And, so, having made the people free, and equal before the law, and given them the ballot with which to settle their disputes, the "_wise men_" left the people to live in peace if they could, and to cut each other's throats if they could not.

That they should have proceeded to cut each other's throats was as natural as it is for day to follow night.
I do not desire to be understood as inveighing against the manumission of the slave or the enfranchisement of the new-made free man.

To do so, would be most paradoxical on my part, who was born a slave and spent the first nine years of my life in that most unnatural condition.

What I do inveigh against, is the unequal manner in which the colored people were pitted against the white people; the placing of these helpless people absolutely in the power of this hereditary foeman--more absolutely in their power, at their mercy, than under the merciless system of slavery, when sordid interest dictated a modicum of humanity and care in treatment.

And I arraign the "Reconstruction policy" as one of the hollowest pieces of perfidy ever perpetrated upon an innocent, helpless people; and in the treatment of the issues growing out of that policy, I arraign the dominant party of the time for base ingratitude, subterfuge and hypocrisy to its black partisan allies.