III. At the end of these fifty years, we find, and very naturally, as the result of the progress that has been made in knowledge, in material resources, in social advancement—a growing self-respect on the part of the race, which makes it very much more sensitive as to the deprivation of its rights, very much more restive under injustice, oppression, and all invidious distinctions. It would be strange if it were not so. You cannot surround a man with conditions which tend to develop his manhood, his self-respect, and expect him to quietly acquiesce in any line of conduct which aims to humiliate him, to force him down beneath the level of what he feels to be his due. The oppressive measures which the slave-holders took to keep the slaves in an attitude of subserviency by shutting all light, by keeping them in darkness, by depriving them of all opportunities of improvement, was the only safe, the only wise course to pursue. And even under such circumstances, under such rigid enforcement of repressive measures, the spirit of resistance was not entirely extinguished. How much less is it to be expected now that we should quietly submit to unjust treatment, to invidious distinctions! The race is becoming more and more alive to its rights, and, as it advances, this sense of what belongs to it, of what it is entitled to will increase rather than diminish. There is no way by which this growing insistent demand for its rights on its part can be arrested except by recognizing these rights, or, by forcing the race back into the condition of intellectual and moral darkness in which it was before the great era of freedom, or, by killing it off, either slowly by shutting it out of all productive industries, or by the wholesale massacre of it.
The last two lines of action, on the part of the dominant race, are among the possibilities, but scarcely among the probabilities of the future. The Negro in this country can never, never again be forced back into the condition in which he was before the War. Nor is there any likelihood of a wholesale slaughter of the race. There is very little hesitancy or compunction about killing an individual or a small group of individuals, but when it comes to making war on the race as a whole, with a view to exterminating it, even our worst enemies will hesitate, will hardly venture upon so violent a measure; if not from a sense of right, at least, from fear of arousing the moral sentiment of the civilized world. The race is not likely to be less insistent in the future in demanding its rights than it is now at the end of the first half century of growth, of development.