The Future of the Colored Race in America

The Future of the Colored Race in America is a short work on slavery written by William Aikman, Pastor of the Hanover Street Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, Delaware.

Excerpts:

In whatever way the present civil war in America shall result, it is certain that the future condition of the colored race in this country will be the question over-mastering all others for many years to come. It has already pushed itself into the foremost place. However it may be true, that slavery and the negro were not the proximate causes of this war, no one who gives any candid thought to the matter can fail to recognize the fact, that back of all, this stands as the grand first occasion of it. Had there been no slavery, there would have been no war. General Jackson was only partly right when he said, that while in his day the tariff was made the pretext of secession, and that by and by slavery would take its place, but that neither would be the true motive of disunion; that a desire for a separate confederacy was the final cause.