In the face of such universal misrule, speculation and tyranny, there could be no greater misrepresentation of the truth than is contained in the oft-reiterated accusation, that the white people of the South are fierce, aggressive and defiant in their conduct towards those placed in authority over them by the Federal or State law. Aggressive and defiant! How vain and worse than useless would such conduct be against the overwhelming power of the tyrants who oppose them. It is against all the instincts of life, when despair has taken the place of hope. Defiant? Does the poor unresisting hare, when trembling with frenzied apprehension under the feet and wide open jaws of the hound exhibit much defiance, or much hope of victory in a death struggle with its cruel and merciless foe? It makes no resistance--no motion or attitude of battle for life except that involuntary and spasmodic action produced by pain and suffering. [Illustration: "Ef yu wus to brake loose und drap, yu'd bust up ebery scallyhorg in de Souf."] CHAPTER IV. TYPES AND SHADOWS. The development of the negro, educationally, has been embarrassed by natural causes that he has been unable to overcome. In a great variety of instances he has failed to be actuated by an intellectual or benevolent reason. In the evolution of the negro from a savage to a slave, from a slave to a freedman, and from a freedman to a citizen, only in exceptional instances has he been able to originate a theory or experiment that has been profitable to himself or others. No high state of civilization has ever originated from them. History teaches us that a nation may pass through an ascending or descending career. It may, by long-continued discipline, exhibit a general, mental advance; or it may go through other demoralizing processes, until it descends to the very bottom of animal existence.