preserve inviolate the womanhood of the South which was entrusted to his
hands during the war. The finer sensibilities of his soul may have been
crushed out by years of slavery, but his heart was full of gratitude to
the white women of the North, who blessed his home and inspired his soul
in all these years of freedom. Faithful to his trust in both of these
instances, he should now have the impartial ear of the civilized world,
when he dares to speak for himself as against the infamy wherewith he
stands charged.

It is his regret, that, in his own defense, he must disclose to the world
that degree of dehumanizing brutality which fixes upon America the blot of
a national crime. Whatever faults and failings other nations may have in
their dealings with their own subjects or with other people, no other
civilized nation stands condemned before the world with a series of crimes
so peculiarly national. It becomes a painful duty of the Negro to
reproduce a record which shows that a large portion of the American people
avow anarchy, condone murder and defy the contempt of civilization. These
pages are written in no spirit of vindictiveness, for all who give the
subject consideration must concede that far too serious is the condition
of that civilized government in which the spirit of unrestrained outlawry
constantly increases in violence, and casts its blight over a continually
growing area of territory. We plead not for the colored people alone, but
for all victims of the terrible injustice which puts men and women to
death without form of law. During the year 1894, there were 132 persons
executed in the United States by due form of law, while in the same year,
197 persons were put to death by mobs who gave the victims no opportunity
to make a lawful defense. No comment need be made upon a condition of
public sentiment responsible for such alarming results.

The purpose of the pages which follow shall be to give the record which