When we have had eight hundred years as the whites to enlighten ourselves, it will be time enough to pronounce them incapable of civilization and enlightenment. The last election showed that they were intelligent enough to vote in a solid mass with the party that would give them their rights, and that too in face of the influence of the intelligence and wealth of the State, and in face of threats to take the bread from their very mouths. I have no antipathy toward the whites; I would drop the curtain of oblivion on the sod which contains the bones of my oppressed and wronged ancestors for two hundred and fifty years. Give us the franchise, and if we do not exercise it properly, you have the numbers to take it away from us. It would be impossible for the Negro to get justice in a State whereof he was not a full citizen. The prejudice of the entire court would be against him. I do not expect the Negro to take possession of the government; I want the franchise given him as an incentive to work to educate his children. I do not desire to discuss the question of the inferiority of races. Unpleasant truths must then be told; history tells us of your white ancestors who lived on the acorns which dropped from the oaks of Didona, and then worshipped the tree as a God. I call upon all men who would see justice done, to meet this question fairly, and fear not to record their votes." In the session of January 29th, he said: "Negroes vote in Ohio and Massachusetts, and in the latter State are elected to high office by rich men. He had found more prejudice against his race among the Yankees; and if they did him a kind act, they did not seem to do it with the generous spirit of Southern men. He could get nearer the latter; he had been raised with them. He was the sorrier on this account that they had refused him the rights which would make him a man, as the former were willing to do. He wanted this a white man's government, and wanted them to do the legislating as they had the intelligence and wealth; but he wanted the power to protect himself against unfriendly legislation. Justice should be like the Egyptian statue, blind and recognizing no color." Concerning intermarriage between whites and Negroes, Mr. Bradley, a delegate to the convention, having offered to insert in the constitution, a clause "forbidding matrimony between a white person and a person of African descent," on which point nearly all of the members spoke pro and con in that and the following days, Mr. Gray said: