We must peaceably but firmly claim every jot and tittle to which we are entitled under the organic law of this great country, not permitting the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment to be shaken by the coarse resistance of prejudice, or frittered away by the quibbles and hair-drawn distinctions of learned ingenuity, without earnest and united protestations and appeals on our part to enlightened public opinion. The two races must work out their destiny side by side, for they are indissolubly united by the triumph of the foremost civilization of the earth, which has at last established a government consecrated to the preservation of the equal rights of all its citizens, irrespective of race, color, creed, or previous condition; a government which recognizes no superior in the state but the caste of that justice, wisdom, and generosity which lifts up all the fallen and unfortunate of the family of mankind.
It is a cheering reflection that the American sense of justice, however long delayed, has never yet failed to recognize the constitutional rights of the masses against classes. We are convinced that American reverence for law, the great guardian spirit of every free country, is a potent factor, which it is not possible to overestimate. No civilized community can forever withstand just, enlightened , dispassionate, earnest presentations of great political truths. Statesmen and the public both know that the civil rights of American citizens, white or colored, are alike shaken, when by ingenious subterfuge the spirit of the law is frittered away. We believe that the most efficient, durable force in America is an awakened, enlightened public opinion. We feel that the changes wrought in our condition within a quarter of a century are sign that the complete attainment of our full civic capacity is drawing near.
We now represent upward of one hundred millions of taxable property. We have nineteen thousand teachers in the field; and in twenty years, at least in ten Southern States, shall have a majority of votes. The increase of the white population in the United States in the last ten years was thirty per cent.; nine per cent. of this was by foreign emigration, leaving but twenty one per cent. of natural increase; but we have multiplied eight times in less than a century. We entered 1888 with seven mil-
