In introducing Mr. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, on the occasion of the
Twenty-fourth Anniversary of Emancipation in the District of
Columbia, Prof. J. M. GREGORY made the following remarks:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: For many years prior to 1861 the friends of
freedom, seeing the prominence slavery had acquired because of its
existence at the capital of the nation, and the evil influence which it
necessarily exerted upon legislation, sought in vain by petitions and
other measures for its abolition in the District of Columbia. It was
not, however, till the national conscience began to be quickened by the
reverses of our armies, and legislators to realize the dangers which
threatened the life of the nation, that the cause could muster
sufficient strength to gain a hearing in Congress.
On the 16th of December, 1861, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced
into the Senate a bill providing for the immediate emancipation of
slaves in the District upon the payment to the owners of $300 for each
slave. As was to be expected the bill was antagonized by pro-slavery men
in the Senate and House. They feared that the measure proposed was the
entering wedge for the final overthrow of their pet institution in the
South. As subsequent events proved their fears were not without
foundation. Notwithstanding the bitter opposition which the bill
encountered, it passed both houses of Congress in less than four months
from its first introduction in the Senate, and was approved by the
President on the 16th of April, just twenty-four years ago to-day.
The debates on this and kindred questions makes memorable the second
session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and they are of special interest
because they indicated a new departure in the line of argument pursued
by Northern statesmen. They based their arguments for emancipation, not
upon grounds of expediency, but the great principles of right and
justice.
The importance of this act must not be overlooked. It struck the
shackles from the limbs of 3,000 human beings and placed them in the
ranks of freemen. It took away the shame which slavery had brought upon
the National Capital. But this was not all. It elevated the nation in
its own eyes and in the eyes of the civilized world, and roused a
feeling of patriotism and pride. It called forth an expression from the
National Legislature, and a majority of the members by solemn vote
arrayed themselves on the side of emancipation and liberty, in
opposition to slavery and oppression. It was the forerunner of the great
emancipation proclamation--that proclamation which more than all his
other acts makes the name of Abraham Lincoln secure to all posterity.
In our rejoicing on this occasion we should not forget to hold in
grateful remembrance the men whose votes secured the passage of the
bill, and especially its author, a man who by his works proved himself a
friend of the oppressed, Hon. Henry Wilson, the benefactor of the
District.
When the emancipation bill became a law in 1862, there were 15,000
colored people in the District of Columbia, 12,000 of whom were free and
the remainder slaves. They maintained eight schools for the education of
their children, and were the owners of twelve churches, which cost about
$75,000. With the increase of population came the demand for more
churches, so that to-day they have eighty churches and missions in the
District. Many of the churches are very valuable and located on some of
the principal streets and avenues, the new Metropolitan Church alone
being valued at $100,000.
Under the old system the word “colored” appeared opposite the name of
each colored person paying taxes on the books of the Collector of Taxes.
Now, no such distinction is made, and there are no data from which the
number paying taxes among colored citizens can be definitely known. From
information received at the tax office, I judge that there are about 180
persons with property assessed individually at $1,000, the assessed
valuation of real estate in this District being two-thirds to actual
cash valuation. It will be quite in keeping with the facts to say that
two of our citizens have acquired property valued at $100,000 each, two
at $75,000, six at $25,000, fifteen at $20,000, twenty at $10,000, and
fifty at $5,000, making in the aggregate at least a million of dollars.
I am positively assured that the increase in the valuation of property
owned by colored men since emancipation is 100 per cent. This, we think,
is a most creditable showing for our property interests.
Of the 15,000 colored people in the District at the time of emancipation
there were proportionately more skilled carpenters and masons than now
in a population of 70,000. But labor has become more diversified. We are
now engaged in pursuits in which we had no experience before the war. In
1861 a colored lawyer was a personage unknown to the national capital.
Now half a dozen colored lawyers successfully practice their profession
in the courts of the District. Then we had no physicians, regular
graduates of medical schools; now a dozen or more follow the practice of
medicine in the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and are recognized
as men of skill and ability by the profession. One of these physicians,
with his assistant, is in charge of the Freedman’s Hospital, one of the
largest and most successful hospitals in the country. Government
employment tends to keep out many from some business occupations in
which the people in other large cities engage, but this disadvantage, if
disadvantage it be considered, operates no more against us than against
other citizens.
The greatest progress made, however, and that which is necessarily the
first in order of time and importance, has been in matters of education.
The schools have increased from 8 to 174, with an average attendance of
9,000 children, giving employment to more than 100 teachers. Twelve of
the school-houses in which these schools are conducted are among the
largest and most convenient school buildings in the District. Too much
cannot be said in praise of the teachers, supervising principals,
superintendent and trustees, for it is by their combined efforts largely
that the schools have attained that degree of excellence for which they
are known. Howard University and Wayland Seminary, placed on heights
commanding beautiful views of Washington, are among the results of
emancipation. These institutions grew out of the necessities of the
times to meet the wants of colored youth for higher and professional
education. It is proper that we should take pride in our schools and
institutions of learning, for they are the chief instruments through
which our children are to receive the training which will fit them to
properly discharge the duties that will afterward devolve upon them as
men and women and to elevate the race to an equality of development and
enlightenment with other peoples.
We often hear the question asked, “What are we to do with the
Americanized negro?” Articles have appeared in newspapers, pamphlets,
and magazines giving what the author regards as a proper solution of
the negro problem, so-called. But I ask why should there be a negro
problem any more than a problem for any other class of the American
people? We need not go far to seek the answer. It is found in the fact
that in certain parts of our country the people are not willing to
receive the negro into full fellowship and to grant him the civil and
political rights enjoyed in common by other citizens. They take from him
the means of elevation and then reproach him with inferiority. They
would rejoice to rid the country of his presence by colonization, but
seeing the utter hopelessness of the colonization scheme, they seek to
inflame the public mind against him by constant appeals to the low and
narrow prejudices entertained by certain classes of the American people.
When the 300 colored citizens from Cleveland visited President-elect
Garfield at Mentor, he said in reply to the address, to which he had
given respectful attention, that he did not profess to be more of a
friend to colored men than hundreds of others, but he was in favor of
giving, and, so far as it was consistent with the duties of his office,
would give them _opportunity_ to achieve success for themselves. This is
all we ask to-day. This is all we can reasonably ask. Give us fair play,
equal opportunity, and we will work out our own destinies.
Ten years ago, in this city, on the occasion of the unveiling of the
Freedman’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln, an eminent divine,
after congratulating the orator of the day upon his masterly portrayal
of the character of the martyr President, turned to General Grant and
said: “There is but one Frederick Douglass.” This distinguished citizen,
the orator who paid the eloquent tribute to the memory of Mr. Lincoln on
the occasion referred to, the Hon. Frederick Douglass, will now address
you.
At the conclusion of Prof. Gregory’s remarks Mr. Douglass said:
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I appear before you again, and for the
third time since my residence among you, to assist in the celebration of
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. And while I highly
appreciate the honor and the confidence implied in your call upon me to
do so, when I consider the importance of the task it has imposed, I can
say in all sincerity, as I have said before, that I wish that your
choice of speaker had fallen upon one of our young men, quite as well
qualified to serve you as myself. I want to see them coming to the front
as I am retiring to the rear. Then the fact that I have several times
addressed you upon subjects naturally suggested by the recurrence of
this interesting anniversary is, of itself, somewhat embarrassing. It is
not an easy task to speak many times on the same subject, before the
same audience, without repeating the same views and sentiments. If,
therefore, you find me committing this offence to-day, you will consider
the difficulty of avoiding it, and also that the same views and
sentiments are as pertinent and necessary to-day as years ago. You need
not fear, however, that I shall inflict upon you any one of my former
orations. I am not bound by any such necessity. The field is broad, and
the material is abundant. The phases of public affairs touching the
colored people of the United States are never stationary. They change
with every season, and often many times in the course of a single year.
There is no standing still for anybody in this world. We are either
rising or falling, advancing or retreating.
Last year, at this time, we were confronted with an unusual and somewhat
alarming state of facts. We stood at the gateway of a new and strange
administration. After wandering about during twenty-four years, seeking
rest and finding none, often hungry and sometimes thirsty, and, though
not feeding swine or eating husks, yet not unfrequently found in very
low places and wasting the substance of the national family, our
prodigal Democratic son, with one tremendous effort of will, returned to
the White House, and was received with every demonstration of parental
joy and gladness. Of course this did not take place without a murmur of
complaint and disapproval. There was an elder brother here as elsewhere;
one who had remained at home, worked the old farm, kept the fences in
repair; one who had done his duty and made things in the old house
comfortable and pleasant generally. Indeed, but for his elder brother,
the Republican party, the house would have been broken up, the whole
family turned out of doors and scattered in poverty and destitution. It
was natural, therefore, when this elder brother saw the great doings at
the White House one year ago, when he heard the music and saw the
dancing, and learned what it was all about, he was not over well
pleased, and thought his father not only soft-hearted, but a little
soft-headed, and a trifle ungrateful, if not crazy withal. But elder
brothers, you know, are usually reasonable and patient, and are
generally quite submissive to parental authority, and though he knew
the bad character of the young truant who had now come home, he hoped he
had reformed. How far this cheerful and patient hope has been justified
by one year of this administration I will not now stop to say; I may,
however, remark, as a prelude to what I shall hereafter say, that as far
as the colored people of the country are concerned, their condition
seems no better and not much worse than under previous administrations.
Lynch law, violence, and murder have gone on about the same as formerly,
and without the least show of Federal interference or popular rebuke.
The Constitution has been openly violated with the usual impunity, and
the colored vote has been as completely nullified, suppressed, and
scouted as if the fifteenth amendment formed no part of the
Constitution, and as if every colored citizen of the South had been
struck dead by lightning or blown to atoms by dynamite. There have also
been the usual number of outrages committed against the civil rights of
colored citizens on highways and by-ways, by land and by water, and the
courts of the country, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States, have shown the same disposition to punish the innocent
and shield the guilty, as during the presidency of Mr. Arthur. Perhaps
colored men have fared a little worse, so far as office-holding is
concerned. In some of the Departments, I am sorry to say, there have
been many dismissals, but, even in this respect, colored men have not
suffered much more than one-armed soldiers, and other loyal white men,
whose places were wanted by deserving Democrats. Upon the whole, candor
compels me to admit that this twenty-fourth year of our freedom finds us
thoughtful, somewhat mystified by what is passing around us, but
hopeful, strong to suffer, and yet strong to strive, with a moderate
degree of faith that, under the Constitution and its amendments, we
shall yet be clothed with dignity of freedom and American citizenship.
But more of this in the right place.
I take it that no apology is needed for these annual celebrations, for,
notwithstanding the unfriendly outlook of affairs, we have yet much over
which to rejoice. Besides, such demonstrations of popular feeling in
regard to large benefits received and progress made, are consistent with
and creditable to human nature. They have been observed all along the
line of by-gone ages, and are peculiar to no class, clime, race, or
color. From the day that Moses is said to have smote the Red Sea, and
the Hebrews passed safely over from Egyptian bondage, leaving Pharaoh
overwhelmed and struggling with that hell of waters, down to the 4th of
July, 1776, when the fathers of this Republic threw off the British
yoke, declared their independence, and appealed to the god of battles,
similar events to that which we now celebrate have been gratefully and
joyfully commemorated.
If, for any reason, I feel like apologizing to-day, it is not for this
celebration, but for an incident connected with it, and by which it is
greatly marred. For the first time since the emancipation of the slaves
of the District of Columbia we have two celebrations in progress at the
same time. This should not be so. By this fact we have said to the world
that we are not sufficiently united as a people to celebrate our freedom
together. This spectacle of division among men working for a common
cause is not pleasing in any case, and is especially displeasing and
shocking in this instance. Without attempting to show which party is to
blame in this controversy, I have no hesitation in saying that this
division itself is most unfortunate, disgraceful, and mortifying. It
cannot fail, I fear, to make an unfavorable impression for us upon
thoughtful observers. But, standing here as your mouthpiece to-day, I
beg the disgusted public to remember that colored men are but men, and
that the best men will sometimes differ, and will often differ more
widely and violently about trifles than about things of substance, where
a difference of opinion would be at least dignified. Something must,
however, be pardoned to the spirit of liberty, especially in those who
have but recently acquired liberty. There is always some awkwardness in
the gait of men who, for the first time, have on their Sunday clothes.
When we have enjoyed the blessings of liberty longer we shall put away
such childish things and shall act more wisely. We shall think more of a
common cause and its requirements and less of obligation to support the
claims of rival individual leaders. Depend upon it, a repetition of this
spectacle will bring our celebrations into disgrace and make them
despicable.
The thought is already gaining ground, that we have not heretofore
received the best influence which this anniversary is capable of
exerting; that tinsel show, gaudy display, and straggling processions,
which empty the alleys and dark places of our city into the broad
daylight of our thronged streets and avenues, thus thrusting upon the
public view a vastly undue proportion of the most unfortunate,
unimproved, and unprogressive class of the colored people, and thereby
inviting public disgust and contempt, and repelling the more thrifty and
self-respecting among us, is a positive hurt to the whole colored
population of this city. These annual celebrations of ours should be so
arranged as to make a favorable impression for us upon ourselves and
upon our fellow-citizens. They should bring into notice the very best
elements of our colored population, and in what is said and done on
these occasions, we should find a deeper and broader comprehension of
our relations and duties. They should kindle in us higher hopes, nobler
aspirations, and stimulate us to more earnest endeavors; they should
help us to shorten the distance between ourselves and the more highly
advanced and highly favored people among whom we are. If they fail to
produce, in some measure, such results, they had better be discontinued.
I am sure that such a lecture as I have now given on this point may be
distasteful to a part of this assembly. But I can say, in all truth,
that nothing short of a profound desire to promote the best interests of
all concerned, has emboldened me to run the risk of such displeasure,
and I hope the motive will excuse my offence.
And now, fellow-citizens, I turn away from this and other merely race
considerations, to those common to all our fellow citizens, yet happily
those in which we, too, are included. I call attention to the proposed
celebration of the centennial anniversary of our present form of
government. The year 1789 will never cease to be memorable in the
history and progress of the American people. It was in that year of
grace that the founders of the American Republic, having tested the
strength and discovered the weakness of the old articles of colonial
confederation, bravely decided to lay those articles aside as no longer
adequate to successful and permanent national existence, and resolved to
form a new compact and adopt a new constitution, better suited, in their
judgment, to their national character and to their governmental wants.
In this instrument they set forth six definite and cardinal objects to
be attained by this new departure. These were: First. “To form a more
perfect union.” Second. “To establish justice.” Third. “To provide for
the common defense.” Fourth. “To insure domestic tranquillity.” Fifth.
“To promote the general welfare.” And sixth. “Secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Perhaps there never was an
instrument framed by men at the beginning of any national career
designed to accomplish nobler objects than those set forth in the
preamble of this constitution. They are objects worthy of a great
nation, worthy of those who gave to the world the immortal Declaration
of Independence, in which they asserted the equal rights of man, and
boldly declared in the face of all the divine right governments of
Europe the doctrine that governments derive their right to govern from
the consent of the governed.
How far these fundamental objects, solemnly set forth in the
Constitution, have been realized by the practical operation of the
Government created under it, I will not stop just now to state or
explain. Whether the Union has been perfectly formed, whether under the
ægis of the Constitution the sacred principle of justice has been
established, whether the general welfare has been promoted, or whether
the blessings of liberty have been secured, are questions to which
reference may be made in a subsequent part of this address. For the
present I refer to this grand starting point in the nation’s history for
another purpose. I wish simply to remind you of the flight of time; that
we are now drawing near the close of the first century of our national
existence, and the notice that should be taken of that fact. Without
going into the general questions raised a moment ago, as to the
fulfillment of what was promised in the Constitution, we may, in
passing, affirm what must be admitted by all, that under this form of
government so happily described, and so faithfully upheld by the great
lamented Abraham Lincoln, as “Government of the people, by the people,
and for the people,” this nation has become rich, great, progressive,
and strong. This fact is cheerfully acknowledged by the whole sisterhood
of contemporaneous nations. From thirteen comparatively weak and
sparsely populated States, skirting and hovering along the line of our
Atlantic coast, constituting a mere string of isolated communities, we
now have thirty-eight States covering our broad continent, extending
from east to west, and from sea to sea. Under our Constitution the
desert and solitary places have been reclaimed and made to blossom as
the rose. From a population of seven millions, we have reached the
enormous number of fifty millions; and in less than half a century we
shall have double that number. Such an augmentation of wealth, power,
and population has no example in the experience of any nation in ancient
or modern times. The mind grows dizzy in contemplation of the future of
a country so great and so increasing in greatness, and to whose
greatness there seems to be no limit. The question naturally arises,
what is to be the effect of such accumulated wealth, such vast increase
of population, such expanded domain, and such augmentation of national
power? Plainly enough either one of two very opposite conditions may
arise. It may either blast or bless, it may lift us to heaven or sink us
to perdition.
If we shall become proud, selfish, imperious, oppressive, and rapacious;
if we shall persist in trampling on the weak and exalting the strong,
worshipping the rich and despising the poor, our doom as a nation is
already foreshadowed.
That Almighty Power recognized in one form or another by all thoughtful
men; that Almighty Power which controls every atom of the earth, and
governs the universe; that Almighty Power which stood and measured the
globe, which beheld and drove asunder the nations, will surely deal with
us in the future as that Power has dealt in the past with other wicked
nations--it will bring us to dust and ashes. The rule of life for
individuals and for nations is the same. Neither can escape the
consequences of transgression. As they sow, so shall they reap. There is
no salvation for either outside of a life of truth and justice.
Contradiction to this in theory, for either individuals or nations, is a
damning heresy; and contradiction to this in practice is certain
destruction.
Large and imposing plans are just now proposed, and are maturing, for
the appropriate celebration of this first centennial year of our
national life. If these plans should be perfected and executed, as they
probably will be, and as they certainly should be, Washington will
witness a demonstration in this line far transcending in grandeur and
sublimity the centennial exposition in the city of Philadelphia ten
years ago.
These celebrations, like our own, have large uses. They serve as lofty
pedestals or platforms from which the national patriotism and
intelligence may survey the past, and, in some sense, penetrate and
divine the national future.
It is also fit and proper that our young and beautiful city of
Washington should be the theatre of such a grand national centennial
demonstration. It is the capital of the nation, and is, in some sense,
the shining sun of our national system, around which our thirty-eight
States, linked and inter-linked in one unbroken national interest,
revolve in union. Upon this spot no one citizen has more rights than
another. The right to be here is vested in all alike. Distance does not
diminish or alienate, contiguity does not increase any man’s right on
this soil. In this capital of the nation California is equal to
Virginia, and, as Webster said of Bunker Hill, “Wherever else we may be
strangers, we are all at home here.”
As a part of the people of this great country, we may feel ourselves
included. We represent the class which has enriched our soil with its
blood, watered it with its tears, and defended it with its strong arms,
but have hitherto been excluded from all part in our national glory.
Now, however, all is changed. We may look forward with pleasure to the
promised National Centennial Exposition, and take some credit to
ourselves for helping to make the District of Columbia a suitable place
for such a display. We have at least done a large proportion of the most
laborious and needed work to this end.
The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution of the United States in
granting to the nation, through its Congress, exclusive legislative
jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, has in nothing been more
abundantly and happily vindicated than in the abolition of slavery, and
in making it the freest territory of this country. The benefits of this
act are, however, not confined to the colored people. They are shared by
all the people of this District; not more by the colored than by the
white people.
Washington owes nothing to Maryland or Virginia (though born of those
parents) in comparison to its debt to the nation. Through the National
Government it has become the elegant and beautiful city that it is. It
is the nation that has graded and paved its broad and far-reaching
streets and avenues; it is the nation that has fenced and beautified its
numerous parks and reservations, and made them the joy of our children,
and the admiration of our visitors; it is the nation that has adorned
its ample public squares and circles with choice flowers, flowing
fountains, and imposing statuary; it is the nation that has erected
enduring monuments of bronze and marble in honor of our statesmen,
warriors, patriots, and heroes; it is the nation that has built here
those vast structures, the different departments, and crowned yonder
hill with a Capitol, one of the proudest architectural wonders of the
world; it is the nation that has built Washington Monument, the pride of
the city, the tallest structure that ever rose from the ground toward
heaven at the bidding of human pride, patriotism, or piety, standing
there in full view of all comers, whether approaching by land or water,
with its base deep down in the earth, and its capstone against the sky,
receiving and reflecting every light and shadow of the passing hour,
steady alike in sunshine and storm, defying lightning, whirlwind, and
earthquake--its grandeur and sublimity, like Niagara, impress us more
and more the longer we hold it in range of vision.
But the nation, as I have already said, has done more for the District
of Columbia than to clothe it with material greatness and splendor. It
has, by the act of emancipation, imparted to it a moral beauty. It has
not only made it a pleasure to the eye, but a joy to the heart. No
material adornment or addition has ever done or could do for this
District what the abolition of slavery has done. The nation did a great
and good thing fifteen years ago by giving us a local government, and a
Shepherd that lifted the city out of its deep mud and above its blinding
dust and put it on the way to its present greatness, but it did a
greater and better thing when it lifted it out of the mire of barbarism
coincident with slavery.
Fellow-citizens, we are proud to-day, and justly proud, of the
prosperity and the increasing liberality of Washington. With all our
fellow-citizens we behold it with pride and pleasure rising and
spreading noiselessly around us, almost like the temple of Solomon,
without the sound of a hammer. New faces meet us at the corners of the
streets and greet us in the market-places. Conveniences and improvements
are multiplying on every hand. We walk in the shade of its beautiful
trees by day and in the rays of its soft electric lights by night. We
make it warm where it is cool, and cool where it is warm, and healthy
where it is noxious. Our magnificence fills the stranger and sojourner
with admiration and wonder. The contrast between the old time of slavery
and the new dispensation of liberty looms upon us on every hand. We feel
it in the very air we breathe, and in the friendly aspect of all around
us. But time would fail to tell of the vast and wonderful advancement in
civilization made in this city by the abolition of slavery.
Perhaps a better idea could be formed of what has been done for
Washington and for us by imagining what would be the case in a return to
the old condition of things. Imagine the wheels of progress reversed;
imagine that by some strange and mysterious freak of fortune slavery,
with all its horrid concomitants, was revived; imagine that under the
dome of yonder Capitol legislation was carried on, as formerly, by men
with pistols in their belts and bullets in their pockets; imagine the
right of speech denied, the right of petition stamped out, the press of
the District muzzled, and a word in the streets against slavery the sign
for a mob; imagine a lone woman like Miss Myrtilla Miner, having to
defend her right to teach colored girls to read and write with a pistol
in her hand, here in this very city, now dotted all over with colored
schools, which rival in magnificence the white schools of any other city
of the Union; imagine this, and more, and ask yourselves the question.
What progress has been made in liberty and civilization within the
borders of this capital? Further on let us ask: Of what avail would be
our cloud-capped towers, our gorgeous palaces, and our solemn temples if
slavery again held sway here? Of what avail would be our marble halls if
once more they resounded with the crack of the slave whip, the clank of
the fetter, and the rattle of chains; if slave auctions were held in
front of the halls of justice, and chain-gangs were marched over
Pennsylvania avenue to the Long Bridge for the New Orleans market? Of
what avail would be our state dinners, our splendid receptions if, like
Babylon of old, our people were making merchandise of God’s image,
trafficking in human blood and in the souls and bodies of men? Were this
District once more covered with this moral blight and mildew you would
hear of no plans, as now, for celebrating within its borders the
centennial anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States. Bold and audacious as were the advocates of slavery in the olden
time they would have been ashamed to invite here the representatives of
the civilized world to inspect the workings of their slave system. To
have done so would have been like inviting a clean man to touch pitch, a
humane man to witness an execution, a tender-hearted woman to witness a
slaughter. In its boldest days slavery drew in its claws and presented a
velvet paw to strangers. They knew it was like Lord Granby’s character,
which could only pass without reprobation as it passed without
observation. Emancipation liberated the master as well as the slave. The
fact that our citizens are now loudly proclaiming Washington to be the
right place for the celebration of the discovery of the continent by
Columbus, and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, is
an acknowledgement of and attestation of the higher civilization that
has, in their judgment, come here with the abolition of slavery. They no
longer dread the gaze of civilized men. They no longer fear lest a word
of liberty should fall into the ear of a trembling captive and awaken
his manhood. They are no longer required to defend with their lips what
they must have condemned in their hearts. When the galling chain dropped
from the limbs of the slave the mantle of shame dropped from the brows
of their masters. The emancipation of the one was the deliverance of the
other; so that this day, in fact, belongs to the one as truly as it
belongs to the other, though it is left to us alone to keep it in
memory.
It is usual on occasions of this kind, not only to set forth, as I have
in some measure done, what has been gained by the abolition of slavery,
but also to speak of the causes and instrumentalities which contributed
to this grand result. If this were my first appearance before you on
similar anniversaries, I should feel it entirely proper to do so now;
but having discharged this duty faithfully and fully in several former
addresses, there is no special reason for a repetition of it in this
instance. In one of those addresses I specially endeavored to trace, and
did trace with more or less success, the history of the earliest
utterances of anti-slavery sentiments in this country and in England. I
described the rise, progress, and final triumph of the abolition
movement in both countries. I have in no case omitted to do justice to
the noble band of men and women who espoused the cause of the slave in
the early days of its weakness, and when to do so was to make themselves
of no reputation and subjects of the vilest abuse. I have held up their
example of virtuous self-sacrifice to the admiration and imitation of
all who would serve the human family in its march from barbarism to a
higher state of civilization. In my judgment there never was a band of
reformers more unselfish, more consistent with their principles, more
ardent in their devotion to any cause than were these early anti-slavery
men and women of this country.
The charge is sometimes made that the colored people are ungrateful to
their benefactors. In my judgment no charge could be more unjust. In
whatever else they have failed, they have ever shown a laudable sense
of gratitude. The names of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
John P. Hale, Charles Sumner, Gerrit Smith, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S.
Grant, and a host of others are never pronounced by us but with
sentiments of high appreciation and sincere gratitude.
Of course I cannot deny that there are those amongst us who, either
thoughtlessly or selfishly, or both, dare to deny their obligations to
the great Republican party and its leaders. They insist upon it that
freedom came to them only as an act of military necessity. They see in
it no sentiment of justice, no moral preference. They profess to see no
difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party, and
insist that one party has no more claim to their support than the other.
Such men are about as ready to join one party as the other. Perhaps they
even lean a little more to the Democratic than to the Republican party.
I admit that were they fair representatives of the colored people of the
United States the charge of ingratitude might be very easily sustained.
But, happily, such men do not represent the sentiments of the colored
people, but greatly and flagrantly misrepresent them. The colored people
do see a difference between the two parties, as broad as the moral
universe and as palpable as the difference between the character of
Moses and that of Pharaoh. For one I never will forget that every
concession of liberty made to the colored people of the United States
has come to them through the action of the Republican party, and that
all the opposition made to those concessions has come from the
Democratic party. Any colored man who either denies this or endeavors to
disparage that party and belittle their concessions by attributing them
entirely to selfish and cowardly motives brands himself as unjust,
uncharitable, and ungrateful. The blindness of such men is very
surprising. Do they not see that in denying their obligations to the
Republican party they only invite the scorn and contempt of the
Democratic party? Do they not understand that they are advertising
themselves as base political ingrates? Do they not know that they are
giving notice to the Democratic party--the party that they are just now
aiming to conciliate--that they will be as unjust and ungrateful to that
party for any concessions from it as they declare themselves to be to
the Republican party for what that party has done?
But, fellow-citizens, while I gratefully remember the important services
of the Republican party in emancipating and enfranchising the colored
people of the United States, I do not forget that the work of that party
is most sadly incomplete. We are yet, as a people, only half-free. The
promise of liberty remains unfulfilled. We stand to-day only in the
twilight of American liberty. The sunbeams of perfect day are still
behind the mountains, and the mission of the Republican party will not
be ended until the persons, the property, and the ballot of the colored
man shall be as well protected in every State of the American Union as
are such rights in the case of the white man. The Republican party is
not perfect. It is cautious even to the point of timidity; but it is,
nevertheless, the best political force and friend we have.
And now I return to the point at which I commenced these remarks. I have
spoken to you of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States
and of the national progress and prosperity under that instrument; I
have called your attention to the noble objects announced in the
preamble of the Constitution. I did not stop then and there to inquire
how far those objects, so solemnly proclaimed to the world, and so often
sworn to, have been attained, or to point out how far they have been
practically disregarded and abandoned by the Government ordained to
practically carry them out. I now undertake to say that neither the
Constitution of 1789, nor the Constitution as amended since the war, is
the law of the land. That Constitution has been slain in the house of
its friends. So far as the colored people of the country are concerned,
the Constitution is but a stupendous sham, a rope of sand, a Dead Sea
apple, fair without and foul within, keeping the promise to the eye and
breaking it to the heart. The Federal Government, so far as we are
concerned, has abdicated its functions and abandoned the objects for
which the Constitution was framed and adopted, and for this I arraign it
at the bar of public opinion, both of our own country and that of the
civilized world. I am here to tell the truth, and to tell it without
fear or favor, and the truth is that neither the Republican party nor
the Democratic party has yet complied with the solemn oath, taken by
their respective representatives, to support the Constitution, and
execute the laws enacted under its provisions. They have promised us
law, and abandoned us to anarchy; they have promised protection, and
given us violence; they have promised us fish, and given us a serpent. A
vital and fundamental object which they have sworn to realize to the
best of their ability, is the establishment of justice. This is one of
the six fundamental objects for which the Constitution was ordained; but
when, where, and how has any attempt been made by the Federal Government
to enforce or establish justice in any one of the late slave-holding
States? Has any one of our Republican Presidents, since Grant, earnestly
endeavored to establish justice in the South? According to the highest
legal authorities, justice is the perpetual disposition to secure to
every man, by due process of law, protection to his person, his property
and his political rights. “Due process of law” has a definite and legal
meaning. It means the right to be tried in open court by a jury of one’s
peers, and before an impartial judge. It means that the accused shall be
brought face to face with his accusers; that he shall be allowed to call
witnesses in his defence, and that he shall have the assistance of
counsel; it means that, preceding his trial, he shall be safe in the
custody of the Government, and that no harm shall come to him for any
alleged offence till he is fairly tried, convicted, and sentenced by the
court. This protection is given to the vilest white criminal in the
land. He cannot be convicted while there is even a reasonable doubt in
the minds of the jury as to his guilt. But to the colored man accused of
crime in the Southern States, a different rule is almost everywhere
applied. With him, to be accused is to be convicted. The court in which
he is tried is a lynching mob. This mob takes the place of “due process
of law,” of judge, jury, witness, and counsel. It does not come to
ascertain the guilt or innocence of the accused, but to hang, shoot,
stab, burn, or whip him to death. Neither courts, jails, nor marshals
are allowed to protect him. Every day brings us tidings of these
outrages. I will not stop to detail individual instances. Their name is
legion. Everybody knows that what I say is true, and that no power is
employed by the Government to prevent this lawless violence. Yet our
chief magistrates and other officers, Democratic and Republican,
continue to go through the solemn mockery, the empty form of swearing by
the name of Almighty God that they will execute the laws and the
Constitution; that they will establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our
posterity.
Only a few weeks ago, at Carrolton Court-house, Mississippi, in the
absence of all political excitement, while the Government of the nation,
as well as the government of the Southern States, was safely in the
hands of the Democratic party; when there was no pending election, and
no pretence of a fear of possible negro supremacy, one hundred white
citizens, on horseback, armed to the teeth, deliberately assembled and
in cold blood opened a deadly fire upon a party of peaceable, unarmed
colored men, killing eleven of them on the spot, and mortally wounding
nine others, most of whom have since died. The sad thing is that, in the
average American mind, horrors of this character have become so frequent
since the slave-holding rebellion that they excite neither shame nor
surprise; neither pity for the slain, nor indignation for the slayers.
It is the old story verified:
“Vice is a monster of such frightful mien
That, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
It is said that those who live on the banks of Niagara neither hear its
thunder nor shudder at its overwhelming power. In any other country such
a frightful crime as the Carrolton massacre--in any other country than
this a scream would have gone up from all quarters of the land for the
arrest and punishment of these cold-blooded murderers. But alas! nothing
like this has happened here. We are used to the shedding of innocent
blood, and the heart of this nation is torpid, if not dead, to the
natural claims of justice and humanity where the victims are of the
colored race. Where are the sworn ministers of the law? Where are the
guardians of public justice?
Where are the defenders of the Constitution? What hand in House or
Senate; what voice in court or Cabinet is uplifted to stay this tide of
violence, blood, and barbarism? Neither governors, presidents, nor
statesmen have yet declared that these barbarities shall be stopped. On
the contrary, they all confess themselves powerless to protect our
class; and thus you and I and all of us are struck down, and bloody
treason flourishes over us. In view of this confessed impotency of the
Government and this apparent insensibility of the nation to the claims
of humanity, do you ask me why I expend my time and breath in denouncing
these wholesale murders when there is no seeming prospect of a favorable
response? I answer in turn, how can you, how can any man with a heart
in his breast do otherwise when, louder than the blood of Abel, the
blood of his fellow-men cries from the ground?
“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freeman lock the indignant thought?
Shall mercy’s bosom cease to swell?
Shall honor bleed, shall truth succumb,
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
By all around, above, below,
Be ours the indignant answer, No!”
In a former address, delivered on the occasion of this anniversary, I
was at the pains of showing that much of the crime attributed to colored
people, and for which they were held responsible, imprisoned, and
murdered, was, in fact, committed by white men disguised as negroes. I
affirm that all presumptions in courts of law and in the community were
against the negro, and that color was the safest disguise a white man
could assume in which to commit crime; that all he had to do to commit
the worst crimes with impunity was to blacken his face and take on the
similitude of a negro, but even this disguise sometimes fails. Only a
few days ago a Mr. J. H. Justice, an eminent citizen of Granger county,
Tenn., attempted under this disguise to commit a cunningly devised
robbery and have his offence fixed upon a negro. All worked well till a
bullet brought him to the ground and a little soap and water was applied
to his face, when he was found to be no negro at all, but a very
respectable white citizen.
Dark, desperate, and forlorn as I have described the situation, the
reality exceeds the description. In most of the Gulf States, and in some
parts of the border States, I have sometimes thought that we should be
about as well-situated for the purposes of justice if there were no
Constitution of the United States at all; as well off if there were no
law or law-makers, no constables, no jails, no courts of justice, and we
were left entirely without the pretence of legal protection, for we are
now at the mercy of midnight raiders, assassins, and murderers, and we
should only be in the same condition if these pretended safeguards were
abandoned. They now only mock us. Other men are presumed to be innocent
until they are proved guilty. We are presumed to be guilty until we are
proved to be innocent.
The charge is often made that negroes are by nature the criminal class
of America; that they furnish a larger proportion of petty thieves than
any other class. I admit the charge, but deny that nature, race, or
color has anything to do with the fact. Any other race with the same
antecedents and the same condition would show a similar thieving
propensity.
The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is
denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where
any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to
oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be
safe. I deny that nature has made the negro a thief or a burglar. Look
at these black criminals, as they are brought into your police courts;
view and study their faces, their forms, and their features, as I have
done for years as Marshal of this District, and you will see that their
antecedents are written all over them. Two hundred and fifty years of
grinding slavery has done its work upon them. They stand before you
to-day physically and mentally maimed and mutilated men. Many of their
mothers and grandmothers were lashed to agony before their birth by
cruel overseers, and the children have inherited in their faces the
anguish and resentment felt by their parents. Many of these poor
creatures have not been free long enough to outgrow the marks of the
lash on their backs, and the deeper marks on their souls. No, no! It is
not nature that has erred in making the negro. That shame rests with
slavery. It has twisted his limbs, deformed his body, flattened his
feet, and distorted his features, and made him, though black, no longer
comely. In infancy he slept on the cold clay floor of his cabin, with
quick circulation on one side, and tardy circulation on the other. So
that he has grown up unequal, unsymmetrical, and is no longer a
vertical, well-rounded man, in body or in mind. Time, education, and
training will restore him to natural proportions, for, though bruised
and blasted, he is yet a man.
The school of the negro since leaving slavery has not been much of an
improvement on his former condition. Individuals of the race have here
and there enjoyed large benefits from emancipation, and the result is
seen in their conduct, but the mass have had their liberty coupled with
hardships which tend strongly to keep them a dwarfed and miserable
class. A man who labors ten hours a day with pickaxe, crowbar, and
shovel, and has a family to support and house rent to pay, and receives
for his work but a dollar a day, and what is worse still, he is deprived
of labor a large part of his time by reason of sickness and the weather,
in his poverty, easily falls before the temptation to steal and rob.
Hungry men will eat. Desperate men will commit crime. Outraged men will
seek revenge. It is said to be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. I have sometimes thought it harder still for a poor man to
enter the kingdom of heaven. Man is so constituted that if he cannot get
a living honestly, he will get it dishonestly. “Skin for skin,” as the
devil said of Job. “All that a man hath will he give for his life.”
Oppression makes even wise men mad and reckless; for illustration I pray
look at East St. Louis.
In the Southern States to-day a landlord system is in operation which
keeps the negroes of that section in rags and wretchedness, almost to
the point of starvation. As a rule, this system puts it out of the power
of the negro to own land. There is, to be sure, no law forbidding the
selling of land to the colored people, but there is an understanding
which has the full effect of law. That understanding is that the land
must be kept in the hands of the old master class. The colored people
can rent land, it is true, and many of them do rent many acres, and find
themselves poorer at the end of the year than at the beginning, because
they are charged more a year for rent per acre than the land would bring
at auction sale. The landlord and tenant system of Ireland, which has
conducted that country to the jaws of ruin, bad as it is, is not worse
than that which prevails at this hour at the South, and yet the colored
people of the South are constantly reproached for their poverty. They
are asked to make bricks without straw. Their hands are tied, and they
are asked to work. They are forced to be poor, and laughed at for their
destitution.
I am speaking mainly to colored men to-night, but I want my words to
find their way to the eyes, ears, heads and hearts of my white
fellow-countrymen, hoping that some among them may be made to think,
some hearts among them will be made to feel, and some of their number
will be made to act. I appeal to our white fellow-countrymen. The power
to protect is in their hands. This is and must be practically the white
man’s government. He has the numbers and the intelligence to control and
direct. To him belongs the responsibility of its honor or dishonor, its
glory or its shame, its salvation or its ruin. If they can protect the
rights of white men they can protect the rights of black men; if they
can defend the rights of American citizens abroad they can defend them
at home; if they can use the army to protect the rights of Chinamen,
they can use the army to protect the rights of colored men. The only
trouble is the will! the will! the will! Here, as elsewhere, “Where
there is a will there is a way.”
I have now said not all that could be said but enough to indicate the
relations at present existing between the white and colored people of
this country, especially the relations subsisting between the two
classes of the late slave-holding States. Time would fail me to trace
this relation in all its ramifications; but that labor is neither
required by this audience nor by the country. The condition of the
emancipated class is known alike to ourselves and to the Government, to
pulpit and press, and to both of the great political parties. These have
only to do their duty and all will be well.
One use of this annual celebration is to keep the subject of our
grievances before the people and government, and to urge both to do
their respective parts in the happy solution of the race problem. The
weapons of our warfare for equal rights are not carnal but simple truth,
addressed to the hearts and sense of justice of the American people. If
this fails we are lost. We have no armies or generals, no swords or
cannons to enforce our claims, and do not want any.
We are often asked with an air of reproach by white men at the North:
“Why don’t your people fight their way to the ballot-box?” The question
adds insult to injury. Whom are we called upon to fight? They are the
men who held this nation, with all its tremendous resources of men and
money, at bay during four long and bloody years. Whom are we to fight? I
answer, not a few midnight assassins, not the rabble mob, but trained
armies, skilled generals of the Confederate army, and in the last resort
we should have to meet the Federal army. Though that army cannot now be
employed to defend the weak against the strong, means would certainly be
found for its employment to protect the strong against the weak. In such
a case insurrection would be madness.
But there is another remedy proposed. These people are advised to make
an exodus to the Pacific slope. With the best intentions they are told
of the fertility of the soil and salubrity of the climate. If they
should tell the same as existing in the moon, the simple question, How
shall they get there? would knock the life out of it at once. Without
money, without friends, without knowledge, and only gaining enough by
daily toil to keep them above the starvation point, where they are, how
can such a people rise and cross the continent? The measure on its face
is no remedy at all. Besides, who does not know that should these people
ever attempt such an exodus, that they would be met with shot-guns at
every cross-road. Who does not know that the white landholders of the
South would never consent to let that labor which alone gives value to
their land march off without opposition? Who does not know that if the
Federal Government is powerless to protect these people in staying that
it would be equally powerless to protect them in going _en masse_? For
one, I say away with such contrivances, such lame and impotent
substitutes for the justice and protection due us. The first duty that
the National Government owes to its citizens is protection.
While, however, I hold now, as I held years ago, that the South is the
natural home of the colored race, and that there must the destiny of
that race be mainly worked out, I still believe that means can be and
ought to be adopted to assist in the emigration of such of their number
as may wish to change their residence to parts of the country where
their civil and political rights are better protected than at present
they can be at the South.
I adopt the suggestion of the _National Republican_, of this city, that
_diffusion_ is the true policy for the colored people of the South. All,
of course, cannot leave that section, and ought not; but some can, and
the condition of those who must remain will be better because of those
who go. Men, like trees, may be too thickly planted to thrive. If the
labor market of Mississippi were to-day not over-loaded and over
supplied, the laborers would be more fully appreciated; but this work of
diffusion and distribution cannot be carried on by the emancipated class
alone. They need, and ought to have, the material aid of both white and
colored people of the free states. A million of dollars devoted to this
purpose would do more for the colored people of the South than the same
amount expended in any other way. There is no degradation, no loss of
self-respect, in asking this aid, considering the circumstances of these
people. The white people of this nation owe them this help and a great
deal more. The keynote of the future should not be concentration, but
diffusion--distribution. This may not be a remedy for all evils now
uncured, but it certainly will be a help in the right direction.
A word now in respect of another remedy for the black man’s ills. It
calls itself independent political action. This has, during the past few
years, been advocated with much zeal and spirit by several of our
leading colored men, and also with much ability, though I am happy to
say not with much success. First, their plan, if I understand it, is to
separate the colored people of the country from the Republican party.
This, with them, is the primary and essential condition of making the
colored vote independent. Hence all their artillery is directed to
making that party odious in the eyes of the colored voters. Colored men
who adhere to the Republican party are vilified as slaves,
office-seekers, serviles, “knuckle-close” Republicans, as tools of white
men, traitors to their race, and much more of the same sort. Perhaps no
one has been a more prominent target for such denunciation than your
humble speaker.
Now, the position to which these gentlemen invite us is one of
neutrality between the two great political parties, and to vote with
either, or against either, according to the prevailing motive when the
time for action shall arrive. In the interval we are to have no standing
with either party, and have no active influence in shaping the policy of
either, but we are to stand alone, and hold ourselves ready to serve one
or to serve the other, or both, as we may incline at the moment.
With all respect to these political doctors, I must say that their
remedy is no remedy at all. No man can serve two masters in politics any
more than in religion. If there is one position in life more despicable
in the eyes of man, and more condemned by nature than another, it is
that of neutrality. Besides, if there is one thing more impossible than
another, it is a position of perfect neutrality in politics. Our
friends, Fortune, Downing, and others, flatter themselves that they have
reached this perfection, but they are utterly mistaken. No man can read
their utterances without seeing their animus of hate to the Republican
party, and their preference for the Democratic party. The fault is not
so much in their intention, as in their position. They can neither act
with nor against the two parties impartially. They are compelled by
their position to either serve the one and oppose the other, and they
cannot serve or oppose both alike. Independence, like neutrality, is
also impossible. If the colored man does not depend upon the Republican
party, he will depend upon the Democratic party, and if he does neither,
he becomes a nonentity in American politics. But these gentlemen do, in
effect, ask us to break down the power of the Republican party, when to
do it is to put the Government in the hands of the Democratic party.
Colored men are already in the Republican party, and to come out of it
is to defeat it.
For one, I must say that the Democratic party has as yet given me no
sufficient reasons for doing it any such service, nor has the Republican
party sunk so low that I must abandon it for its great rival. With all
its faults it is the best party now in existence. In it are the best
elements of the American people, and if any good is to come to us
politically it will be through that party.
I must cease to remember a great many things and must forget a great
many things before I can counsel any man, colored or white, to join the
Democratic party, or to occupy a position of neutrality between that
party and the Republican party. Such a position of the colored people of
this country will prove about as comfortable as between the upper and
nether millstone. Those of our number now posing as Independents are
doing better service to the Democratic party under the Independent mask
than they could do if they came out honestly for the Democratic party.
I am charged with commending the inaugural address of President
Cleveland. I am not ashamed of that charge. I said at the time that no
better words for the colored citizen had dropped from the east portico
of the Capitol since the days of Lincoln and Grant, and I say so still.
I did not say, as my traducer lyingly asserts, that Mr. Cleveland said
better words than Lincoln or Grant. But it would not have suited the man
who left Washington with malice in his heart and falsehood in his throat
to be more truthful in Petersburg than in Washington. This malcontent
accuser seeks to make the impression that those who thought and spoke
well of the inaugural address did so from selfish motives, and from a
desire to get or retain office. “Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaketh.” “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and
with what measure ye mete, the same shall be measured to you again.” He
ought to remember, however, that a serpent without a fang, a scorpion
without a sting, has no more ability to poison than a lie which has lost
its ability to deceive has to injure. It so happens that we had two
Presidents and one Vice-President prior to President Cleveland, and I
challenge my ambitious and envious accuser to find any better word for
the colored citizens of this country in the inaugural addresses of
either than is found in the inaugural address of President Cleveland. I
also beg my accuser to remember that I gave no pledge that Mr. Cleveland
would be able to live up to the sentiments of that address, but, on the
contrary I doubted even the probability of his success in doing so. I
gave him credit, however, for an honest purpose, and expressed a hope
that he might be able to do as well and better than he promised. But I
saw him in the rapids and predicted that they would be too strong for
him. Did this look like seeking favor? He did a brave thing in removing
from office an abettor of murder in Mississippi. He has expressed in a
private way, to Messrs. Bruce and Lynch, his reprobation of the recent
massacres at Carrollton, and for this we thank him. But he has done
nothing in his position as Commander-in-chief of the army and navy to
put a stop to such horrors. I am quite sure that he abhors violence and
bloodshed. He has shown this in his publicly spoken words in behalf of
persecuted and murdered Chinamen; he should do the same for the
persecuted and murdered black citizens of Mississippi. He could threaten
the law-breakers and murderers of the West with the sword of the nation,
why not the South? If it was right to protect and defend the Chinese,
why not the negro? If in the days of slavery the army could be used to
hunt slaves, and suppress slave insurrections, why, in the days of
liberty, may it not be used to enforce rights guaranteed by the
Constitution? Alas! fellow-citizens, there is no right so neglected as
the negro’s right. There is no flesh so despised as the negro’s flesh.
There is no blood so cheap as the negro’s blood. I have been saying
these things to the American people for nearly fifty years. In the order
of nature I cannot say them much longer; but, as was said by another,
“though time himself should confront me, and shake his hoary locks at my
persistence, I shall not cease while life is left me, and our wrongs are
unredressed, to thus cry aloud and spare not.”
Fellow-citizens, I am disappointed. The accession of the Democratic
party to power has not been followed by the results I expected. When the
tiger has quenched his thirst in blood, and when the anaconda has
swallowed his prey, they cease to pursue their trembling game and sink
to rest; so I thought when the Democratic party came into power, when
the solid South gave law to the land, when there could no longer be any
pretence for the fear of negro ascendency in the councils of the nation,
persecution, violence, and murder would cease, and the negro would be
left in peace; but the bloody scenes at Carrollton, and the daily
reports of lynch law in the South, have destroyed this cherished hope
and told me that the end of our sufferings is not yet.
But, fellow-citizens, I do not despair, and no power that I know of can
make me despair of the ultimate triumph of justice and liberty in this
country. I have seen too many abuses outgrown, too many evils removed,
too many moral and physical improvements made, to doubt that the wheels
of progress will still roll on. We have but to toil and trust, throw
away whiskey and tobacco, improve the opportunities that we have, put
away all extravagance, learn to live within our means, lay up our
earnings, educate our children, live industrious and virtuous lives,
establish a character for sobriety, punctuality, and general
uprightness, and we shall raise up powerful friends who shall stand by
us in our struggle for an equal chance in the race of life. The white
people of this country are asleep, but not dead. In other days we had a
potent voice in the Senate which awoke the nation.
Ireland now has an advocate in the British Senate who has arrested the
eye and ear of the civilized world in championing the cause of Ireland.
There is to-day in the American Senate an opportunity for an American
Gladstone; one whose voice shall have power to awake this nation to the
stupendous wrongs inflicted upon our newly-made citizens and move the
Government to a vindication of our constitutional rights. We have in
other days had a Sumner, a Wilson, a Chase, a Conkling, a Thaddeus
Stevens, and a Morton. These did not exhaust the justice and humanity of
American statesmanship. There is heart and eloquence still left in the
councils of the nation, and these will, I trust, yet make themselves
potent in having both the Constitution of 1789 and the Constitution with
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments made practically the law of the
land for all the people thereof.