Negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.
And be these juggling friends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear And break it to our hope.
We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.
The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.
There is something so ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off as to render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned into ridicule.
There has been some conditionalities in the sense that this debt relief is supposed to release resources to be devoted to education, healthcare and infrastructure, for example. In the past African government made such promises but they never carried them out.
A lobster bisque ought to be the crowning glory of the potager. And this one was excellent. Silky as a gigolo's compliment and fishy as a chancellor's promise.