open the door to every sort of discrimination, there can be no middle
ground between justice and injustice, between the citizen and the serf.

It is not likely that the North, upon the sober second thought, will
permit the dearly-bought results of the Civil War to be nullified by any
change in the Constitution. So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands,
the _rights_ of colored citizens are ultimately secure. There were
would-be despots in England after the granting of Magna Charta; but it
outlived them all, and the liberties of the English people are secure.
There was slavery in this land after the Declaration of Independence,
yet the faces of those who love liberty have ever turned to that
immortal document. So will the Constitution and its principles outlive
the prejudices which would seek to overthrow it.

What colored men of the South can do to secure their citizenship to-day,
or in the immediate future, is not very clear. Their utterances on
political questions, unless they be to concede away the political rights
of their race, or to soothe the consciences of white men by suggesting
that the problem is insoluble except by some slow remedial process which
will become effectual only in the distant future, are received with
scant respect--could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise received, without a
voting constituency to back them up,--and must be cautiously made, lest
they meet an actively hostile reception. But there are many colored men
at the North, where their civil and political rights in the main are
respected. There every honest man has a vote, which he may freely cast,
and which is reasonably sure to be fairly counted. When this race
develops a sufficient power of combination, under adequate
leadership,--and there are signs already that this time is near at
hand,--the Northern vote can be wielded irresistibly for the defense of
the rights of their Southern brethren.

In the meantime the Northern colored men have the right of free speech,
and they should never cease to demand their rights, to clamor for them,
to guard them jealously, and insistently to invoke law and public
sentiment to maintain them. He who would be free must learn to protect
his freedom.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. He who would be respected
must respect himself. The best friend of the Negro is he who would
rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free
citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten m