ped with the
great seal of our government a stigma upon the people of a great and
loyal section; though I gratefully remember that the great dead soldier,
who held the helm of State for the eight stormiest years of
reconstruction, never found need for such a step; and though there is no
personal sacrifice I would not make to remove this cruel and unjust
imputation on my people from the archives of my country! But, sir,
backed by a record, on every page of which is progress, I venture to
make earnest and respectful answer to the questions that are asked. We
give to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth,
$450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses, and fruit. This
enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and
discontented labor. It comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter and
gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the
singing plough. It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of
its just hire. I present the tax books of Georgia which show that the
negro, twenty-five years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone $10,000,000
of assessed property, worth twice that much. Does not that record honor
him, and vindicate his neighbors?

What people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well? For every
Afro-American agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he prospers,
I can show you a thousand negroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling
their own land by day, and at night taking from the lips of their
children the helpful message their State sends them from the schoolhouse
door. And the schoolhouse itself bears testimony. In Georgia we added
last year $250,000 to the school fund, making a total of more than
$1,000,000,--and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered--of the
fact that the whites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks for
$10,000,000, and yet forty-nine per cent. of the beneficiaries are black
children; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can
help, our problem. Charleston, with her taxable values cut half in two
since 1860, pays more in proportion for public schools than Boston.
Although it is easier to give much out of much than little out of little
the South, with one-seventh of the taxable property of the country, with
relatively larger debt, having received only one-twelfth as much of
public lands, and having back of its tax books none of the $500,000,000
of bonds that enrich the North--and tho