always the temptation to

"Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning."

He who can most skilfully balance himself upon the advancing or receding
wave of white opinion concerning his race, is surest of such measure of
prosperity as is permitted to men of dark skins. There are Negro teachers
in the South--the privilege of teaching in their own schools is the one
respectable branch of the public service still left open to them--who, for
a grudging appropriation from a Southern legislature, will decry their own
race, approve their own degradation, and laud their oppressors. Deprived
of the right to vote, and, therefore, of any power to demand what is their
due, they feel impelled to buy the tolerance of the whites at any
sacrifice. If to live is the first duty of man, as perhaps it is the first
instinct, then those who thus stoop to conquer may be right. But is it
needful to stoop so low, and if so, where lies the ultimate
responsibility for this abasement?

I shall say nothing about the moral effect of disfranchisement upon the
white people, or upon the State itself. What slavery made of the Southern
whites is a matter of history. The abolition of slavery gave the South an
opportunity to emerge from barbarism. Present conditions indicate that the
spirit which dominated slavery still curses the fair section over which
that institution spread its blight.

And now, is the situation remediless? If not so, where lies the remedy?
First let us take up those remedies suggested by the men who approve of
disfranchisement, though they may sometimes deplore the method, or regret
the necessity.