the moment! In your soul of souls, you don't believe in the equality of man if the man under comparison be a negro?"
"I believe that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid their living together on terms of political and social equality. If such be attempted, one must go to the wall."
"Very well, pin the Southern white man to the wall. Our party and the Nation will then be safe."
"That is to say, destroy African slavery and establish white slavery under Negro masters! That would be progress with a vengeance."
A grim smile twitched the old man's lips as he said:
"Yes, your prim conservative snobs and male waiting-maids in Congress went into hysterics when I armed the negroes. Yet the heavens have not fallen."
"True. Yet no more insane blunder could now be made than any further attempt to use these Negro troops. There can be no such thing as restoring this Union to its basis of fraternal peace with armed negroes, wearing the uniform of this Nation, tramping over the South, and rousing the basest passions of the freedmen and their former masters. General Butler, their old commander, is now making plans for their removal, at my request. He expects to dig the Panama Canal with these black troops.
"Fine scheme that—on a par with your messages to Congress asking for the colonisation of the whole Negro race!"
"It will come to that ultimately," said the President,
