one. On October
16, 1859, John Brown made his raid on Harper's Ferry and took his place
with the immortals. In the long and bitter contest on American slavery
the Abolitionists had won.

CHAPTER XI

SOCIAL PROGRESS, 1820-1860[1]

[Footnote 1: This chapter follows closely upon Chapter III, Section 5,
and is largely complementary to Chapter VIII.]

So far in our study we have seen the Negro as the object of interest
on the part of the American people. Some were disposed to give him a
helping hand, some to keep him in bondage, and some thought that it
might be possible to dispose of any problem by sending him out of the
country. In all this period of agitation and ferment, aside from the
efforts of friends in his behalf, just what was the Negro doing to work
out his own salvation? If for the time being we can look primarily at
constructive effort rather than disabilities, just what do we find that
on his own account he was doing to rise to the full stature of manhood?

Naturally in the answer to such a question we shall have to be concerned
with those people who had already attained unto nominal freedom. We
shall indeed find many examples of industrious slaves who, working in
agreement with their owners, managed sometimes to purchase themselves
and even to secure ownership of their families. Such cases, while
considerable in the aggregate, were after all exceptional, and for the
ordinary slave on the plantation the outlook was hopeless enough.
In 1860 the free persons formed just one-ninth of the total Negro
population in the country, there being 487,970 of them to 3,953,760
slaves. It is a commonplace to remark the progress that the race has
made since emancipation. A study of the facts, however, will show that
with all their disadvantages less than half a million people had before
1860 not only made such progress as amasses a surprising total, but that
they had already entered every large field of endeavor in which the race
is engaged to-day.

When in course of time the status of the Negro in the American body
politic became a live issue, the possibility and the danger of an
_imperium in imperio_ were perceived; and Rev. James W.C. Pennington,
undoubtedly a leader, said in his lectures in London and Glasgow: "The
colored population of the United States have no destiny separate from
that of the nation in which they form an integral part. Our destiny is
bound up with that of America. Her ship is ours; her pi