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government measure, and backed by the prestige of the nation power and reputation the whites submit to what the Bureau does while the blacks seem to rely wholly upon it in cases where its authority can be bought into use. When that protection and assistance which the blacks now receive from the Bureau is withdrawn from, and the whites find nothing interposing between the satisfying of their inclinations and the colored man but the sentiment of the community and the laws of the land, the black man will be made to suffer, unless the measures embraced in the proposed Constitution for this State for their protection be carried into effect by the people of the State. There is no charity, no respect, no regard for the negro nor his rights except as the whites are forced to acknowledge and respect them. Having been their property and recently subject to their will it is almost impossible for the whites to look upon the negros as "fellow citizens," and, having received their freedom and their rights from strangers, aliens and "enemies" in spite of their opposition and their wishes to the contrary, they do not respect their rights except as they are compelled to; and they certainly will not when left free to act as their feelings and impulses guide them. This feeling exists universally while only in isolated cases does it appear in open defiance and bold assertion; but it appears nevertheless, and more generally when the black man is attempting to assert his rights

Transcription Notes:
"government" is transcribed in full on both this page and the previous, as per TC instructions