“I cannot let this opportunity pass of thanking you for the
manner in which you have stood by the colored people of
Louisiana,--almost the only out-and-out Loyalists of that
State. I agree with you that any settlement of the question
that will not put the ballot into their hands will create
mischief that will take a long time to remedy. When I read
in this morning’s _Tribune_ of the vote to postpone the
Louisiana matter until December, I felt as if a great moral
as well as political battle had been won by our side.”
Dr. J. B. Smith, giving expression to the feelings of colored
citizens in a letter from Boston, said:--
“I know of no words of any language adequate to convey to
you the gratitude I feel in my inmost soul towards you for
your efforts and final success in defeating the bill for
the readmission of Louisiana as a State into the Union,
with the present flagrantly unjust and proscriptive laws
and Constitution. _The white people of this country have
been so accustomed to regard and treat us as their natural
inferiors_, that we dread the very thought of submitting to
them the adjustment of our rights after their own are made
secure. What is not gained for us now will not be obtained
for a quarter of a century after peace is declared.”
Frederick Douglass, the watchful orator of his race, wrote from
Rochester, New York:--
“The friends of Freedom all over the country have looked
to you, and confided in you, of all men in the United
States Senate, during all this terrible war. They will
look to you all the more, now that peace dawns, and the
final settlement of our national troubles is at hand. God
grant you strength equal to your day and your duties! is my
prayer and that of millions.”
In harmony with these expressions, the following resolution
was adopted unanimously by the Worcester Freedom Club, and
communicated to Mr. Sumner:--
“_Resolved_, That the ‘Worcester Freedom Club’ tenders to
the Hon. Charles Sumner their gratitude as freemen, for the
able manner in which he met the question for the admission
of Louisiana, and for his noble defence of the ‘Equality of
all men before the Law.’”
Evidently Mr. Sumner was not alone. The right of colored
fellow-citizens was recognized as next in order for discussion
and judgment. The Antislavery fires were flaming forth anew.