ointment will probably cause dissent in Republican circles, but
it may be doubted if the Negro advances his political fortunes by
invidious criticism of the efforts of a Republican Administration to
harmonize ante-bellum issues. For while he in all honesty may be
strenuous for the inviolability of franchises of the Republican
household, and widens the gap between friendly surroundings, each of
the political litigants meet with their knees under each other's
mahogany, and jocularly discuss Negro idiosyncrasies, and tacitly agree
to give his political aspirations a "letting alone." For, with character
and ability unquestioned for the discharge of duties, the vote polled
for him usually falls far short of the average of that polled by his
party for other candidates on the ticket.

The summary killing of human beings by mobs without the form of law is
not of late origin. Ever since the first note of reconstruction was
sounded, each Administration has denounced lynching. All history is the
record that it is only through discussion and the ventilation of wrong
that right becomes a valued factor. But regard for justice is not
diminishing in our country. The judiciary, although weak and amenable to
prevailing local prejudices in localities, as a whole is far in advance
on the sustenance of righteous rule than in the middle of the last
century, when slavery ruled the Nation and its edicts were law, and its
baleful influence permeated every branch of the Government.

Of the judiciary at that period Theodore Parker, an eminent
Congregational divine and most noted leader of Christian thought, during
a sermon in 1854, said:

"Slavery corrupts the judicial class. In America, especially in New
England, no class of men has been so much respected as the judges, and
for this reason: We have had wise, learned, and excellent men for our
judges, men who reverenced the higher law of God, and sought by human
statutes to execute justice. You all know their venerable names and how
reverentially we have looked up to them. Many of them are dead, and some
are still living, and their hoary hairs are a crown of glory on a
judicial life without judicial blot. But of late slavery has put a
different class of men on the benches of the Federal Courts--mere tools
of the Government creatures who get their appointments as pay for past
political service, and as pay in advance for iniquity not yet
accomplished. You see the consequences. Note the zeal of th