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ADDRESS OF REV. F.P. WOODBURY, D.D.

I feel that I have learned a great deal to-day; and as the last speaker
spoke concerning Africa, an idea has come into my mind which I may
express. Here we have on one side of the great ocean, Africa; on the
other side, America. We have here a race conflict; on the one side eight
millions of blacks, we will say, and perhaps eight millions of
irreconcilable whites on the other. And these dominant eight millions of
white men maintain, with the utmost pertinacity--and they have the power
in their right hand so far as we can see--that they propose to rule and
keep down those eight millions of black men. I have seen the title of a
book recently published, "An Appeal to Pharoah," which is vouched for as
a calm and temperate discussion of the question whether, after all, we
are not going to get by this race difficulty by a great deportation to
Africa. It is a good deal to raise the question of eight millions of men
leaving one country and going across the ocean and settling in another
continent. But isn't there something in it after all? Might it not
compose the differences? I know that the cost would be very large, but
careful estimates go to show that the cost is not anywhere near the
amount we spent in our civil war. On the one side, we have these eight
millions of black men--ignorant, very largely superstitious, still
somewhat above those of the same color in Africa, and plunged here into
an antagonism which is deep, and bitter, and hopeless. On the other
side, we have these eight millions of white people who do not accept the
results of the war. Isn't it better that eight millions shall go? I
don't know. I think it deserves serious consideration.

But when the question arises for practical consideration, I think there