LETTER TO A COMMITTEE ON THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION IN THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, APRIL 14, 1866.
SENATE CHAMBER, April 14, 1866.
DEAR SIR,--It will not be in my power to celebrate with you
Emancipation in the District, but I rejoice that the beautiful
anniversary is to be commemorated.
Looking back upon the day when that Act became a law by the
signature of Abraham Lincoln, I feel how grandly it has been
vindicated by the result. The sinister forebodings of your
enemies are all falsified. We were told that you could not bear
freedom,--that you would be lawless, idle, and thriftless. I knew
the contrary; and is it not as I foretold? Who so mad as to wish
back the old system of wrong?
But the work is only _half done_. The freedman, despoiled of
the elective franchise, is only _half a man_. He must be made _a
whole man_; and this can be only by investing him with all the
rights of an American citizen. Here, too, we encounter the same
sinister forebodings that stood in the way of Emancipation. We
are told that you cannot bear enfranchisement, and that you will
not know how to vote. I know the contrary; and I am satisfied,
further, that there can be no true repose in this country until
all its people are admitted to that full equality before the
law which is the essential principle of republican government.
It were not enough to assure equality in what are called civil
rights. This is only _semi-equality_. The equality must be
complete. This I ask, not only for your sake, but also for the
sake of my country, imperilled by such a denial of justice.
Accept my best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir,
faithfully yours,