If, on the other hand, seized by the brutal afterthought, we debauch the race thus caught in our talons, selfishly sucking their blood and brains in the future as in the past, what shall save us from national decadence?
Continuing his argument about the treatment of Black people, this passage issues a dire warning about the national decline that will result from continued racial exploitation.
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Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.