"Gentlemen, if that change could be effected to-morrow by the offering up of this life--of these lives now in your hands--I say these lives would be laid down gladly. Take them if you will. They are our pledge that we covet not lawlessness, but the law; our pledge that, having no law, we have been eager to act lawfully as we might. The reign of lawlessness and terror must end in this country. We must contrive some machinery of the law which shall command respect. We must not continually drag the name of the South--the name of America-- in the mire of lawlessness. To do that is to smirch the flag--the one flag of America. But we denounce and will always denounce that false decree which says that black is white; that inequality is equality; that lack of manhood is manhood itself; that the absence of a hearthstone can mean a home; that the absence of the home can mean a permanent society. "In the future the North, packed and crowded beyond endurance, with imported and herded white slaves who in time will demand the position of masters--as the blacks may legally demand that position here to- day--will pay her price for the right to make this plea. The South has already paid a thousand times for her right to make it to-day. With treasure she has paid for it; with roof-tree and hearth-tree she has paid it dear, and with the sacred tears of women. With the sacrifice of her own future she has paid for that right. But the South and the North belong together, not held apart by politics, but held together in brotherhood. In the name of all justice, let us hope that the South shall not be asked to pay the bitterest of all prices, the misunderstanding and the alienation of those whom she loves and would embrace as her brothers. Let us hope, in the name of mercy, if not of justice, that the South shall be understood as a region having a problem, a problem which is national, and not sectional, and _not political_. Let us in all fairness hope that our northern brothers will understand that the South is honest in her attempt to deal with that problem in her time, which is the time of to-day. "Your Honor, I do not depart from my argument. I am not here for wild talk regarding the relations of the two races. It is the ages alone which will decide that problem. But I am here to stand for the law and not for lawlessness. I am here to say that our flag, the American flag, is for all men, and for America; not for Africa alone, or for Europe alone, but for America. It is the flag of progress, not the flag of anarchy. It is the banner of civilization and not of savagery. That, and not the banner of Africa or of Europe, must be our ensign to-day.