western portions of Africa, to all descendants of African slaves who may wish to go thither. Jefferson, in 1821, advocated gradual emancipation and deportation.

What did Jefferson say?

Speaking of gradual emancipation and deportation, Mr. Jefferson was prophetic. The public

mind was not ripe for it; and he says, with farreaching thought: "Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will fol low. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of Fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live together in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."

He insisted that slow and peaceable emancipation and deportation would lead to the filling up of the country by free white laborers.

What did Abraham Lincoln say?

In June, 1862, a delegation of negroes waited on President Lincoln at the White House. He made to them the following remarkable speech:

Why should not the people of your race be colonized? Why should they not leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for con

sideration. You and we are a different race.

We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers greatly, many of them by living with us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side.

"If this is admitted, it shows a reason why we should be separated. You, here, are freemen, I suppose. Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race are suffering, in my opinion, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are still cut off from many of the advantages which are enjoyed by the other race. The aspiration of man is to enjoy equality with the best when free; but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of ours.

"Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact about which we all think and feel alike. We look to our conditions owing to the existence

2

of the races on this continent.

I need not recount

Our

to you the effects upon white men growing out of the institution of slavery. I believe in its general evil effects upon the white race. See our present condition. The country is engaged in war. white men are cutting each other's throats, none knowing how far their frenzy may extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other.

"Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have had an existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. I know that there are free men among you who, even if they could better their condition, are not as much inclined to go out of the country as those who, being slaves, could obtain their freedom on this condition. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington, or elsewhere in the United States, the remainder of your lives, perhaps more comfortably than you could in any foreign country. Hence you may come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a

foreign country. This (I speak in no unkind sense) is an extremely selfish view of the case. But you ought to do something to help those who are not so fortunate as yourselves. . . . For the sake of your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort, for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people."

Instead of assisting ex-slaves to sail for Africa, and thus deplete the growing population, the politicians invented the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which breed discord instead of harmony. To this moment these people are the prey of the knaves of both political parties.

Are there ambiguities and inelegances in the Constitution?

Yes. Generally the Constitution is a model of pure Saxon English. The following, no doubt, have their origin in "selection," which is illustrated in the beginning of this volume. For example, Article I., section 2: "The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers." Section 3: "The Vice-President of the United States shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided." "The Senate shall choose their other officers." "The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that

purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation." Section 5: "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members." "Each House may determine the rule of its proceedings, punish its members," etc. "Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment, require secrecy." Article I., section 7, authorizes the President to return a bill passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, "with his objections, to that House in which it originated; who shall enter the objections at large on their journal."

We have in the foregoing a precedent for the pluralization of the House and Senate, and, by implication, the Supreme Court.

How was the Constitution ratified?

Thirty-nine delegates of the whole number (fifty-nine) signed it. The names of George Wythe, Edmund Randolph, Luther Martin, Oliver Ellsworth, and other distinguished deputies of the twenty discontents are not on the roll. Randolph, Grayson, and George Mason, all of Virginia, were present, but did not sign. Article VII. provided that: "The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the