uences we are to recognize as a condition and a fact,
and a problem for solution rather than as an occasion for crimination or
recrimination.

Over the question of the extension of slavery the Civil War came, and
that contest developed a heroism on both sides, in the people from the
North and the people from the South, that evokes the admiration of all
Americans for American courage, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. But when
slavery was abolished by the war the excision of the cancer left a wound
that must necessarily be a long time in healing. Nearly 5,000,000 slaves
were freed; but 5 per cent. of them could read or write; a much smaller
percentage were skilled laborers. They were but as children in meeting
the stern responsibilities of life as free men. As such they had to be
absorbed into and adjusted to our civilization. It was a radical change,
full of discouragement and obstacles. Their rights were declared by the
war Amendments, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth. The one
established their freedom; the second their citizenship and their rights
to pursue happiness and hold property; and the third their right not to
be discriminated against in their political privileges on account of
their color or previous condition of servitude.

I am not going to rehearse the painful history of reconstruction, or
what followed it. I come at once to the present condition of things,
stated from a constitutional and political standpoint. And that is this:
That in all the Southern States it is possible, by election laws
prescribing proper qualifications for the suffrage, which square with
the Fifteenth Amendment and which shall be equally administered as
between the black and white races, to prevent entirely the possibility
of a domination of Southern state, county, or municipal governments by
an ignorant electorate, white or black. It is further true that the
sooner such laws, when adopted, are applied with exact equality and
justice to the two races, the better for the moral tone of state and
community concerned. Negroes should be given an opportunity equally with
whites, by education and thrift, to meet the requirements of eligibility
which the State Legislatures in their wisdom shall lay down in order to
secure the safe exercise of the electoral franchise. The Negro should
ask nothing other than an equal chance to qualify himself for the
franchise, and when that is granted by law, and not denied by executive
discrimination