In collecting and arranging the matter, for the volume, I am deeply indebted first to the living contributors who were so gracious and generous in their responses to the request for their help, and to the relatives of those who have passed into silence, for the loan of valuable books and manuscripts. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to Mr. John E. Bruce and Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg, President and Secretary of the Negro Society for Historical Research, for advice, suggestion, and best of all, for help in lending priceless books and manuscripts and for aid in copying therefrom. Again, we repeat, this volume is not a complete anthology; not the final word in Negro eloquence of to-day, nor yet a collection of all the best; it is merely a suggestion, a guide-post, pointing the way to a fuller work, a slight memorial of the birth-year of the race. THE EDITOR. _October, 1913._ TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE PRINCE SAUNDERS The People of Hayti and a Plan of Emigration 13 JAMES MCCUNE SMITH Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haytian Revolution 19 HILARY TEAGUE Liberia: Its Struggles and Its Promises 33 FREDERICK DOUGLASS What to the Slave is the Fourth of July 41 On the Unveiling of the Lincoln Monument 133 CHARLES H. LANGSTON Should Colored Men be Subject to the Pains and Penalties of the Fugitive Slave Law? 49 RICHARD T. GREENER Young Men to the Front 63 ROBERT BROWNE ELLIOT The Civil Rights Bill 67 JOHN R. LYNCH Civil Rights and Social Equality 89 ALEXANDER DUMAS, FILS On the Occasion of Taking His Seat in the French Academy 95 JOHN M. LANGSTON Centennial Anniversary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society 97 FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER Centennial Anniversary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society 101 HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET A Memorial Discourse 107 GEORGE L. RUFFIN Crispus Attucks 125 P. B. S. PINCHBACK Address During Presidential Campaign of 1880 151 ALEXANDER CRUMMELL The Black Woman of the South 159 JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN An Open Letter to the Educational League of Georgia 173 JAMES MADISON VANCE In the Wake of the Coming Ages 177