No individual could possibly know that they were true, and they are utterly abhorrent to human nature and human experience. To believe them, one must read the negro out of the human family. If they are the fruit of this author's observation, one shudders to contemplate the depths of vice which he has fathomed. His characterization of colored preachers is also unjust. The greatest preacher of America did not escape calumny, if he avoided sin.
Human character is a compound of good and evil.
But here the parallel between these men and this author fails, for what good thing Thomas had ever done for his people before he dealt them this traitorous blow is not of record among the traditions of his people, nor in the archives of the South Carolina Legislature of which he claims to have been a valuable member. That membership in that body should be set forward by a writer and accepted by a publisher as a certificate of moral character, is the most curious feature of this whole remarkable performance. Among the glimmerings of reason which here and there may be found in this book, is the statement that the colored people are deprived of social stimulus because the white people will not associate or intermarry with them. The strongest argument against the negro suggested by this book is the existence of the book itself. As one of a race which has but just begun to win a hearing in the forum of letters, the author might have found a different theme.