the largest culture, Christian
intelligence and progressive ideas, says, in his masterful work, _Our
Brother in Black, His Freedom and His Future_ (p. 194):

If white people and black people wish to know how to treat
each other in all the relations of life, let them study the
Bible. Take for example the business relations of life, the
old question of capital and labor, of service and wages. For
the settlement of all questions that grow out of these
relations the laws laid down and the principles taught in
the Bible, are worth all the "political economies" in the
world. They apply to all races and conditions of men, in all
countries and in all times. They are as needful and useful
in New England factories as on Southern plantations. Free
Negroes are not the only underlings in the world, Negro
servants are not the only hirelings. There are thousands of
factory operatives, day laborers, domestic servants,
mechanics, sewing women, clerks, apprentices, and such like,
whose cry for justice against oppression goes up to heaven
by day and by night. "For which things' sake," in all lands,
"the wrath of God is come upon the children of
disobedience." Let us here recall some of these
half-forgotten laws; they must do us all good. I know they
are needed in the South; I am persuaded that they are needed
wherever there are masters and servants.

Having heard a great deal about the condition of the colored people in
Louisiana, I decided that it would not be uninteresting to have an
authentic statement of that condition by some person fully capable of
furnishing the desired information. I therefore addressed a letter to
the Hon. Theophile T. Allain, a colored member of the Louisiana
Legislature for Sweet Iberville parish, and a large sugar planter.
From Mr. Allain's letter I condense the following statement, which
will be found to be interesting for many reasons:

"First," says Mr. Allain, "I speak as a man of the South, who pays
taxes on thirty-five thousand dollars worth of property, and without
owing to any man one dollar. I claim to be well informed as to the
condition of the colored people of the South, the people who bear the
heat and burden of the day.

"In the cotton section of the South the Negroes are kept in
subjugation, and are not permitted to exercise the right of suffrage
guaranteed to them by the provisions of