69 be ended, negro suffrage must be established in the South. Determined to “recognize facts, even though disagreeable,” he openly declares that “ wisdom consists in accepting the result of the struggle, and being happy that the victors ask no more.” This laid down, he advises his fellow-citizens to grant the right of suffrage, while surrounding it with prudential conditions, “ equally applicable to the blacks and the whites.” He thinks that such a law is necessary in order to blot out all enmity of race and all fear of civil war. However, he does not delude himself concerning the reception of his proposition. “ I know,” he says, “ that you will oppose me obstinately and sincerely.” This is not doubtful, and if Congress leaves the Southern states to regulate, each on its own account, the condition of the former slaves, no one can suppose that the equality of the races will have the least chance until the day when new struggles shall wring from the planters what they will never grant spontaneously. Avoid these new struggles, spare your people these new convulsions, your Union these new perils, the whole world these new temptations to intervention and war. Listen to our alarm cry. Lend an ear also to the sullen murmurs which reach you from the South, to the reviving insolence of the champions of slavery and their journals. They can scarcely believe their eyes when they see that it is in contemplation to restore to them (to them !) the regulation of the negro question. They will let it be done, of course ; but they are already smiling and preparing to take advantage of an unhoped-for concession. Your confidence, joined with firmness, would bring them back to the Union ; as to that very different confidence, to which an effort is being made at this moment to urge you, they would be less touched than surprised by it. They would take it for what it is, and would call it by its true name. At the moment that I trace these last lines, news which I would gladly doubt is circulated among us. A negro insurrection, it is said, has just broken out in Jamaica, accompanied with horrible cruelties.
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