the remark attributed to the President elect: "It is a difficult thing always to behave one's self properly."

The preposterous scheme of colonizing the whole six millions of our negro fellow-citizens in some part of the United States, as Arizona, for example, has been mentioned a few times. Such a scheme. could never originate in the serious thinking of any representative Southern man. For the Southern people, with all that has been said and thought about them, know the negro too thoroughly and love him too well to wish him such a fate. What utter nonsense! what inhuman folly! A negro State! A little Africa in America! They would perish by starvation, by internal feuds, by aggression from sharpers, speculators, and "filibusters," like those who are now threatening the peace of the Indian Territory. If the lands given them were worth having, they would be taken from them; if not, they would starve. Those who know the history of our Indian problem, who know how we have failed either to govern or protect a few thousand Indians, who were never slaves, do not desire the government to undertake the management or guardianship of several millions of emancipated Africans.

A few dreamy and sentimental visionaries talk about solving the problem at one masterful stroke. "Move the whole of them to Africa; America is

for white people," they tell us.

While engaged on

this chapter the papers brought us word that some member of Congress has actually offered some sort of a paper proposing to buy a large territory in some of the States of Central America for the wholesale colonization of the negroes! Such legislators only serve to illustrate some of the passing humors of American voters.

If it be supposed that the negroes could be persuaded to make a real "exodus," and go to Africa, or to any of these places prepared for them, it is simply a mistake. If even one man in the United States talks of their enforced colonization, he should remember that free negroes, at least, have many

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rights that white men are bound to respect." The right to live where it pleases them, so long as they obey the laws, is one of these rights.

The wholesale colonization of these people in Africa is a scheme so visionary and impracticable that it does not deserve serious discussion. But it may be looked at for a moment, if only to show what some people forget when they are caught in the current of a favorite theory. Suppose we could move the whole six millions of them to Africa. What would we do with them after getting them there? Africa is a big country, and it does not belong to us. Would it do to land them wherever our ships can approach the shore, and then turn them loose, as Mr. Seth Green turns young shad loose in the

rivers, to find their way to life and fortune as best they may? This would be to turn them loose to die, or to relapse into the savagery of their ancestors. But if we owned enough of Africa, desirable and healthful parts of the continent, to furnish each family a farm; if, after getting them well settled, we could secure them decent government; if we could make sure that they would not (except those who died promptly) relapse into the heathenism from which their ancestors were taken generations ago by the cruel English and New-English sailors; if, in a word, all the conditions of successful colonization could be met, how are we to get them there? Suppose we take five hundred to the ship-load, employ one hundred ships, and make two voyages each year; we could, at this rate, get across one hundred thousand annually. But they are born faster than this. If, however, all the difficulties of transportation could be overcome, the cruelty of such a wholesale deportation would be equaled by but one thing in their eventful history, namely, the cruelty of bringing them from Africa as they were brought by the slavers.

This, I think, may be settled down upon; these negroes, ever increasing, will, for the most part, stay right where they are, in the South. But if they should be, as is most unlikely, diffused with something like equality of distribution, throughout the United States, the problem would be diffused, that

is all, and with much increment of confusion and difficulty.

It seems very clear; this race-problem is likely to be our problem as a Nation always. It is certainly, at this time, a problem that the whole people should, and that the Southern people must, seriously but calmly consider.

NOTE. After this book was written, a friend, Mr. F. R. Richardson, the Washington city correspondent of the " Atlanta Constitution," furnished me some important statistics, taken from the official records in the office of the superintendent of the last census. I quote the following statements: "The total negro population is 6,577,497. The increase in the total population during the last ten years is 30.06 per cent.; the increase in the white population is 28.82 per cent.; the increase in the colored population is 34.78 per cent."

Wise people will study these figures.

CHAPTER IV.

PROVIDENCE IN THEIR LOCATION.

HE African slave-trade was "the sum of all

THE

villainies." One cargo of the wretched creatures I saw long years ago. It was sickening as it was devilish. Well did David Livingstone say of the slave-trade that still exists in some parts of Africa: "It is the open sore of the world." But I have not now to discuss the sins of the bad men who brought to this country several thousands of savage Africans, the progenitors of the several millions of Americanized Africans who have been so long the bone of contention in this Republic. Nor have I, at this time, to discuss the sins of the bad masters who abused their slaves, nor the virtues of the good men and women who did the best they could with an awkward and burdensome institution, handed down to them from their fathers, and fastened upon them by historical, industrial, political, and social conditions that they could not control.

In this discussion I am concerned about those facts connected with their history and present condition which may aid me in the consideration of