It is time to ask then, with searching inquiry, What is the divine plan
with regard to the Negro here, or, in other words, What is to be the
future of the Negro in America? In certain significant facts and
tendencies of his past and present, we may see the finger of Providence
pointing on to that future. Let us look at some of these facts and their
bearings.

First of all, the Negro is here, and that not of his own consent. He has
not forced himself upon the country; he has been forced to make this his
home against his will. We of the white race are responsible for his
presence. We invited him here in the most pressing manner, and would not
take "no" for an answer.

And he is here to stay. All the ingenious schemes for settling this
troublesome question by taking up the black race bodily and dropping it
in some roomy region far away from all possible contact with white
people, are utterly delusive. The Negro does not want to go elsewhere.
Having been compelled to make his home here for two centuries, he is
domesticated here, and has as good a right to remain as the white man.
Moreover, he can see as well as any one that this is the best country in
the world to live in--the land offering greatest opportunity for
advancement, the poor man's Paradise. Brought by force, he will not
relinquish his rightful hold here except by force. And we may be sure
that our National Government will never undertake the chimerical
experiment of deporting him to some other land, and pay the enormous
expense of it out of the National Treasury. Having been brought by the
providence of God to expiate its former wrongs to the black man at such
immense cost of treasure and blood, the Nation will be slow to tax
itself enormously to do him another wrong.