December 2, 1866.
DEAR SIR,--I am glad that our colored fellow-citizens are about
to assemble in convention to consider how best to promote their
welfare, and to secure those equal rights to which they are
justly entitled.
You seek nothing less than a revolution. But you will succeed.
The revolution must prevail. What are called civil rights have
been accorded already; but every argument for these is equally
important for political rights, which cannot be denied without
the grossest wrong. Let the colored citizens persevere. Let them
calmly, but constantly, insist upon those equal rights which are
the promise of our institutions. They should appeal to Congress,
and they should also appeal to the courts.
I cannot doubt the power and duty of Congress and of the courts
to set aside every inequality founded on color. It will be the
wonder of posterity that a constitution absolutely free from all
discrimination of color was so perverted in its construction as
to sanction this discrimination,--as if such a wrong could be
derived from a text which contains no single word even to suggest
it. The fountain-head is pure: the waters which flow from it must
be equally pure.
Accept my best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir,
faithfully yours,