On the contrary, the Negro is
joint-heir to _all_ the virtues and _all_ the infirmities of the other
members of the human family. He is just as good and equally as bad as
his fairer-complexioned brothers.

"Multiply and replenish the earth," was the eternal fiat. The
subsequent confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of the people even
to the remotest parts of the globe, were but links in the chain of
God's design. The entire globe must be peopled, not a portion of it;
hence the sons of man continued their migration until they were lost
to each other.

The history of civilization discloses to us the land of the Hamites,
as the cradle from whence sprang all learning, literature and arts,
but man's heart still being deceitful, proud and wicked, continued to
wander away from the true God; and, notwithstanding his acquired
knowledge, and the very high state of civilization to which he had
attained, he forgot God, and was allowed to drift into pagan darkness
and superstition. These people were scattered, and their land
despoiled, and they fled for refuge far into the wilderness where they
were left in thick darkness:

"Grouping in ignorance, dark as the night," with
"No blessed Bible to give them the light."

Had any other division of the human family been subjected to the
influences of the same depressing climate, for an equal length of
time, as were the Hamites, and surrounded by the same degrading
circumstances, having no light without the assistance of divine
counsel, their degeneration would have been equally as great as these
descendants of Ham, when first began their involuntary migration into
this country. The subsequent training which the Negro received in the
school of bondage, while, in some respects, may have been a very
potent lever in raising them from the pit of darkness and
superstition, was not that which would best serve in the development
of his higher moral nature.

Prior to the beginning of colonial slave traffic, the Negro, as found
in his original home, the dark continent, was innocent and simple in
his habits, possessed of a very high regard for truth and virtue. And,
though very ignorant and superstitious, the result of his paganistic
worship, vice and immorality was to him almost unknown. He was a lover
of the beautiful, and in disposition easily entreated; and, because of
these _very_ tractile elements in his character, he fell an easy prey
to the machinations of his more wily and