even aim
to present the best that the Negro has done on the platform, it merely
aims to present to the public some few of the best speeches made within
the past hundred years. Much of the best is lost; much of it is hidden
away in forgotten places. We have not always appreciated our own work
sufficiently to preserve it, and thus much valuable material is wasted.
Sometimes it has been difficult to obtain good speeches from those who
are living because of their innate modesty, either in not desiring to
appear in print, or in having thought so little of their efforts as to
have lost them.

The Editor is conscious that many names not in the table of contents
will suggest themselves to the most casual reader, but the omissions are
not intentional nor yet of ignorance always, but due to the difficulty
of procuring the matter in time for the publication of the volume before
the golden year shall have closed.

In collecting and arranging the matter, for the volume, I am deeply
indebted first to the living contributors who were so gracious and
generous in their responses to the request for their help, and to the
relatives of those who have passed into silence, for the loan of
valuable books and manuscripts. I cannot adequately express my gratitude
to Mr. John E. Bruce and Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg, President and
Secretary of the Negro Society for Historical Research, for advice,
suggestion, and best of all, for help in lending priceless books and
manuscripts and for aid in copying therefrom.

Again, we repeat, this volume is not a complete anthology; not the final
word in Negro eloquence of to-day, nor yet a collection of all the best;
it is merely a suggestion, a guide-post, pointing the way to a fuller
work, a slight memorial of the birth-year of the race.

THE EDITOR.

_October, 1913._

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PRINCE SAUNDERS
The People of Hayti and a Plan of Emigration 13

JAMES MCCUNE SMITH
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haytian Revolution 19

HILARY TEAGUE
Liberia: Its Struggles and Its Promises 33

FREDERICK DOUGLASS
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July 41
On the Unveiling of the Lincoln Monument 133

CHARLES H. LANGSTON
Should Colored Men be Subject to the Pains and Penalties
of the Fugitive Sl