The Presidential Election of 1880
Christian Recorder: March 25, 1880
I have thought it prudent to keep out of the Presidential agitation for the reason that I am down upon the whole nation. I think my race has been treated by it with the kindness that a hungry snake treats a helpless frog. I am as near a rebel to this Government as any Negro ever got to be. My race has been treated with so much treachery, vile contempt and diabolical meanness, that I have but little in the country anyway, except to eke out my existence and get out of this world with a prospect of finding a better. I am not talking at random. I have been in nearly all parts of the entire nation within the last for years, and know whereof I speak, and have studied the negro phase as thoroughly as my ability would enable me, for I have “the negro on the brain.” And I wish had never been born, so that I might not have been a witness to the deviltry perpetrated upon my people by a so-called civilized country.
