This question, "What shall we do with the Negro?" presented itself for solution when the foundations of our government were laid. One of our statesmen has observed that, "The compromises on the Slavery question, inserted in the Constitution, were among the essential conditions upon which the federal government was organized. If the African slave trade had not been permitted to continue for twenty years, if it had not been conceded that three-fifths of the slaves should be counted in the apportionment of representatives in congress, if it had not been agreed that fugitives from service should be returned to their owners, the thirteen States would not have been able in 1787 'to form a more perfect union.'"
Thus we see that the Negro has been in politics ever since the adoption of the Constitution.
But, throughout the long night of bondage, for three quarters of a century, not a single act designed for the betterment or advantage of the Negro can be found upon the statute books of any Southern State. Even as late as '62 the Democratic State convention of Pennsylvania said: "This government was established exclusively for the white race." In every State the Negro was denied those primary rights which centuries before had been wrested from King John at Runnymede and recorded in Magna Charta. The immortal principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence loosed not the fetters of a slave. The South were let alone until they caused eleven stars to fall from our glorious flag, and it took a million bayonets to pin them back to the place from which they had wandered, there to remain as long as the Republic shall endure. When secession and rebellion threatened the overthrow of the constitution and the peril of our national life, it was
the party of the most illustrious names, the party of the most immortal deeds that adorn the pages of our history--this party it was that joined battle with rebellion, willing, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, if God so willed, "to continue the war until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil should be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash should be paid with another drawn by the sword."