Union is strength, has long since passed into a proverb. The colored people of the South should at once form associations, combine and make them strong, and live up to them by all hazards. All civilized races have risen by means of combination and co-operation. The Irishman, the German, the Frenchman, all come to this country poor, and they stay here but a short time before you see them succeeding in some branch of business. This success is not the result of individual effort—it is the result of combination and co-operation. Whatever an Irishman has to spend he puts in the till of one of his own countrymen, and that accounts for Irish success.

A German succeeds in this country because all his fellow-countrymen patronize him in whatever business he engages. A German will put himself to inconvenience, and go miles out of his way to spend money with one of his own race and nationality.

With all his fickleness, the Frenchman never forgets to find out and patronize one of his own people. Italians flock together and stand by each other, right or wrong. The Chinese are clannish, and stick by one another. The Caucasian race is the foremost in the world in everything that pertains to advanced civilization,—simply owing to the fact that an Englishman never passes the door of a countryman to patronize another race; and a Yankee is a Yankee all the days of his life, and will never desert his colors. But where is the Negro?

A gentlemanly and well-informed colored man came to me a few days since, wishing to impart to me some important information, and he commenced by saying: “Now, Doctor, what I am going to tell you, you may rely on its being true, because I got it from a white man—no nigger told me this.”

On Duke Street, in Alexandria, Va., resides an Irishman, who began business in that place a dozen years ago, with two jugs, one filled with whiskey, the other with molasses, a little pork, some vegetables, sugar and salt. On the opposite side of the street was our good friend, Mr. A. S. Perpener. The latter had a respectable provision store, minus the whiskey. Colored people inhabited the greater part of the street. Did they patronize their own countryman? Not a bit of it. The Irishman’s business increased rapidly; he soon enlarged his premises, adding wood and coal to his salables. Perpener did the same, but the blacks passed by and went over on the other side, gave their patronage to the son of Erin, who now has houses “to let,” but he will not rent them to colored tenants.

The Jews, though scattered throughout the world, are still Jews. Their race and their religion they have maintained in all countries and all ages. They never forsake each other. If they fall out, over some trade, they make up in time to combine against the rest of mankind. Shylock says: “I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.” Thus, the Jew, with all his love of money, will not throw off his religion to satisfy others, and for this we honor him.

It is the misfortune of our race that the impression prevails that “one nigger is as good as another.” Now this is a great error; there are colored men in this country as far ahead of others of their own race as Webster and Sumner were superior to the average white man.

Then, again, we have no confidence in each other. We consider the goods from the store of a white man necessarily better than can be purchased from a colored man.

No man ever succeeded who lacked confidence in himself. No race ever did or ever will prosper or make a respectable history which has no confidence in its own nationality.

Those who do not appreciate their own people will not be appreciated by other people. If a white man will pat a colored man on the shoulder, bow to him, and call him “Mr.,” he will go a mile out of his way to patronize him, if in doing so he passes a first-class dealer of his own race. I asked a colored man in Columbia if he patronized Mr. Frierson. He said, “No.” I inquired, “Why?” “He never invited me to his house in his life,” was the reply.

“Does the white man you deal with invite you?”

“No.”

“Then, why do you expect Mr. Frierson to do it?”

“Oh! he’s a nigger and I look for more from him than I do from a white man.” So it is clear that this is the result of jealousy.

The recent case of the ill-treatment of Cadet Whittaker, at West Point, shows most clearly the unsuspecting character of the negro, when dealing with whites. Although Whittaker had been repeatedly warned that an attack was to be made upon him, and especially told to look out for the assault the very night that the crime was committed, he laid down with his room-door unfastened, went off into a sound sleep, with no weapon or means of defence near him. This was, for all the world, like a negro. A Yankee would have had a revolver with every chamber loaded; an Irishman would have slept with one eye open, and a stout shillalah in his right hand, and in all probability somebody would have had a nice funeral after the attack. But that want of courage and energy, so characteristic of the race, permitted one of the foulest crimes to be perpetrated which has come to light for years.

But the most disgraceful part in this whole transaction lies with the Court of Investigation, now being conducted at West Point under the supervision of United States officials. The unfeeling and unruly cadets that outraged Whittaker, no doubt, laid a deep plan to cover up their tracks, and this was to make it appear that their victim had inflicted upon himself his own injuries. And acting upon this theory, one of the young scamps, who had no doubt been rehearsing for the occasion, volunteered to show the Court how the negro could have practised the imposition.

And, strange to say, these sage investigators sat quietly and looked on while the young ruffian laid down upon the floor, tied himself, and explained how the thing was done.

If the victim had been a white man and his persecutors black, does any one believe for a moment that such a theory would have been listened to?

Generations of oppression have done their work too thoroughly to have its traces wiped away in a dozen years. The race must be educated out of the ignorance in which it at present dwells, and lifted to a level with other races. Colored lawyers, doctors, artisans and mechanics, starve for patronage, while the negro is begging the white man to do his work. Combinations have made other races what they are to-day.

The great achievements of scientific men could not have been made practical by individual effort. The great works of genius could never have benefited the world, had those who composed them been mean and selfish. All great and useful enterprises have succeeded through the influence and energy of numbers.

I would not have it thought that all colored men are to be bought by the white man’s smiles, or to be frightened by intimidation. Far from it. In all the Southern States we have some of the noblest specimens of mankind,—men of genius, refinement, courage and liberality, ready to do and to die for the race.