The ways of Providence are not measurable by our foot rules. We see that
slavery was unjust, uneconomic, and the worst training for citizenship in
such a government as ours. It stifled a number of germs that might have
produced a better development, such as individuality, responsibility, and
thrift,--germs absolutely necessary to the well-being of a race. It laid
no foundation of morality, but in place of morality saw cultivated a
superstitious, emotional, hysterical religion. It is true that it taught
a savage race subordination and obedience. Nor did it stifle certain
inherent temperamental virtues, faithfulness, often highly developed, and
frequently cheerfulness and philosophic contentment in a situation that
would have broken the spirit of a more sensitive race. In short, under
all the disadvantages of slavery the race showed certain fine traits,
qualities of humor and good humor, and capacity for devotion, which were
abundantly testified to by southerners during the progress of the Civil
War. It has, as a race, traits wholly distinct from those of the whites,
which are not only interesting, but might be a valuable contribution to a
cosmopolitan civilization; gifts also, such as the love of music, and
temperamental gayety, mixed with a note of sadness, as in the Hungarians.

But slavery brought about one result, and that the most difficult in the
development of a race from savagery, and especially a tropical race, a
race that has always been idle in the luxuriance of a nature that
supplied its physical needs with little labor. It taught the negro to
work, it transformed him, by compulsion it is true, into an industrial
being, and held him in the habit of industry for several generations.
Perhaps only force could do this, for it was a radical transformation. I
am glad to see that this result of slavery is recognized by Mr. Booker
Washington, the ablest and most clear-sighted leader the negro race has
ever had.