If it shall seem to those who have no actual knowledge upon the subject that I have overdrawn the picture, I would refer them to the papers which I have cited, and the works which I have quoted, and to the great body of the Southern people who have had experience of what Negro domination imports. What has been stated has been said in no feeling of personal hostility, or even unfriendliness to the Negro, for I have no unfriendliness toward any Negro on earth; on the contrary, I have a feeling of real friendliness toward many of that race, and am the well-wisher of the whole people. What is contained in this paper is stated under a sense of duty, with the hope and in the belief that it may serve to call attention to the real facts in the case; that it may help to discard from the discussion all mere sentimentality or prejudice, and to base the future consideration of the matter upon the only solid ground—the ground of naked fact. The examples cited, if they establish anything, establish the fact that the Negro race does not possess, in any development which he has yet attained, the fundamental elements of character, the essential qualifications to conduct a government, even for himself, and that if the reins of government be intrusted to his unaided hands, he will fling reason to the winds, and drive to ruin. Were this, however, only Hayti or Liberia, we might bear it with such philosophic patience as our philanthropy calls to our aid, but we have nearer home a proof not less overwhelming of this truth. The Negro has had control of the government in the Southern States; for eight years a number of Southern States were partly, and three of them were wholly given up to the control of the Negroes, directed by men of, at least, ability and experience, and sustained by the invigorating influence of the entire North. It was “an experiment” entered on with “enthusiasm.” The reconstruction acts gave the black the absolute right of suffrage, and disfranchised the whites. The Negro was invested with absolute power, and turned loose. He selected his rulers. The entire weight of the government—an immense force—was under the misapprehension, born of the passion which then reigned, thrown blindly in the Negroes’ favor; whatever they asserted was believed; whatever they demanded was done; the ballot was given them, and all the forms established by generations of Caucasian patriots and jurists, and consecrated by centuries of Caucasian blood, were solemnly set up and solemnly followed. The Negro at least then selected his own rulers. The Negro had thus his opportunity then, if ever. The North had put him up as a citizen against the protest of the South, and stood obliged to sustain him. What was the result? Such a riot of folly and extravagance, such a travesty of justice, such a mummery of government as was never before witnessed, save in those countries in which he had himself furnished the illustration.