ys of our history
as a nation, a question which in some form confronts him still. The
question, as the song has it, is not one of fact, but one of opinion.
It is not: Will I make a soldier? but: Do you think I will make a
soldier? It is one thing to "make a soldier," another thing to have
men think so. The question of fact was settled a century ago; the
question of opinion is still unsettled. The Negro soldier, hero of
five hundred battlefields, with medals and honors resting upon his
breast, with the endorsement of the highest military authority of the
nation, with Port Hudson, El Caney and San Juan behind him, is still
expected by too many to stand and await the verdict of thought, from
persons who never did "think" he would make a soldier, and who never
will think so. As well expect the excited animal of the ring to
_think_ in the presence of the red rag of the toreador as to expect
_them_ to think on the subject of the Negro soldier. They can curse,
and rant, when they see the stalwart Negro in uniform, but it is too
much to ask them to think. To them the Negro can be a fiend, a brute,
but never a soldier.

To John G. Whittier and to William C. Nell are we indebted for the
earliest recital of the heroic deeds of the colored American in the
Wars of the Revolution and 1812. Whittier contributed an article on
this subject to the "National Era" in 1847, and five or six years
later Nell published his pamphlet on "Colored Patriots," a booklet
recently reprinted by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is a
useful contribution, showing as it does the rising and spreading
abroad of that spirit which appreciates military effort and valor; and
while recognizing the glory that came to American arms in the period
described, honestly seeks to place some of that glory upon the
deserving brow of a race then enslaved and despised. The book is
unpretentious and aims to relate the facts in a straight-forward way,
unaccompanied by any of the charms of tasteful presentation. Its
author, however, is deserving our thanks, and the book marks an
important stage in the development of the colored American. His mind
was turning toward the creation of the soldier--the formation of
armies.

There are other evidences that the mind of the colored man was at this
time turning towards arms. In 1852 Doctor Pennington, one of the most
learned colored men of his times, having received his Degree in
Divinity from Heidelberg, delivered an addres