Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/190

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

race, is needed for their defense as well as his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions, they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles in our national administration, but in preserving for their local communities the benefits of social order and economical and honest government. At least un- til the good offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried, the contrary conclusion can not be plausibly urged. If our great corpo- rations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limita- tions of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens, denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law, has severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practise it, and destroys the faith of those who sulVer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose breast that faith h;is been darkened is naturally the subject of flanyorons and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved ])y no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them 158

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