Lorenzo Greene

"I had long contemplated the failure of the Negro to strike one solitary blow for his own freedom during the War of the Rebellion, when he might easily, by an uprising, have plunged the South into chaotic impotency, thereby compelling the return of Southern soldiers to defend their hearthstones. Many Northerners desired just such an event. But the Southern Negro not only did not rise in vindictiveness but even toiled in the field, worked in factories and mines, and built fortifications for his masters. ... In other words, the Negro forged and repaired the chains for his own bondage when he should have, by revolting, ignited a monster conflagration in the rear of the Confederacy, which would have consumed it much earlier than it was."