The object of the Government, in the case of commandants of colored
troops, was to secure officers of acknowledged military talent,
experience, and unexceptionably good moral character. It therefore
instituted the Examining Board for Officers, under the Presidency of
General Casey. The officers assigned to commands in this service,
entered upon the duties of their respective positions in this regular
way. Many of them advanced, battle-scarred, step by step from the
ranks. Some were previously connected with the regular army, and
others with the volunteer forces. Their ability, bravery and
gentlemanly character, in the strictest sense, produced a happy effect
upon the troop. When it is considered that in the face of threatenings
of a merciless death by the Rebels, should the fortunes of war place
them in their hands, and against a current of prejudice, extant almost
everywhere, and the whispered doubts and fears even of friends to the
cause, they assumed command of this troop in its experimental state,
and led it on to victory; their high-toned and unselfish patriotism,
in this respect, is only equaled by the bravery and gallantry of their
services. They are also the fit witnesses of the endurance, efficiency
and bravery of the troop as attested on the field, and their
susceptibility of true progress in intellectual culture. This troop in
military discipline and efficiency bore a very favorable comparison
with any other. Their standard was not simply passable, but excellent.
In battle they were remarkable for their great coolness and courage.
The school system inaugurated for their benefit, and which was
conducted in many commands, in the camp and on the field, in its
result was a decided refutation to the argument, that this race could
not be improved.
Now, however, by more than sixty thousand sons of Liberty, of African
descent, than whom none other fought with greater gallantry, numbered
with the patriot dead, and by the many thousand heroic survivors,
whose maimed bodies and torn and tattered battle flags, tell how
fields were won, what is enjoined on the Nation? This fact alone
forbids that any vestige of the former state of the oppression of this
race should remain. It requires another positive duty. What are
Freedmen without citizenship? Some doubt that they have sufficient
knowledge to participate in this right. The presumptive judges, with
their emissaries, who have forfeited this right to themselves, and are
also culprits, blamable and guilty for any lack of such knowledge, in
the case of this loyal race, entertain the doubt; and their weak faith
cannot truly be shrouded in deeper uncertainty than that of every
intelligent patriot, who contemplates the true exercise of the right
of suffrage and representation by those whose hands are yet red with
the blood of our noble slain. It is also said the liberated race, in
their new relation, will not prove themselves industrious citizens.
This argument by the indolent drones of the States in rebellion, and
whose very sustenance was derived from the unpaid toil of this people,
turns upon them with a peculiar reactionary force. We doubt not, it
will be an easier task to elevate to a degree of intelligence, virtue
and industry, and to imbue with the spirit of our Institutions as
worthy citizens these Freedmen, thousands of whom pressed forward to
the support of the Government, in the dark period of our country's
history, than by any process of legislation that cleanses only the
outside of the platter, to attempt to infuse loyalty into the hearts
of those lately in armed rebellion, and in the name of the public
peace, and in honor to Republican Liberty, to admit the Catalines and
Judas Iscariots to the Senate and Congress of the United States. In a
disregard of justice to the memory of our patriot dead, white and
colored, such legislation would be worse than treason. No man, who
voluntarily raised his hand against the flag, upheld by our patriot
martyrs in the field, should ever participate in our legislation. If
the Republic will be true to itself, it must and will be also to those
who were, and are so eminently true to it. Punish treason, and reward
loyalty.