It has been the hope of every patriot that a sense of justice and of respect for the law would work a gradual cure of these flagrant evils.  Surely no one supposes that the present can be accepted as a permanent condition.  If it is said that these communities must work out this problem for themselves, we have a right to ask whether they are at work upon it.  Do they suggest any solution?  When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot?  When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?  When is that equality of influence which our form of government was intended to secure to the electors to be restored?  This generation should courageously face these grave questions, and not leave them as a heritage of woe to the next.  The consultation should proceed with candor, calmness, and great patience, upon the lines of justice and humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty.  No question in our country can be at rest except upon the firm base of justice and of the law.

I earnestly invoke the attention of Congress to the consideration of such measures within its well-defined constitutional powers as will secure to all our people a free exercise of the right of suffrage and every other civil right under the Constitution and laws of the United States.  No evil, however deplorable, can justify the assumption either on the part of the Executive or of Congress of powers not granted, but both will be highly blamable if all the powers granted are not wisely but firmly used to correct these evils.  The power to take the whole direction and control of the election of members of the House of Representatives is clearly given to the General Government.  A partial and qualified supervision of these elections is now provided for by law, and in my opinion this law may be so strengthened and extended as to secure on the whole better results than can be attained by a law taking all the processes of such election into Federal control.  The colored man should be protected in all of his relations to the Federal Government, whether as litigant, juror, or witness in our courts, as an elector for members of Congress, or as a peaceful traveler upon our interstate railways.

There is nothing more justly humiliating to the national pride and nothing more hurtful to the national prosperity than the inferiority of our merchant marine compared with that of other nations whose general resources, wealth, and seacoast lines do not suggest any reason for their supremacy on the sea.  It was not always so, and our people are agreed, I think, that it shall not continue to be so.  It is not possible in this communication to discuss the causes of the decay of our shipping interests or the differing methods by which it is proposed to restore them.  The statement of a few well-authenticated facts and some general suggestions as to legislation is all that is practicable.  That the great steamship lines sailing under the flags of England, France, Germany,