ts defense of the system of
slavery. On the other hand, the Abolitionists challenged the attitude
that was becoming popular; the Negroes themselves began to be prosperous
and to hold conventions; and Nat Turner's insurrection thrust baldly
before the American people the great moral and economic problem with
which they had to deal. With such divergent opinions, in spite of feeble
attempts at compromise, there could be no peace until the issue of
slavery at least was definitely settled. The third great period extends
from the Civil War to the opening of the Great War in Europe. Like the
others it also falls into two parts, the division coming at the year
1895. The thirty years from 1865 to 1895 may be regarded as an era
in which the race, now emancipated, was mainly under the guidance of
political ideals. Several men went to Congress and popular education
began to be emphasized; but the difficulties of Reconstruction and the
outrages of the KuKlux Klan were succeeded by an enveloping system of
peonage, and by 1890-1895 the pendulum had swung fully backward and in
the South disfranchisement had been arrived at as the concrete solution
of the political phase of the problem. The twenty years from 1895 to
1915 formed a period of unrest and violence, but also of solid economic
and social progress, the dominant influence being the work of Booker T.
Washington. With the world war the Negro people came face to face with
new and vast problems of economic adjustment and passed into an entirely
different period of their racial history in America.

This is not all, however. The race is not to be regarded simply as
existent unto itself. The most casual glance at any such account as we
have given emphasizes the importance of the Negro in the general history
of the United States. Other races have come, sometimes with great gifts
or in great numbers, but it is upon this one that the country's history
has turned as on a pivot. It is true that it has been despised and
rejected, but more and more it seems destined to give new proof that the
stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.
In the colonial era it was the economic advantage of slavery over
servitude that caused it to displace this institution as a system of
labor. In the preliminary draft of the Declaration of Independence a
noteworthy passage arraigned the king of England for his insistence upon
the slave-trade, but this was later suppressed for reasons