compelled to live in rags and wretchedness, and his wages kept back by fraud, denied a fair trial when accused of crime, he shall imitate the example of other oppressed classes and invokes some terrible explosive power as a means of bringing his oppressors to their senses, and making them respect the claims of justice? This would indeed be madness, but oppression will make even a wise man mad. It should not be forgotten that the negro is not what he was twenty years ago. Kossuth once said that bayonets think. The negro is beginning to think. Years ago a book had as little to say to him and had as little meaning for him as a brick. It was then a thing of darkness and silence. Now it is a thing of light and speech. Education, the sheet anchor of safety to society where liberty and justice are secure, is a dangerous thing to society in the presence of injustice and oppression. I pursue this thought no further. A hint to the wise ought to be sufficient. Let not my words be construed as a menace, but taken as I mean them--as a warning; not interpreted as inviting disaster, but considered as designed to avert disaster. Fellow-citizens, many things calculated to make us thoughtful have occurred since I addressed you on an occasion like this, two years ago; but nothing has occurred which ought to make us more thoughtful than the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the civil rights bill. That decision came upon the country like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. It came without warning. It was a surprise to enemies and a bitter disappointment to friends. Had the bench been composed of Democratic judges some such a decision might have come upon us without producing any very startling effect. But the fact was otherwise. This blow was dealt us in the house of our friends. The bench was composed of nine learned Republican judges, and of these nine honorable men only one came to our help, I mean Honorable Justice John M. Harlan. He stood up for the rights of colored citizens as those rights are defined by the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It was a magnificent spectacle, this grand representation of American justice standing alone, and the country will not soon forget it. Without meaning any disrespect to the Supreme Court, or reflecting upon the purity of its motives, I must say here, as I have said elsewhere, and shall say many times over if my life is spared, that that decision is the most striking illustration I have ever seen of how it is possible to keep alive the letter of the law and at the same time stab its spirit to death. Portia strictly construed the law of Venice for mercy, and this rule of construction has the approval of all the ages, but the Supreme Court of the United States construed American law against the weak and in the interest of prejudice and brutality. Never before was made so clear the meaning of Paul’s saying, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”