He wuz workin’ as a standard-bearer, a tryin’ to make his people hear his cry to move forward into the Promised Land, into their own land, from whence they had been torn with violence, but to which they should return with knowledge and wisdom learned in the hard school of martyrdom and slavery. He knew that to preach this doctrine to all his people would be like tryin’ to stop the course of the wind by a shout. The old, the feeble, and those who wuz attached by strong ties of love or gratitude to this Western land—and Heaven knows there wuz many such who had received such kind treatment from the dominant race (if kindness is possible in slavery) that their hearts wuz knit to the spot where their old masters and mistresses wuz— [Illustration: “THE OLD, THE FEEBLE.”] These people he did not seek to disturb with dreams of new homes in a freer land—love makes labor light—they wuzn’t unhappy. And then there wuz many who had got peaceful homes in settlements and cities who wuz contented and doin’ well—or, that is, what they thought well—these Victor did not seek to change. But for the young, the educated, the resolute, the ambitious he tried to influence their eager, active minds with his own ideal of a New Republic. Where his people, so long down-trodden, might have a chance to become a great nation, with a future glorious with a grandeur the colder white race, never dreamed of. When Victor heard scoffin’ prophecies of the negro’s incapacity to govern himself or others, he thought of the example of that hero saint, Toussaint L’Ouverture. How he, a pure negro, with no white blood in his veins, carved out the freedom of his race. How, brave as a lion, this untaught man fought aginst overwhelmin’ odds, and won battles that the best-trained soldier would almost have despaired of; surmounted difficulties and won victories that would have proved well-nigh impossible to a Washington or a Napoleon. How, untaught in diplomacy, he reconciled conflictin’ interests that would have baffled our wisest statesmen. Clement and merciful, for he always shrank from causin’ bloodshed till war or ruin wuz inevitable. Generous, for when the storm burst his first thought wuz to save his master’s family. Wise and prudent, he founded and ruled over a peaceful and prosperous republic till he wuz betrayed to his ruin—not by the black race, but by the cupidity, and treachery, and envy of the white race. Perished by starvation in a dungeon for the sole fault of bein’ superior and nobler than the white people who envied his success and sought his overthrow. Victor thought if one of his own race could do this marvellous thing, amidst such warrin’ and diverse elements and opposin’ races, what would it not be possible for his people to do in a new and free country, in a state of peace and quiet, with only the interests and advancement of this one race to look after.