to take breath for the fiercer renewal of the strife, they saw some
vultures in the distance, waiting to feast on the one which should
fall. They at once made up their quarrel, saying, "It is better
for us to be friends, than to become the food of crows or
vultures."--_Æsop's Fables_.




CHAPTER I

_Black_


There is no question to-day in American politics more unsettled than
the negro question; nor has there been a time since the adoption of
the Federal Constitution when this question has not, in one shape or
another, been a disturbing element, a deep-rooted cancer, upon the
body of our society, frequently occupying public attention to the
exclusion of all other questions. It appears to possess, as no other
question, the elements of perennial vitality.

The introduction of African slaves into the colony of Virginia in
August, 1619, was the beginning of an agitation, a problem, the
solution of which no man, even at this late date, can predict,
although many wise men have prophesied.

History--the record of human error, cruelty and misdirected
zeal--furnishes no more striking anomaly than the British Puritan
fleeing from princely rule and tyranny and dragging at his heels the