cost would be very large, but
careful estimates go to show that the cost is not anywhere near the
amount we spent in our civil war. On the one side, we have these eight
millions of black men--ignorant, very largely superstitious, still
somewhat above those of the same color in Africa, and plunged here into
an antagonism which is deep, and bitter, and hopeless. On the other
side, we have these eight millions of white people who do not accept the
results of the war. Isn't it better that eight millions shall go? I
don't know. I think it deserves serious consideration.

But when the question arises for practical consideration, I think there
is another and a little deeper question that we ought to remember, and
that is this: Which eight millions ought to go? Is it these who have
been faithful to the American flag, who are straight in the line of
progress that this republic proposes to maintain, who are in the line of
the development of all the ages, who are looking upward? Or is it the
eight millions who are hopelessly side-tracked by the purposes of
infinite God, and who are standing here in this republic, undertaking to
maintain a conflict that is necessarily one of despair, as sure as God
is at the head of the universe? Expatriation if you please, deportation
if you will; but consider the question whether it shall be eight
millions of American patriots who are to be sent over to Africa or eight
millions who have come out of a rebellion and maintain their seditious
and rebellious attitude to-day.

My friends, we all know that we are going to live together. There is no
more baseless theory on God's earth than that we are going to take eight
millions of men and send them out of this country, because they want to
learn something, because they want to live like men and be men and
citizens, and because God has put them here for our work and our
education. I tell you, my friends, the immediate problem seems to me
only one form of a larger problem. What is the problem of the planet
to-day? Is it not the problem as to which of two theories shall maintain
itself concerning the masses which are at the base of society? Isn't
that the problem in every nation? Isn't it the problem here concerning
white and black, red and yellow alike? There is no possible doubt about
it. The labor problem, do you call it? Here is one theory which holds
that the masses shall be kept down. Here is the other system which
maintains that they shall be ele