"Again, to fix a limit to the development of a race is to run counter to the forces of evolution which are indisposed to recognize barriers of any kind. The human mind revolts at a '_ne plus ultra_.' The Great Unknown has hid himself in the heart of things, and yet the fainting soul of man lingers forever at the barred door of His palace in a sort of rebellious worship, determined to learn of Deity even the forbidden things. "The human mind is yet human when encased in a Negro body and if this mind chafes at limitations seemingly imposed by eternal forces, it will not submit to limitations arranged by finite creatures. "We have no doubt arrived at the point in this discussion where it is in order to suggest a remedy for these ills. The offerings of the humane class of Southern white people who would like to settle the whole question upon the basis of the development of the Negro race along restricted lines, must, because of the danger that lurks in the principle of repression, be rejected as totally inadequate. Above all things, the government must go out of the business of repression, must cease tagging the Negro as an outcast among his fellows. The men who administer affairs must be made amenable to the sentiment of the whole body politic and not simply that portion represented by the white citizenship. "One says: 'The nation felt all this and granted to the Negroes political power.' Explain to us those largely writ words 'Reconstruction Governments.' "Right gladly do we respond to the task assigned. "One whom the nation knows as perhaps the foremost living Southerner, who has acquired the art of speaking upon this whole matter in a way that seems to beget at least a respectful hearing everywhere, says: 'Few reasonable men now charge the Negroes at large with more than ignorance and an invincible faculty for being worked on.' "To this we make reply, the overturning of slavery in the South was revolutionary and not evolutionary. There was no spiritual cataclysm to correspond with the political one. He who on one day ruled _over_ the Negro was found spiritually unprepared to rule _with_ him on the succeeding day. "When, therefore, the Negroes were approached by two sets of men, the one set, composed of the former ruling class of the South, equipped morally and intellectually for good government, but wrong at heart upon the great question of human rights, the other composed largely of carpet baggers, scalawags and bad administrators, but true to the principle of equality before the law, it ought not to be surprising that a race fresh from the galling yoke of slavery should choose the set that would look after their liberties.