sacred record
tells us that they were a warlike, powerful people,[117] living in
walled cities, given to agriculture, and possessing quite a
respectable civilization; but they were idolaters--God's enemies.

It is worthy of emphasis, that the antiquity of the Negro race is
beyond dispute. This is a fact established by the most immutable
historical data, and recorded on the monumental brass and marble of
the Oriental nations of the most remote period of time. The importance
and worth of the Negro have given him a place in all the histories of
Egypt, Greece, and Rome. His position, it is true, in all history up
to the present day, has been accidental, incidental, and collateral;
but it is sufficient to show how he has been regarded in the past by
other nations. His brightest days were when history was an infant;
and, since he early turned from God, he has found the cold face of
hate and the hurtful hand of the Caucasian against him. The Negro type
is the result of degradation. It is nothing more than the lowest
strata of the African race. Pouring over the venerable mountain
terraces, an abundant stream from an abundant and unknown source, into
the malarial districts, the genuine African has gradually degenerated
into the typical Negro. His blood infected with the poison of his low
habitation, his body shrivelled by disease, his intellect veiled in
pagan superstitions, the noblest yearnings of his soul strangled at
birth by the savage passions of a nature abandoned to sensuality,--the
poor Negro of Africa deserves more our pity than our contempt.

It is true that the weaker tribes, or many of the Negroid type, were
the chief source of supply for the slave-market in this country for
many years; but slavery in the United States--a severe ordeal through
which to pass to citizenship and civilization--had the effect of
calling into life many a slumbering and dying attribute in the Negro
nature. The cruel institution drove him from an extreme idolatry to an
extreme religious exercise of his faith in worship. And now that he is
an American citizen,--the condition and circumstances which rendered
his piety appropriate abolished,--he is likely to move over to an
extreme rationalism.

The Negro empires to which we have called attention are an argument
against the theory that he is without government, and his career as a
soldier[118] would not disgrace the uniform of an American soldier.
Brave, swift in execution, terrible in the