the trend of the times showed how the
world was changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery
seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly
cowed into submission. The free Negroes of the North, inspired by the
mulatto immigrants from the West Indies, began to change the basis of
their demands; they recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted that
they themselves were freemen, and sought assimilation and amalgamation
with the nation on the same terms with other men. Thus, Forten and
Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of Wilmington, Du Bois of New Haven,
Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove singly and together as men,
they said, not as slaves; as "people of color," not as "Negroes." The
trend of the times, however, refused them recognition save in
individual and exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the
despised blacks, and they soon found themselves striving to keep even
the rights they formerly had of voting and working and moving as
freemen. Schemes of migration and colonization arose among them; but
these they refused to entertain, and they eventually turned to the
Abolition movement as a final refuge.

Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new period of
self-assertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate
freedom and assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the
assertion of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main
reliance, and John Brown's raid was the extreme of its logic. After
the war and emancipation, the great form of Frederick Douglass, the
greatest of American Negro leaders, still led the host.
Self-assertion, especially in political lines, was the main programme,
and behind Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the
Reconstruction politicians, and, less conspicuous but of greater social
significance, Alexander Crummell and Bishop Daniel Payne.

Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro votes,
the changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in
the great night. Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the
ideals of his early manhood,--ultimate assimilation through
self-assertion, and on no other terms. For a time Price arose as a new
leader, destined, it seemed, not to give up, but to re-state the old
ideals in a form less repugnant to the white South. But he passed away
in his prime. Then came the new leader. Nearly all the former ones
h