I had rather see my people render back this question rightly solved than to see them gather all the spoils over which faction has contended since Cataline conspired and Caesar fought.  Meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him justice in the fulness the strong should give to the weak, and leading him in the steadfast ways of citizenship, that he may no longer be the prey of the unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless.  We open to him every pursuit in which he can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and capacity.  We seek to hold his confidence and friendship—­and to pin him to the soil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire of his own hearthstone that sense of responsibility the shiftless can never know.  And we gather him into that alliance of intelligence and responsibility that, though it now runs close to racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligent of any race.  By this course, confirmed in our judgment, and justified in the progress already made, we hope to progress slowly but surely to the end.

The love we feel for that race, you cannot measure nor comprehend.  As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up there, looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling to sleep.  This scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home with its lofty pillars and its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air.  I see women with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless.  I see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands—­now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man—­as they lay a mother’s blessing there, while at her knees—­the truest altar I yet have found—­I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin, or guard at her chamber door, put a black man’s loyalty between her and danger.

I catch another vision.  The crisis of battle—­a soldier, struck, staggering, fallen.  I see a slave, scuffing through the smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of hurtling death—­bending his trusty face to catch the words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down his life in his master’s stead.  I see him by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier’s agony and seal the soldier’s life.  I see him by the open grave—­mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom.  I see him, when the mold is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed,