Читать книгу Samantha on the Race Problem онлайн

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“And they read these words:

“‘We proclaim peace in all your borders.’

“And lost in triumphant thoughts of what they had done, they did not heed this truth, that instead of peace hovering down upon the borders of the fair Southern land, they had blindly and ignorantly, no doubt, let loose the bitter, corroding, wearing curse of animosity and ignorant misrule.

“Yes, those wise men had launched these turbulent spirits instead of peace on the heads of the free and enlightened, if bigoted white people of the South, and upon the black race.

“And never stopped to think, so it would seem, whether three millions strong of an ignorant, superstitious, long-degraded people, the majority of whom could not read nor write, and were ignorant of the first principles of truth and justice, could suddenly be lifted up to become the peers, and in many cases the superiors, of a cultured and refined people who had had long ages of culture and education behind them, and, above all, class prejudices.

“They never paused to ask themselves whether it was in reality just to the white race, or whether this superior class would quietly submit to the legal equality and rule of the inferior.