Had it been possible in the discussion of the Negro Question in the antebellum days as well as since to have removed its agitation from the political arena into the more penetrating light of the Forum of Reason, in which the vital questions of civilization alone find just and final settlement, what bloodshed might have been averted and what acrimony and sectional hatred might never have been aroused to disturb the peace, the prosperity and tranquility of our country? We are told that the Civil War was inevitable. Yet in this hour of dispassionate philosophy, it is clear to the unbiased student of Sociology that had the Negro Question--the institution of slavery--been more fully understood in its social as well as political bearing, the settlement of the question--one infinitely more just to all concerned and promotive of an infinitely higher political and social status, might have resulted from a peaceful abandonment of an institution wholly foreign to the American atmosphere and equally inimical to American progress--social and industrial. But it was not understood, and in failing to have been, lay the gravest consequences to the peace of the Nation.