he races of the earth. That in the existence of the
human family every age has been marked by its own essential
characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life,
however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to
require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence
as we possess concerning the past--whether recorded by man himself in
the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of
nature--would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different
races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the
world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn
on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now
enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon,
Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy.
And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then,
if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial
hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless
progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is
eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African
race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high
destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that
have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications,
physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for
prominence amongst other races?

The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages
to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active
labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic
conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and
sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of
agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his
savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of
irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his
friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection,
the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native
virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results
for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the
sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both
intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which