isfranchised
by illegal and violent methods; they know that laws are purposely
framed to defraud and to oppress them. This is dangerous knowledge,
dangerous to the black and the white man. It will be decided by one of
two courses--wise and judicious statesmanship or bloody and disastrous
insurrection. When men are wronged they appeal either to the
arbitrament of reason or of violence. No man who loves his country
would sanction violence in the adjudication of rights save as a last
resort. Reason is the safest tribunal before which to arraign
injustice and wrong; but it is not always possible to reach this
tribunal.

The black and white citizens of the South must alter the lines which
have divided them since the close of the war. They are, essentially,
one people, and should be mutual aids instead of mutual hindrances to
each other. By "one people" I don't wish to be understood as implying
that the white and black man are one in an ethnological, but a generic
sense, having a common origin. Living in the same communities,
pursuing identical avocations, and subject to the same fundamental
laws, however these may differ in construction and application in the
several States, it is as much, if not even more, the interest of the
white man that the black should be given every possible opportunity to
better his mental, material and civil condition. Society is not
corrupted from the apex but from the base. It is not the pure rain
that falls from the heavens, but the stagnant waters of the pool, that
breed disease and death. The corruption of the ballot by white men of
the South is more pernicious than the misuse of it by black men; the
perversion of the law in the apprehension and punishment of criminals,
by being wielded almost exclusively against colored men, not only
brings law into contempt of colored men but encourages crime among
white men. Thus the entire society is corrupted. Mob law is the most
forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that
society is rotten to the core. When men find that laws are purposely
framed to oppress and defraud them they become desperate and reckless;
and mob law, by usurping the rightful functions of the judiciary,
makes criminals of honest men. As Alexander Pope expressed it:

_Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with his face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace._

The South h