He pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than extinction;
recalled Crispus Attucks shedding his blood at the beginning of
the American Revolution, that white Americans might be free, while
black Americans remained in slavery; rehearsed the conduct of the
Negroes with Jackson at New Orleans; drew a vivid and pathetic
picture of the Southern slaves protecting and supporting the
families of their masters while the latter were fighting to
perpetuate black slavery; recounted the bravery of coloured troops
at Port Hudson and Forts Wagner and Pillow, and praised the
heroism of the black regiments that stormed El Caney and Santiago
to give freedom to the enslaved people of Cuba, forgetting, for
the time being, the unjust discrimination that law and custom make
against them in their own country.
In all of these things, the speaker declared, his race had
chosen the better part. And then he made his eloquent appeal to
the consciences of the white Americans: "When you have gotten the
full story or the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war, have heard it from the lips of Northern soldier and
Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionist and ex-masters, then decide
within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for
its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live
for its country."