The Southern Confederacy is now a political myth. In its attempt to make Negro Slavery its corner stone, it carved the gravestones of more than a million men. Upon the proclamation of peace and universal freedom, the nation's joy was without bounds. In the intense enthusiasm of the moment over the "new birth of freedom," and the overthrow of the slave power, the doctrine of the "proper status of the Negro" seemed to be eternally repudiated and the agitations relating to it seemed indeed "forever settled." But in the throes of its joy, there suddenly dawned upon the nation the fact that the problems pertaining to the Negro had, because of freedom, become more stupendous than even the question of slavery had been. Henceforth the Negro Problem was to test severely the integrity of republican principles. This was the critical period of the history of the Negro in America. Within almost the twinkling of an eye, by an exigency of one of the world's greatest wars, his status had been suddenly changed. The slave became a free man by the dispensation of Providence and against the will of his master. A free man, yet penniless and homeless. A man of toil, but one whose own and whose ancestral toil had created a material and social grandeur which now mocked at his poverty and arrogantly denied him a share in its blessings. A free man, but ignorant, the greatest curse imposed by his former status which had contributed to the enlightenment of others. A freeman, but helpless in the face of an impending persecution. He, whose labor had contributed to the comfort and social happiness of others,--who, while they were testing on scores of battle fields their power to rob him of his freedom, was caring for and protecting their wives and daughters and furnishing the sinews of the unholy war--was now at the mercy of those who had gone forth to battle with the cry that, "slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." The Thirteenth Amendment became the law of the land through the travail of war. But the war had sapped the Nation's strength, had cost nearly a million lives and created a debt of three billions. Weary of strife and vexation, the nation was fain to leave the settlement of the problems, to which the new status of the Negro had given rise, to those among whom he was to live, i.e., to his former masters. This was indeed a critical period in the history of the Negro race in the United States and the lessons of this period are exceedingly important in the light of the present attack upon the political rights of the black man.