RADICALISM AND THE NATIONAL CRISIS. 19 the theory, that as we remove the system of slavery, the black race must be separated from the whites, and settled elsewhere. Perhaps he is right in this opinion, and perhaps the facts will show that he is not right. It is high time that the best minds in the nation should be thinking upon the subject. We have the question on hand, or judging from the indications of Providence, we soon shall have in a very practical form; and we ought to be making up our minds as to what is just, and wiser and humane, and Christian. The question as to what we shall do with the black man, and what we shall do for him, if released from the bondage of slavery, let me tell you, is one of the great questions of the age. In its solution he is for the most part dependent upon the friendship, the kind regards, and Christian philanthropy of the white race. IJe has no power to solve it himself. As he merges into freedom, he must receive his destiny from those at whose hands he receives that freedom. They will fix his position and his home rather than himself. He cannot conquer his own destiny. His intelligence, powers of combination, and resources of action are not equal to the task. He appeals to us to think for him ; and think we must, and act we must, as wise and good men, thinking and acting in the fear of God, endeavoring to carry out towards the black man the principles of a sound, impartial, Christian philanthropy. It is quite possible, moreover, that we are seriously underrating the capacities of the black man to help himself. Perhaps what he most wants from the white race, is that we should let him alone, and give him a chance to work out his own destiny. This we have not hitherto done. We have subjected him to great disadvantages in the Free States, and in the Slave States oppressed him by one of the most cruel despotisms that human nature ever felt. We have not been content to let the black man alone, and let him take his chances with other men on the field of life. If now we would practice this species of justice towards him, both North and South, perhaps the Providence of God, at least in the course of a few generations, would show that we are making more of the negro-question than really belongs to it. At any rate, a good beginning towards the end will
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