominations, he would in his own State step into the political arena undisturbed by competition founded upon antipathy and directed by contempt.

Precisely as the Nation would do providing it should conquer a province of interior China, should it do with this African question at home. Should such a state of things happen, we would not send over there an emigration of our own people to crowd out or impose upon the conquered race, but on the contrary precisely as the English have done in India would we do in China, endeavor to build up a feeling of loyalty and good will by permitting just as far as possible the new State to manage its own affairs in its own way, subject only to our territorial jurisdiction.

Thus England does in Hindostan, recognizing, tolerating and protecting against her own political theories the rights, notions, prejudices and customs of caste the real citizenship of India.

Had she done otherwise or had she permitted under her flag such domineering white interference with the rights of her black subjects as this country has permitted and tolerated in the South upon the rights of the negro, there would ere this have been a mutiny from Bombay to Delhi that would have swept English domination from the peninsula.