26 phases of questions, you will not be deceived, I am sure, concerning the great importance of the deliberation which is about to take place in Congress, Instead of slaves, will you have pariahs ? Will you have Helots—four millions of Helots ? This is the point at stake. Helots ! the despotic constitution of Lycurgus may have desired them : the Constitution of the United States does not ; and if you create them to-morrow, you will have violated your Constitution. Helots ! No country could create with impunity a numerous class of men that are not altogether men. On the day that, instead of a few thousand Helots, you shall have four millions of them—on that day, ah incommensurable social and political change will take place among you. Helots, whatever may be done, whatever may be said, whatever may be written, are always treated as Helots. And then, woe to you ! Then you will oppress, you will deprave, and, what is worse, you will hate them. Men always hate those towards whom they feel themselves guilty, those who obstruct the progress of the national prosperity, those whose sufferings disturb the peace, whose cries of anguish weary the ear, whose distress compromises the honor of the country. From hatred to murder there is but a step ; “ he who hates,” says the apostle, “ the same is a murderer.” 11 You will kill the negroes in freeing them !” This prophecy of your enemies recurs unceasingly to my memory. Do I exaggerate the gravity of the question ? Let us consider. No one is less disposed than myself to attribute to the right of voting an importance beyond measure. There is nothing humiliating in not voting, if one is excluded by virtue of a condition imposed on all citizens. Conditions of naturalization, conditions of age, conditions of property, conditions founded on certain incompatibilities of functions—I can understand all these. But the condition of color is something far different. It strikes an entire race, it cuts it off forever ; it decrees not an exclusion, but an indignity.
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