Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/420

Rh superiority, and systematic turn of mind, will always have over the black. And if he would add to this in the scale, a moral superiority also, he would become very powerful. To the white gentlemen of the South may he applied the words which Victor Hugo addressed to the monarchs of Europe—

The slave population of the South is increasing every day in numbers, in intelligence; is becoming more intelligent through the influence of the free blacks and the mulattoes, who are daily increasing in the slave states, and who participate in the educational advantages of the whites. In a word, the black race is in a state of growth, in every way, in the Southern States. May the white race be wise enough to grow also, in spirit, in laws, in life! It has a great problem to solve. But I have hopes from the noble South, from the children of the light, from the truly emancipated in the slave states. They will bring the right thing about.

And that would not be difficult, if the women would but awake. But, ah! the greater number here sleep still—sleep still on soft couches, fanned by their slaves, not as free women. Man has so long talked to woman about her listening to the small voice, and that is good; but it is now time that she should listen to the great voice, to the voice of God's spirit in the human race, which sounds over the whole earth, and vibrates through all free nations. Of a truth, it is time!—time that she listened to it, that she became magnanimous in heart and in thought. “If the mothers became noble-minded, would not the sons be noble?” said one of America's noble women; and history replies “Yes!”

As regards the slave-owners, I may divide them into three classes: mammon-worshippers, patriarchs, and heroes, or men of progress. The first regard the slaves