It should have been our endeavor to raise him from his barbarism by careful education, but that was forbidden by law. We should have emancipated him gradually, but that we could not do. We should have fitted him for citizenship before giving him the ballot, but we did the opposite. When emancipated, we should have educated him, but that was too much trouble. So from the outset we have done those things we ought not to have done, and left undone those things we ought to have done. We can see it now, but it requires little wit to see our blunders after they are made, and we are suffering the consequences. But note three points: 1st. The negro is a part of our nation. One person in every eight of our population is of African descent. He is going to stay a permanent part of our population. You cannot colonize him. He will not die out. The exodus is but a ripple, and that from one part of the nation to another. In the South he will live and thrive. His race increases with frightful rapidity. It does no good to grumble about it. The problem we must solve is to build up a peaceful, prosperous nation with such a population as we have. 2d. They are citizens; they have the right to vote; they will vote; the votes will be counted. The time will soon come when they will hold the balance of power in every Southern State. Political parties will bid for their vote, cater to their wishes and prejudices, and shape legislation to catch their votes. 3d. They are as a class miserably poor, densely ignorant and low in their moral conception and practice. Seventeen years ago they were turned loose without a cent of their own or a letter of the alphabet. That they have done well in acquiring property and knowledge under the circumstances, is the testimony of all who know them. Many of them have little homes of their own, and those who can read and write are numbered now by the hundred thousand. Take them altogether, it is estimated that they own on an average above $11 worth of property. It is an encouraging fact that in seventeen years they have accumulated so much as that. But what poverty does that indicate, with $11 for each man, woman and child among them! Here we must not forget that they are six hundred years behind the white race in civilization. They as a rule must be separated from the whites. We cannot absorb them, as we do the German, or Irish. They will be clannish by the nature of the case. The more ignorant they remain the more clannish they will grow, and our only safety lies in making them feel that their interest is not separated from, but identical with the other citizens of the Republic. I tell you, friends, that the mightiest question of the nation yet, is what to do with that great mass of half civilized, impoverished, ignorant people that cover the South. THE FREEDMEN. REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D.D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA. * * * * * TWENTY YEARS AFTER FREEDOM.