What  prospect  has  he  in  this  turmoil  of  human  progress  ?
The  people  of  Africa  seem  certainly  not  lost  beyond
the  hope  of  recovery.  They  do  not  look  like  a  decrepit,
wasted,  and  ruined  race.  Nobody  can  look  at  the  mus-
cular strength  of  the  Negro,  and  call  him  the  offspring
of  a  dying  race.  Let  us  view  him  in  Africa !  They  say
he  is  inferior  to  us.  Well ;  but  is  it  impossible  to  raise
him  to  any  higher  degree  of  culture  ?  Who  can  affirm
that,  in  the  face  of  the  most  modern  developments  of  our
heroic  travelers,  Vogel,  Barth,  and  Livingstone?  There
seems  to  be  a  difference  in  tribes  among  them,  just  as  any-
where else.  But,  on  the  whole,  they  are  not  a  people  of
the  lowest  character.  Though  they  were  isolated  so  many
centuries,  they  did  not  remain  mere  hunters.  They
reached,  by  themselves,  some  agriculture,  some  manufac-
ture, some  commerce,  some  civilization.  Or,  if  we  view
them  in  their  contact  witli  more  civilized  nations,  they  cer-
tainly are  not  void  of  the  power  of  imitating.  In  Africa
itself  they  have  manufactures  of  iron  slave-chains — the
best  that  are  made,  they  say.  And  here,  our  own  experi-
ence does  certainly  not  show  that  the  Xegro,  North  or


THE    DEVELOPMENT.  99

South,  is  incapable  of  progress.  But  how  can  we  expect
much  from  him  in  this  our  land  ?  In  the  South  he  is  a  slave,
all  direct  means  of  progress  being  withheld  from  him.  In
the  North  he  was  emancipated  rashly,  cast  upon  a  world
whose  ways  he  did  not  know,  generally  unaccustomed  to
managing  his  own  business  or  owning  property;  in  a  word,
untaught  in  the  lessons  of  liberty.  Besides,  he  was  thrown
among  a  crowd  of  Yankees,  Dutchmen,  Irishmen,  and
Germans,  all  of  them  descendants  of  a  race  long  civil-
zed,  all  eager  after  gain,  and  all  skillful  in  obtaining  it.
