themselves to teach and preach; while the remainder go to law and
medicine. Few educated Colored men ever return to agricultural life.
There are two reasons for this: First, reaction. There is an erroneous
idea among some of these young men that labor is dishonorable; that an
educated man should never work with his hands. Second, some of them
believe that a profession gives a man consequence. Such silly ideas
should be abandoned--they must be abandoned! There is a great demand
for educated farmers and laborers. It requires an intelligent man to
conduct a farm successfully, to sell the products of his labor, and to
buy the necessaries of life. No profession can furnish a man with
brains, or provide him a garment of respectability. Every man must
furnish brains and tact to make his calling and election sure in this
world, as well as by faith in the world to come. Unfortunately there
has been but little opportunity for Colored men or boys to get
employment at the trades: but prejudice is gradually giving way to
reason and common-sense; and the day is not distant when the Negro
will have a free field in this country, and will then be responsible
for what he is not that is good. The need of the hour is a varied
employment for the Negro race on this continent. There is more need of
educated mechanics, civil engineers, surveyors, printers, artificers,
inventors, architects, builders, merchants, and bankers than there is
demand for lawyers, physicians, or clergymen. Waiters, barbers,
porters, boot-blacks, hack-drivers, grooms, and private valets find
but little time for the expansion of their intellects. These places
are not dishonorable; but what we say is, _there is room at the top_!
An industrial school, something like Cooper Institute, situated
between New York and Philadelphia, where Colored boys and girls could
learn the trades that race prejudice denies them now, would be the
grandest institution of modern times. It matters not how many million
dollars are given toward the education of the Negro; so long as he is
deprived of the privilege of learning and plying the trades and
mechanic arts his education will injure rather than help him.[120] We
would rather see a Negro boy build an engine than take the highest
prize in Yale or Harvard.
It is quite difficult to get at a clear idea of what has been done in
the Northern States toward the education of the Colored people. In
nearly all the States on the borders of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers "Colored schools" still exist; and in many instances are kept
alive through the spirit of the self-seeking of a few Colored persons
who draw salaries in lieu of their continuance. They should be
abolished, and will be, as surely as heat follows light and the rising
of the sun. In the New England, Middle, and extreme Western States,
with the exception of Kansas, separate schools do not exist. The doors
of all colleges, founded and conducted by the white people in the
North, are open to the Colored people who desire to avail themselves
of an academic education. At the present time there are one hundred
and sixty-nine Colored students in seventy white colleges in the
Northern States; and the presidents say they are doing well.
_The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands_ was
established in the spring of 1865 to meet the state of affairs
incident upon the closing scenes of the great civil war. The Act
creating the Bureau was approved and became a law on the 3d of March,
1865. The Bureau was to be under the management of the War Department,
and its officers were liable for the property placed in their hands
under the revised regulations of the army. In May, 1865, the following
order was issued from the War Department appointing Major-Gen. O. O.
Howard Commissioner of the Bureau:
"[GENERAL ORDERS NO. 91.]
"WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, }
"WASHINGTON, May 12, 1865. }
"Order Organizing Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
"Lands.
"I. By the direction of the President, Major General O. O. Howard
is assigned to duty in the War Department as Commissioner of the
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, under the act
of Congress entitled 'An act to establish a bureau for the relief
of freedmen and refugees,' to perform the duties and exercise all
the rights, authority, and jurisdiction vested by the act of
Congress in such Commissioner. General Howard will enter at once
upon the duties of Commissioner specified in said act.
"II. The Quartermaster General will, without delay, assign and
furnish suitable quarters and apartments for the said bureau.
"III. The Adjutant General will assign to the said bureau the
number of competent clerks authorized by the act of Congress.
"By order of the President of the United States:
"E. D. Townsend,
"_Assistant Adjutant General_."
Gen. Howard entered upon the discharge of the vast, varied, and
complicated duties of his office with his characteristic zeal,
intelligence, and high Christian integrity. Hospitals were founded for
the care of the sick, infirm, blind, deaf, and dumb. Rations were
issued, clothing distributed, and lands apportioned to the needy and
worthy.
From May 30, 1865, to November 20, 1865, inclusive, this Bureau
furnished transportation for 1,946 freedmen, and issued to this class
of persons in ten States, 1,030,100 rations.
"Congress, when it created the bureau, made no appropriation to
defray its expenses; it has, however, received funds from
miscellaneous sources, as the following report will show:
"In several of the States, Virginia, North and South Carolina,
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas,
Missouri, and the District of Columbia, the interests of the
freedmen were under the control of military officers assigned by
the War Department previous to the organization of this bureau.
Their accounts became naturally absorbed in the accounts of the
bureau, and the following report embraces all the receipts and
expenditures in all States now under control of the bureau since
January 1, 1865:"
RECEIPTS.
Amount on hand January 1, 1865, and received since, to October
31, 1865:
From freedmen's fund $466,028 35
From retained bounties 115,236 49
For clothing, fuel, and subsistence 7,704 21
Farms 76,709 12
From rents of buildings 56,012 42
From rents of lands 125,521 00
From Quartermaster's department 12,200 00
From conscript fund 13,498 11
From schools (tax and tuition) 34,486 58
----------
Total received 907,396 28
EXPENDITURES.
Freedmen's fund $8,009 14
Clothing, fuel, and subsistence 75,504 05
Farms 40,069 71
Household furniture 2,904 90
Rents of buildings 11,470 88
Labor (by freedmen and other employés) 237,097 62
Repairs of buildings 19,518 46
Contingent expenses 46,328 07
Rents of lands 300 00
Internal revenue 1,379 86
Conscript fund 6,515 37
Transportation 1,445 51
Schools 27,819 60
----------
Total expended 478,363 17
RECAPITULATION.
Total amount received $907,396 28
Total amount expended 478,363 17
-----------
Balance on hand October 31, 1865 429,033 11
Deduct the amount held as retained bounties 115,236 49
Balance on hand October 31, 1865, available
to meet liabilities 313,796 62[121]
It was the policy of the Government to help the freedmen on to their
feet; to give them a start in the race of self-support and manhood.
They received such assistance as was given them with thankful hearts,
and were not long in placing themselves upon a safe foundation for
their new existence. Out of a population of 350,000 in North Carolina
only 5,000 were receiving aid from the Government in the fall of 1865.
Each month witnessed a wonderful reduction of the rations issued to
the freedmen. In the month of August, 1865, Gen. C. B. Fisk had
reduced the number of freedmen receiving rations from 3,785 to 2,984,
in Kentucky. In the same month, in Mississippi, Gen. Samuel Thomas, of
the 64th U. S. C. I., had reduced the number of persons receiving
rations to 669. In his report for 1865, Gen. Thomas said:
"The freedmen working land assigned them at Davis's Bend, Camp
Hawley, near Vicksburg, De Soto Point, opposite, and at
Washington, near Natchez, are all doing well. These crops are
maturing fast; as harvest time approaches, I reduce the number of
rations issued and compel them to rely on their own resources. At
least 10,000 bales of cotton will be raised by these people, who
are conducting cotton crops on their own account. Besides this
cotton, they have gardens and corn enough to furnish bread for
their families and food for their stock till harvest time
returns. * * * A more industrious, energetic body of citizens
does not exist than can be seen at the colonies now."
Speaking of the industry of the freed people Gen. Thomas added: "I
have lately visited a large portion of the State, and find it in much
better condition than I expected. In the eastern part fine crops of
grain are growing; the negroes are at home working quietly; they have
contracted with their old masters at fair wages; all seem to accept
the change without a shock."
From June 1, 1865, to September 1, 1866, the Freedmen's Bureau issued
to the freed people of the South 8,904,451½ rations, and was able to
make the following financial showing of the Refugees' and Freedmen's
fund. From November 1, 1865, to October 1, 1866, the receipts and
expenditures were as follows:
Amount on hand November 1, 1865 $313,796 62
Received from various sources, as follows:
Freedmen's fund $367,659 93
Clothing, fuel, and subsistence 2,074 55
Farms (sales of crops) 109,709 98
Rent of buildings 48,560 87
Rent of lands 113,641 78
Conscript funds 140 95
Transportation 1,053 50
Schools (taxes) 64,145 86
-------------
Total on hand and received $1,020,784 04
EXPENDITURES.
Freedmen's fund $7,411 32
Clothing, fuel, and subsistence 13,870 93
Farms (fencing, seeds, tools, etc.) 7,210 66
Labor (by freedmen and other employés) 426,918 12
Rent of buildings (offices, etc.) 50,186 61
Repairs of buildings 1,957 47
EXPENDITURES.--(_Continued._)
Contingent expenses 74,295 77
Rent of lands (restored) 9,260 58
Quartermaster's department 11 26
Internal revenue (tax on salaries) 7,965 22
Conscript fund 1,664 01
Transportation 22,387 01
Schools 115,261 56
-----------
Total expended $738,400 52
-----------
Balance on hand October 1, 1866 $282,383 52
In September, 1866, the Bureau had on hand:
RECAPITULATION.
Balance on hand of freedmen's fund $282,383 52
Balance of District destitute fund 18,328 67
Balance of appropriation 6,856,259 30
-------------
Total $7,156,971 49
Estimated amount due subsistence
department $297,000 00
Transportation reported unpaid 26,015 94
Transportation estimated due 20,000 00
Estimated amount due medical department 100,000 00
Estimated, amount due quartermaster's
department 200,000 00
-----------
$643,015 94
-------------
Total balance for all purposes of
expenditures $6,513,955 55
-------------
But the estimate of Gen. Howard for funds to run the Bureau for the
fiscal year commencing July 1, 1867, only called for the sum of three
million eight hundred and thirty-six thousand and three hundred
dollars, as follows:
Salaries of assistant commissioners,
sub-assistants, and agents $147,500
Salaries of clerks 82,800
Stationery and printing 63,000
Quarters and fuel 200,000
Subsistence stores 1,500,000
Medical department 500,000
Transportation 800,000
School superintendents 25,000
Buildings for schools and asylums, including
construction, rental, and repairs 500,000
Telegraphing and postage 18,000
----------
$3,836,300
This showed that the freed people were rapidly becoming
self-sustaining, and that the aid rendered by the Government was used
to a good purpose.
Soon after Colored Troops were mustered into the service of the
Government a question arose as to some safe method by which these
troops might save their pay against the days of peace and personal
effort. The noble and wise Gen. Saxton answered the question and met
the need of the hour by establishing a Military Savings Bank at
Beaufort, South Carolina. Soldiers under his command were thus enabled
to husband their funds. Gen. Butler followed in this good work, and
established a similar one at Norfolk, Virginia. These banks did an
excellent work, and so favorably impressed many of the friends of the
Negro that a plan for a Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company was
at once projected. Before the spring campaign of 1865 opened up, the
plan was presented to Congress; a bill introduced creating such a
bank, was passed and signed by President Lincoln on the 3d of March.
The following is the Act:
"AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND TRUST "COMPANY.
"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled:_ That Peter
Cooper, William C. Bryant, A. A. Low, S. B. Chittenden, Charles
H. Marshall, William A. Booth, Gerrit Smith, William A. Hall,
William Allen, John Jay, Abraham Baldwin, A. S. Barnes, Hiram
Barney, Seth B. Hunt, Samuel Holmes, Charles Collins, R. R.
Graves, Walter S. Griffith, A. H. Wallis, D. S. Gregory, J. W.
Alvord, George Whipple, A. S. Hatch, Walter T. Hatch, E. A.
Lambert, W. G. Lambert, Roe Lockwood, R. H. Manning, R. W. Ropes,
Albert Woodruff, and Thomas Denny, of New York; John M. Forbes,
William Claflin, S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Edward Atkinson,
A. A. Lawrence, and John M. S. Williams, of Massachusetts;
Edward Harris and Thomas Davis, of Rhode Island; Stephen Colwell,
J. Wheaton Smith, Francis E. Cope, Thomas Webster, B. S. Hunt,
and Henry Samuel, of Pennsylvania; Edward Harwood, Adam Poe, Levi
Coffin, J. M. Walden, of Ohio, and their successors, are
constituted a body corporate in the City of Washington, in the
District of Columbia, by the name of the FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND
TRUST COMPANY, and by that name may sue and be sued in any court
of the United States.
"SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That the persons named in
the first section of this act shall be the first Trustees of the
Corporation, and all vacancies by death, resignation, or
otherwise, in the office of Trustee shall be filled by the Board,
by ballot, without unnecessary delay, and at least ten votes
shall be necessary for the election of any Trustee. The Trustees
shall hold a regular meeting, at least once in each month, to
receive reports of their officers on the affairs of the
Corporation, and to transact such business as may be necessary;
and any Trustee omitting to attend the regular meetings of the
Board for six months in succession, may thereupon be considered
as having vacated his place, and a successor may be elected to
fill the same.
"SEC. 3. _And be it further enacted_, That the business of the
Corporation shall be managed and directed by the Board of
Trustees, who shall elect from their number a President and two
Vice-Presidents, and may appoint such other officers as they may
see fit; nine of the Trustees, of whom the President or one of
the Vice-Presidents shall be one, shall form a quorum for the
transaction of business at any regular or adjourned meeting of
the Board of Trustees; and the affirmative vote of at least seven
members of the Board shall be requisite in making any order for,
or authorizing the investment of, any moneys, or the sale or
transfer of any stock or securities belonging to the Corporation,
or the appointment of any officer receiving any salary therefrom.
"SEC. 4. _And be it further enacted_, That the Board of Trustees
of the Corporation shall have power, from time to time, to make
and establish such By-Laws and regulations as they shall judge
proper with regard to the elections of officers and their
respective functions, and generally for the management of the
affairs of the Corporation, provided such By-Laws and regulations
are not repugnant to this act, or to the Constitution or laws of
the United States.
"SEC. 5. _And be it further enacted_, That the general business
and object of the Corporation hereby created shall be, to receive
on deposit such sums of money as may, from time to time, be
offered therefor, by or on behalf of persons heretofore held in
slavery in the United States, or their descendants, and investing
the same in the stocks, bonds, Treasury notes, or other
securities of the United States.
"SEC. 6. _And be it further enacted_, That it shall be the duty
of the Trustees of the Corporation to invest, as soon as
practicable, in the securities named in the next preceding
section, all sums received by them beyond an available fund, not
exceeding one third of the total amount of deposits with the
Corporation, at the discretion of the Trustees, which available
funds may be kept by the Trustees, to meet current payments of
the Corporation, and may by them be left on deposit, at interest
or otherwise, or in such available form as the Trustees may
direct.
"SEC. 7. _And be it further enacted_, That the Corporation may,
under such regulations as the Board of Trustees shall, from time
to time, prescribe, receive any deposit hereby authorized to be
received, upon such trusts and for such purposes, not contrary to
the laws of the United States, as may be indicated in writing by
the depositor, such writing to be subscribed by the depositor and
acknowledged or proved before any officer in the civil or
military service of the United States, the certificate of which
acknowledgment or proof shall be endorsed on the writing; and the
writing, so acknowledged or proved, shall accompany such deposit
and be filed among the papers of the Corporation, and be
carefully preserved therein, and may be read in evidence in any
court or before any judicial officer of the United States,
without further proof; and the certificate of acknowledgment or
proof shall be _prima facie_ evidence only of the due execution
of such writing.
"SEC. 8. _And be it further enacted_, That all sums received on
deposit shall be repaid to such depositor when required, at such
time, with such interest, not exceeding seven per centum per
annum, and under such regulations as the Board of Trustees shall,
from time to time, prescribe, which regulations shall be posted
up in some conspicuous place in the room where the business of
the Corporation shall be transacted, but shall not be altered so
as to affect any deposit previously made.
"SEC. 9. _And be it further enacted_, That all trusts upon which,
and all purposes for which any deposit shall be made, and which
shall be indicated in the writing to accompany such deposit,
shall be faithfully performed by the Corporation, unless the
performing of the same is rendered impossible.
"SEC. 10. _And be it further enacted_, That when any depositor
shall die, the funds remaining on deposit with the Corporation to
his credit, and all accumulations thereof, shall belong and be
paid to the personal representatives of such depositor, in case
he shall have left a last will and testament, and in default of a
last will and testament, or of any person qualifying under a last
will and testament, competent to act as executor, the Corporation
shall be entitled, in respect to the funds so remaining on
deposit to the credit of any such depositor, to administration
thereon in preference to all other persons, and letters or
administration shall be granted to the Corporation accordingly in
the manner prescribed by law in respect to granting of letters of
administration, with the will annexed, and in cases of intestacy.
"SEC. 11. _And be it further enacted_, That in the case of the
death of any depositor, whose deposit shall not be held upon any
trust created pursuant to the provisions hereinbefore contained,
or where it may prove impossible to execute such trust, it shall
be the duty of the Corporation to make diligent efforts to
ascertain and discover whether such deceased depositor has left a
husband, wife, or children, surviving, and the Corporation shall
keep a record of the efforts so made, and of the results thereof;
and in case no person lawfully entitled thereto shall be
discovered, or shall appear, or claim the funds remaining to the
credit of such depositor before the expiration of two years from
the death of such depositor, it shall be lawful for the
Corporation to hold and invest such funds as a separate trust
fund, to be applied, with the accumulations thereof, to the
education and improvement of persons heretofore held in slavery,
or their descendants, being inhabitants of the United States, in
such manner and through such agencies as the Board of Trustees
shall deem best calculated to effect that object; _Provided_,
That if any depositor be not heard from within five years from
the date of his last deposit, the Trustees shall advertise the
same in some paper of general circulation in the State where the
principal office of the Company is established, and also in the
State where the depositor was last heard from; and if, within two
years thereafter, such depositor shall not appear, nor a husband,
wife, or child of such depositor, to claim his deposits, they
shall be used by the Board of Trustees as hereinbefore provided
for in this section.
"SEC. 12. _And be it further enacted_, That no President,
Vice-President, Trustee, officer, or servant of the Corporation
shall, directly or indirectly, borrow the funds of the
Corporation or its deposits, or in any manner use the same, or
any part thereof, except to pay necessary expenses, under the
direction of the Board of Trustees. All certificates or other
evidences of deposit made by the proper officers shall be as
binding on the Corporation as if they were made under their
common seal. It shall be the duty of the Trustees to regulate the
rate of interest allowed to the depositors, so that they shall
receive, as nearly as may be, a rateable proportion of all the
profits of the Corporation, after deducting all necessary
expenses; _Provided, however_, That the Trustees may allow to
depositors to the amount of five hundred dollars or upward one
per centum less than the amount allowed others; _And provided,
also_, Whenever it shall appear that, after the payment of the
usual interest to depositors, there is in the possession of the
Corporation an excess of profits over the liabilities amounting
to ten per centum upon the deposits, such excess shall be
invested for the security of the depositors in the Corporation;
and thereafter, at each annual examination of the affairs of the
Corporation, any surplus over and above such ten per centum
shall, in addition to the usual interest, be divided rateably
among the depositors, in such manner as the Board of Trustees
shall direct.
"SEC. 13. _And be it further enacted_, That whenever any deposits
shall be made by any minor, the Trustees of the Corporation may,
at their discretion, pay to such depositor such sum as may be due
to him, although no guardian shall have been appointed for such
minor, or the guardian of such minor shall not have authorized
the drawing of the same; and the check, receipt, or acquittance
of such minor shall be as valid as if the same were executed by a
guardian of such minor, or the minor were of full age, if such
deposit was made personally by such minor. And whenever any
deposits shall have been made by married women, the Trustees may
repay the same on their own receipts.
"SEC. 14. _And be it further enacted_, That the Trustees shall
not directly or indirectly receive any payment or emolument for
their services as such, except the President and Vice-President.
"SEC. 15. _And be it further enacted_, That the President,
Vice-President, and subordinate officers and agents of the
Corporation, shall respectively give such security for their
fidelity and good conduct as the Board of Trustees may, from time
to time, require, and the Board shall fix the salaries of such
officers and agents.
"SEC. 16. _And be it further enacted_, That the books of the
Corporation shall, at all times during the hours of business, be
open for inspection and examination to such persons as Congress
shall designate or appoint.
"Approved March 3, 1865."
Eleven of these banks were established in 1865, nine in 1866, three in
1868, one in 1869, and the remainder in 1870, after the charter had
been amended as follows:
"AN ACT TO AMEND AN ACT ENTITLED 'AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE
FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY,' APPROVED MARCH THIRD,
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE.
"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United Stales of America, in Congress assembled_, That the fifth
section of the Act entitled 'An Act to Incorporate the Freedman's
Savings and Trust Company,' approved March third, eighteen
hundred and sixty-five, be, and the same is hereby, amended by
adding thereto at the end thereof the words following: 'and to
the extent of one half in bonds or notes, secured by mortgage on
real estate in double the value of the loan; and the corporation
is also authorized hereby to hold and improve the real estate now
owned by it in the city of Washington, to wit: the west half of
lot number three; all of lots four, five, six, seven, and the
south half of lot number eight, in square number two hundred and
twenty-one, as laid out and recorded in the original plats or
plan of said city: _Provided_, That said corporation shall not
use the principal of any deposits made with it for the purpose of
such improvement.'
"SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That Congress shall have
the right to alter or repeal this amendment at any time.
"Approved May 6, 1870."
The company was organized on the 16th of May, 1865, and the trustees
made their first report on the 8th of June, 1865. Deposits up to this
date were $700, besides $7,956.38 transferred from the Military
Savings Bank at Norfolk, Virginia, on the 3d of June. On the 1st of
August the first branch office was opened at Washington, D. C., and on
the 1st of September it had a balance due its depositors of $843.84.
Other branches were opened during the year at Louisville, Richmond,
Nashville, Wilmington, Huntsville, Memphis, Mobile, and Vicksburg.
December 14, 1865, the Military Bank at Beaufort, organized October
16, 1865, was, by order of General Saxton, transferred to this
company, with its balance of $170,000. At the end of the first year,
March 1, 1866, fourteen branch offices had been opened, and the
balance due depositors was $199,283.42.
The total deposits made by freedmen in them, from their establishment
up to July 1, 1870, was $16,960,336, of which over $2,000,000 still
remained on deposit. The total amount of deposits in the Richmond
branch up to that date was $318,913, and the balance undrawn $84,537.
The average amount deposited by the various depositors was nearly
$284. So far as the facts were obtained, it appeared that about
seventy per cent. of the money drawn from these banks was invested in
real estate and in business.
By the financial statement of the banking company, for August, 1871,
it appears that in the thirty-four banks then in operation the
deposits made during that month, which was considered "dull," amounted
to $882,806.67, and that the total amount to the credit of the
depositors was $3,058,232.81. In the Richmond branch, the deposits
for that month were $17,790.60, and the total amount due depositors
was $123,733.75; all of which was to the credit of Colored people,
except $6,929.19. A branch shortly before had been established in
Lynchburg, which showed a balance due depositors of $7,382.83.
The following table shows the business of the company for the years
1866-1871:
_Table Showing the Relative Business of the Company for Each Fiscal
Year._
For year ending Total amount of Total amount of Balance due
March 1. deposits. drafts. depositors.
--------------- --------------- --------------- -------------
1866 $305,167 00 $105,883 58 $199,283 42
1867 1,624,853 33 1,258,515 00 366,338 33
1868 3,582,378 36 2,944,079 36 638,299 00
1869 7,257,798 63 6,184,333 32 1,073,465 31
1870 12,605,781 95 10,948,775 20 1,657,006 75
1871 19,952,647 36 17,497,111 25 2,455,836 11
For year ending Deposits each Drafts each Gain each
March 1. year. year. year.
--------------- ------------- ------------- ------------
1866 $305,167 00 $105,883 58 $199,283 42
1867 1,319,686 33 1,152,631 42 167,054 91
1868 1,957,525 03 1,685,564 36 271,960 67
1869 3,675,420 27 3,240,253 96 435,166 31
1870 5,347,983 32 4,764,441 88 583,341 44
1871 7,347,165 41 6,548,336 05 798,829 36
The total amount of deposits received from the organization
of the company to October 1, 1871--six years
from the opening of the first branch--was $25,977,435 48
Total drafts during the same period were 22,850,926 47
--------------
Leaving due depositors October 1, 1871 3,126,509 01
The _total assets_ of company on same day
amounted to 3,157,206 17
--------------
The interest paid during this time amounted to 180,565 35
In 1872 the trustees made the following interesting statement:
THE FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST, 1872.
Deposits for Drafts for Total amount Total amount Balance due
BRANCHES. the month. the month. of Deposits. of Drafts. Depositors.
----------------------- ------------ ---------- ------------- ------------- -----------
Atlanta, Georgia $9,419 68 $11,242 30 $245,200 27 $223,020 17 $22,180 10
Augusta, Georgia 10,771 99 9,217 94 367,653 16 284,406 14 83,247 02
Baltimore, Maryland 29,755 52 18,644 57 1,278,042 32 996,371 98 281,670 34
Beaufort, South Carolina 189,600 74 184,924 40 2,993,873 30 2,944,441 88 49,431 42
Charleston, South Carolina 67,668 83 84,464 53 3,100,641 65 2,795,176 24 305,465 41
Columbus, Mississippi 2,426 15 4,364 34 132,036 46 121,776 67 10,259 79
Columbia, Tennessee 2,552 55 2,086 05 34,088 97 15,738 76 18,350 21
Huntsville, Alabama 7,343 50 10,127 61 416,617 72 364,382 51 52,235 21
Jacksonville, Florida 67,292 09 57,307 54 3,312,424 55 3,234,445 72 77,978 83
Lexington, Kentucky 14,383 85 11,221 13 238,680 22 188,308 76 50,371 46
Little Rock, Arkansas 7,871 27 9,506 37 172,392 10 154,914 42 17,477 68
Louisville, Kentucky 18,311 01 17,535 74 1,057,587 71 914,504 61 143,083 10
Lynchburg, Virginia 3,104 48 1,242 56 36,880 98 18,354 87 18,526 11
Macon, Georgia 6,808 98 7,061 52 197,050 01 156,308 75 40,741 26
Memphis, Tennessee 20,045 40 27,197 06 970,096 09 840,218 91 129,877 18
Mobile, Alabama 11,136 05 18,645 62 1,039,097 05 933,424 30 105,672 75
Montgomery, Alabama 8,522 90 8,679 60 238,106 08 213,861 71 24,244 37
Natchez, Mississippi 25,548 53 15,005 17 649,256 70 612,985 74 36,270 96
Nashville, Tennessee 15,731 46 17,098 58 739,691 88 625,166 40 114,525 48
New Berne, North Carolina 38,113 83 37,775 73 1,057,688 32 1,001,645 74 56,042 58
New Orleans, Louisiana 193,145 48 207,878 53 2,393,584 08 2,171,056 95 222,527 13
New York, New York 133,209 58 74,461 61 1,673,249 36 1,227,449 57 445,799 79
Norfolk, Virginia 16,771 88 17,757 38 1,048,762 05 916,047 59 132,714 46
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 11,451 12 9,887 49 357,924 89 278,641 10 79,283 79
Raleigh, North Carolina 5,663 28 4,660 18 231,685 82 202,032 44 29,653 38
Richmond, Virginia 64,112 51 53,900 72 1,082,152 71 912,933 45 169,219 26
Savannah, Georgia 30,951 23 27,066 33 1,031,173 38 893,321 30 137,852 02
Shreveport, Louisiana 20,688 72 21,105 59 299,428 39 264,707 78 34,720 61
St. Louis, Missouri 26,323 93 20,599 02 615,876 74 526,490 86 89,385 88
Tallahassee, Florida 4,589 45 4,526 75 361,614 57 329,618 33 31,996 24
Vicksburg, Mississippi 61,691 73 60,068 28 2,962,235 58 2,823,700 87 138,534 71
Washington, Dist. Colum'a 323,555 79 296,321 26 7,438,918 17 6,406,092 39 1,032,825 78
Wilmington, N'th Carolina 10,714 10 12,632 65 457,360 75 407,512 51 49,848 24
Alexandria, Virginia 1,929 91 685 80 14,091 77 1,626 35 12,465 42
$1,461,207 52 $1,364,899 95 $38,245,163 80 $34,000,685 77 $4,244,478 03
Total amount of deposits for the month $1,461,207 56
Total amount of drafts for the month 1,364,899 95
-------------
Gain for the month 96,307 61
=============
Total amount of deposits $38,245,163 80
Total amount of drafts 34,000,685,77
--------------
Total amount due depositors $4,244,478 03
==============
This first experiment of the new citizen in saving his funds was
working admirably. Each report was more cheering than the preceding
one. The deposits were generally made by day laborers, house servants,
farmers, mechanics, and washerwomen. Two facts were established, viz.:
that the Negroes of the South were working; and that they were saving
their earnings. Northern as well as Southern whites were agreeably
surprised.
But bad management doomed the institution to irreparable ruin. The
charter was violated in the establishment of branch banks; "persons
who were never held in bondage and their descendants" were allowed to
deposit funds in the bank; money was loaned upon valueless securities
and meaningless collaterals, and in the fall of 1873, having been kept
open for a long time on money borrowed on collateral securities
belonging to its customers, the bank failed!
During the brief period of its existence about $57,000,000 had been
deposited. The liabilities of the institution at the time of the
failure, as corrected to date, were $3,037,483, of which $73,774.34
were special deposits and preferred claims. The number of open
accounts at the time of the failure were 62,000. The _nominal_ assets
at the time of the failure were $2,693,093.20. And in the almost
interminable list of over-drafts amounting to $55,567.63, there
appeared but one solitary surety!
On the 20th of June, 1874, Congress passed an act permitting the very
men who had destroyed the bank to nominate three Commissioners, who,
upon the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, should wind up the
affairs of this insolvent institution. Section 7 of the Act reads as
follows:
"SEC. 7. That whenever it shall be deemed advisable by the
trustees of said corporation to close up its entire business,
then they shall select three competent men, not connected with
the previous management of the institution and approved by the
Secretary of the Treasury, to be known and styled commissioners,
whose duty it shall be to take charge of all the property and
effects of said Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, close up
the principal and subordinate branches, collect from the branches
all the deposits they have on hand, and proceed to collect all
sums due said company, and dispose of all the property owned by
said company, as speedily as the interests of the corporation
require, and to distribute the proceeds among the creditors pro
rata, according to their respective amounts; they shall make a
pro rata dividend whenever they have funds enough to pay twenty
per centum of the claims of depositors. Said commissioners,
before they proceed to act, shall execute a joint bond to the
United States, with good sureties, in the penal sum of one
hundred thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful discharge
of their duties as commissioners aforesaid, and shall take an
oath to faithfully and honestly perform their duties as such,
which bonds shall be executed in presence of the Secretary of the
Treasury, be approved by him, and by him safely kept; and
whenever said trustees shall file with the Secretary of the
Treasury a certified copy of the order appointing said
commissioners, and they shall have executed the bonds and taken
the oath aforesaid, then said commissioners shall be invested
with the legal title to all of said property of said company, for
the purposes of this act, and shall have full power and authority
to sell the same, and make deeds of conveyance to any and all of
the real estate sold by them to the purchasers. Said
commissioners may employ such agents as are necessary to assist
them in closing up said company, and pay them a reasonable
compensation for their services out of the funds of said company;
and the said commissioners shall retain out of said funds a
reasonable compensation for their trouble, to be fixed by the
Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency,
and not exceeding three thousand dollars each per annum. Said
commissioners shall deposit all sums collected by them in the
Treasury of the United States until they make a pro rata
distribution of the same."
There are several legal questions that history would like to ask. 1.
Did not the trustees of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company
violate their charter in establishing branch banks? 2. Were not the
trustees personally liable for receiving deposits from persons who
were neither "heretofore held in slavery" nor the descendants of such
persons? 3. Were not persons "heretofore held in slavery" and "their
descendants" preferred creditors? 4. Had Congress the authority to go
outside of the Federal bankruptcy laws and create such special
machinery for the settlement of a collapsed bank? This matter may come
before Congress in a new shape some time in the future.
The three commissioners, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, were charged
with the settlement of the affairs of the bank. They were Jno. A. J.
Creswell, Robert Purvis, and R. H. T. Leipold. Mr. Creswell was
retained by the United States before the Alabama Claims Commission at
a salary of $10,000 per annum; while Mr. Leipold was a lawyer with
considerable practice. But neither one of these gentlemen ever entered
a court on behalf of the company. In a little more than five years
they used up out of the assets of the company, $40,000 for their
salaries; paid for salaries to agents, $64,000, and $31,000 for
attorneys' fees, aggregating $135,000--nearly one half of the amount
distributed among depositors for the same length of time.
The more the commissioners examined, the greater the liabilities of
the company grew. On the 1st of October, 1875, a dividend of 20 per
cent. was declared; on the 1st of February, 1878, a dividend of 10 per
cent. was declared; on the 21st of August, 1880, they declared another
dividend of 10 per cent.; and on the 14th of April, 1881, a circular
was sent out as a crumb of comfort to the anxious, defrauded, and
outraged depositors. It is not enough for history to pronounce the
failure of this bank an irreparable calamity to the Colored people of
the South; it should be branded as a _crime_! There was no more
necessity for the failure of this bank than for the failure of the
United States Treasury. Its management was criminal; and Congress
should yet seek out and punish the guilty; and the depositors should
be indemnified out of the United States Treasury. Justice and equity
demand it.
The failure of the Freedman's Bank worked great mischief among the
Colored people in the South. But hardy, persistent, earnest, and
hopeful, they turned again to the work of making and saving money.
They have been more prudent than their circumstances, in some
instances, would seem to warrant. In Georgia the Colored people have
made wonderful progress in business matters.
Amount of
Money and Household
No. of Solvent and
Acres of Value of City or Town Debts of Kitchen
Polls. Land. Land. Property. all Kinds. Furniture.
------- ------- ---------- ------------ ---------- ----------
88,522 541,199 $1,348,758 $1,094,435 $73,253 $448,713
Value of all
other Property
Horses, Plantation not before Aggregate Total Amount
Mules, Hogs, and Enumerated Value of of Tax Assessed
Sheep, Mechanical except Whole on Polls
and Cattle. Tools. Annual Crops, Property. and Property.
Provisions, etc.
----------- ---------- ---------------- ---------- ---------------
$1,704,230 $143,258 $369,751 $5,182,398 $106,660.39
Increase in number of acres since return of 1878 39,309
Increase in wealth since return of 1878 $57,523
In Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, and in
Maryland, Colored men have possessed themselves of excellent farms
and moderate fortunes. In Baltimore a company of Colored men own a
ship dock, and transact a large business. Some of the largest orange
plantations in Florida are owned by Colored men. On most of the
plantations, and in many of the large towns and cities Colored
mechanics are quite numerous. The Montgomeries who own the plantation,
once the property of Jefferson Davis, extending for miles along the
Mississippi, are probably the best business men in the South. In
Louisiana, P. P. Deslonde, A. Dubuclet, Hon. T. T. Allain, and State
Senator Young are men who, although taking a lively interest in
politics, have accumulated property and saved it.
There is nothing vicious in the character of the Southern Negro. He is
gentle, affectionate, and faithful. If it has appeared, through false
figures, that he is a criminal, there is room for satisfactory
explanation. In 1870, out of a population, of persons of color, in all
the States and Territories, of 4,880,009, there were only 9,400 who
were receiving aid on the 1st of June, 1870; and only 8,056 in all the
prisons of America. Nine tenths of these were South, and could neither
read nor write.
During the Rebellion, when every white male from fifteen to seventy
was out fighting to sustain the Confederacy--when the Southern
Government was robbing the cradle and the grave for soldiers--the
wives and children of the Confederates were committed to the care and
keeping of their slaves. And what is the verdict of history? That
these women were outraged and their children brained? No! But that
during all those years of painful anxiety, of hope and fear, of fiery
trial and severe privation, those faithful Negroes toiled, not only to
support the wives and children of the men who were fighting to make
slavery national and perpetual, but fed the entire rebel army, and
never laid the weight of a finger upon the head of any of the women or
children entrusted to their care! To this virtue of fidelity to their
worst enemies they added still another, loyalty to the Union flag and
escaping Union soldiers. All night long they would direct the lonely,
famishing, fainting, and almost delirious Union soldier in a safe way,
and then when the night and morning met they would point their pilgrim
friends to the North Star, hide them and feed them during the day, and
then return to the plantation to care for the loved ones of the men
who starved Union soldiers and hunted them down with bloodhounds! This
is the brightest gem that history can place upon the brow of the
Negro; and in conferring it there is no one found to object.
Since the war the crime among Colored people is to be accounted for
upon two grounds, viz.: ignorance, and a combination of circumstances
over which they had no control. It was one thing for the Negro to
understand the cruel laws of slavery, but when he found himself a
freeman he was not able to know what was an infraction of the law.
They did not know what in law constituted a _tort_, or a civil action
from a sled. The violent passions pampered in slavery, the destruction
of the home, the promiscuous mingling of the sexes, a conscience
enfeebled by disuse, made them easy transgressors. The Negro is not a
criminal generically; he is an accidental criminal. The judiciary and
juries of the South are responsible for the alarming prison statistics
which stand against the Negro. It takes generations for men to
overcome their prejudices. With a white judge and a white jury a Negro
is guilty the moment he makes his appearance in court. It is seldom
that a Negro can get judgment against a white person under the most
favorable circumstances. The Negroes who appear in courts are of the
poorer and more ignorant class. They have no funds with which to
employ counsel, and have but few intelligent lawyers to come to their
rescue. In cases of theft, especially of poultry, pigs, sheep, fruit,
etc., it is next to impossible to convince a white judge or jury that
the defendant is not guilty. They reason that because the half-fed,
overworked slave appropriated articles of food, as a freeman the Negro
was not changed. They ascribed a general habit, growing out of trying
circumstances, to the Negro as a slave that he soon learned to regard
as morally wrong when a freeman.
But the most effective agency in filling Southern prisons with Negroes
has been, and is, the chain-gang system--the farming out of convict
labor. Just as great railway, oil, and telegraph companies in the
North have been capable of controlling legislation, so the
corporations at the South which take the prisoners of the State off of
the hands of the Government, and then speculate upon the labor of the
prisoners, are able to control both court and jury. It has been the
practice, and is now, in some of the Southern States, to pronounce
long sentences upon able-bodied young Colored men, whose offences, in
a Northern court, could not be visited with more than a few months'
confinement and a trifling fine. The object in giving Negro men a long
term of years, is to make sure the tenure of the soulless
corporations upon the convicts whose unhappy lot it is to fall into
their iron grasp. In some of the Southern States a strong and healthy
Negro convict brings thirty-seven cents a day to the State, while he
earns a dollar for the corporations above his expenses. The convicts
are cruelly treated--especially in Georgia and Kentucky;--their food
is poor, their quarters miserable, and their morals next to the brute
creation. In many of these camps men and women are compelled to sleep
in the same bunks together, with chains upon their limbs, in a
promiscuous manner too sickening and disgusting to mention. When a
prisoner escapes he is hunted down by fiery dogs and cruel guards; and
often the poor prisoner is torn to pieces by the dogs or beaten to
death by the guards. No system of slavery was ever equal in its cruel
and dehumanizing details to this convict system, which, taking
advantage of race prejudice on the one hand and race ignorance on the
other, with cupidity and avarice as its chief characteristics, has
done more to curse the South than all things else since the war.
It was predicted by persons hostile to the rights and citizenship of
the Negro, that a condition of freedom would not be in harmony with
his character; that it would destroy him, and that he would destroy
the country and party which tried to make him agree to a state of
independent life; that having been used to the "kind treatment"(?) of
his master he would find himself unequal to the responsibilities of
freedom; and that his migratory disposition would lead him into a
climate too cold for him, where he would be welcomed to an
inhospitable grave.
It is true that a great many Negroes died during the first years of
their new life. The joy of emancipation and the excitement that
disturbed business swept the Negroes into the large cities. Like the
shepherds who left their flocks on the plains and went into Bethlehem
to see the promised redemption, these people sought the centres of
excitement. The large cities were overrun with them. The demand for
unskilled labor was not great. From mere spectators they became
idlers, helpless and offensive to industrious society. Ignorant of
sanitary laws, imprudent in their daily living, changing from the pure
air and plain diet of farm life to the poisonous atmosphere and rich,
fateful food of the city, many fell victims to the sudden change from
bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, and from the fleshpots,
garlic, and onions of their Egyptian bondage to the milk and honey of
the Canaan of their deliverance.
But this was in accordance with an immutable law of nature. Every year
a large number of birds perish in an attempt to change their home;
every spring-time many flowers die at their birth. The law of the
survival of the fittest is impartial and inexorable. The Creator said
centuries ago "the soul that sinneth shall surely die," and the law
has remained until the present time. Those who sinned ignorantly or
knowingly died the death; but those who obeyed the laws of health, of
man, and of God, lived to be useful members of society.
But this was the exception to the rule. The Negro race in America is
not dying out. The charge is false. The wish was father to the
thought, while no doubt many honest people have been misled by false
figures. Nearly all white communities at the South had more than
enough of physicians; and science and culture were summoned to the aid
of the white mother in the hour of childbirth. The record of births
was preserved with pride and official accuracy; and thus there was a
record upon which to calculate the increase. But, on the contary,
among the Negroes there were no physicians and no record of births.
The venerable system of midwifery prevailed. In burying their dead,
however, this people were compelled to obtain a burial permit from the
Board of Health. Thus the statistics were all on one side--all deaths
and no births. Looking at these statistics it did seem that the race
was dying out. But the Government steps in and takes the census every
decade, and, thereby, the world is enabled, upon reliable figures, to
estimate the increase or decrease of the Colored race. The subjoined
table exhibits the increase of the Colored people for nine decades.
Colored gain
Year. Colored. per cent.
----- --------- ------------
1st census. 1790 757,208
2d " 1800 1,002,037 32.3 1st decade.
3d " 1810 1,377,808 37.5 2d "
4th " 1820 1,771,656 28.6 3d "
5th " 1830 2,328,642 31.5 4th "
6th " 1840 2,873,648 23.4 5th "
7th " 1850 3,638,808 26.6 6th "
8th " 1860 4,441,830 22.1 7th "
9th " 1870 4,880,009 9.9[122] 8th "
10th " 1880 6,580,793 34.8 9th "
So here is a remarkable fact, that from 757,208 in 1790 the Negro race
has grown to be 6,580,793 in 1880! The theory that the race was dying
out under the influences of civilization at a greater ratio than under
the annihilating influences of slavery was at war with common-sense
and the efficient laws of Christian society. Emancipation has taken
the mother from field-work to house-work. The slave hut has been
supplanted by a pleasant house; the mud floor is done away with; and
now, with carpets on the floor, pictures on the wall, a better quality
of food properly prepared, the influence of books and papers, and the
blessings of a preached Gospel, the Negro mother is more prolific, and
the mortality of her children reduced to a minimum. The Negro is not
dying out. On the contrary he has shown the greatest recuperative
powers, and against the white population of the United States as it
stands to-day--if it were not fed by European immigrants,--within the
next hundred years the Negroes would outnumber the whites 12,000,000!
Or at an increase of 33-1/3 per cent. the Negro population in 1980
would be 117,000,000! providing the ratio of increase continues the
same between the races.
And in addition to the fact that the Negro, like the Irishman, is
prolific, is able to reproduce his species, it should be recorded that
the Negro intellect is growing and expanding at a wonderful rate. The
children of ten and twelve years of age are more apt to-day than those
of the same age ten years ago. And the children of the next generation
will have no superiors in any of the schools of the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[117] For an account of this problem, see the Appendix to this volume.
[118] See the annual reports of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction for Virginia. There were more than 18,234 Colored children
in the schools of this State in 1870.
[119] Annual Report of the Hon. W. H. Ruffner, for 1874.
[120] For an account of the John F. Slater Bequest of $1,000.000 for
the education of the freedmen, see the Appendix to this volume.
[121] See report of the Commissioner.
[122] There is no disguising the fact that the ninth census was
incorrect. No doubt it was the worst we have ever had.
CHAPTER XXIII.
REPRESENTATIVE COLORED MEN.
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.--THE LEGAL DESTRUCTION
OF SLAVERY AND A CONSTITUTIONAL PROHIBITION.--FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
GRANTING MANHOOD SUFFRAGE TO THE AMERICAN NEGRO.--PRESIDENT
GRANT'S SPECIAL MESSAGE UPON THE SUBJECT.--UNIVERSAL REJOICING
AMONG THE COLORED PEOPLE.--THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE
AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--THE NEGRO IN THE DIPLOMATIC
SERVICE OF THE COUNTRY.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--HIS BIRTH,
ENSLAVEMENT, ESCAPE TO THE NORTH, AND LIFE AS A FREEMAN.--BECOMES
AN ANTI-SLAVERY ORATOR.--GOES TO GREAT BRITAIN.--RETURNS TO
AMERICA.--ESTABLISHES THE "NORTH STAR."--HIS ELOQUENCE,
INFLUENCE, AND BRILLIANT CAREER.--RICHARD THEODORE GREENER.--HIS
EARLY LIFE, EDUCATION, AND SUCCESSFUL LITERARY CAREER.--JOHN P.
GREEN.--HIS EARLY STRUGGLES TO OBTAIN AN EDUCATION.--A SUCCESSFUL
ORATOR, LAWYER, AND USEFUL LEGISLATOR.--OTHER REPRESENTATIVE
COLORED MEN.--REPRESENTATIVE COLORED WOMEN.
The Government could not escape the logic of the position it took when
it made the Negro a soldier, and invoked his aid in putting down the
slave-holders' Rebellion. As a soldier he stood in line of promotion:
the Government destroyed the Confederacy when it placed muskets in the
hands of the slaves; and at the close of the war had to legally render
slavery forever impossible in the United States. The bloody deduction
of the great struggle had to be made a living, legal verity in the
Constitution, and hence the Thirteenth Amendment.
"ARTICLE XIII.
"SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
"SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation."
This was the consummation of the ordinance of 1787, carried to its
last analysis, applied in its broadest sense. It drove the last nail
in the coffin of slavery, and blighted the fondest hope of the friends
of secession.
But there was need for another amendment to the Constitution
conferring upon the Colored people manhood suffrage. On the 27th of
February, 1869, the Congress passed a resolution recommending the
Fifteenth Amendment for ratification by the Legislatures of the
several States. On the 30th of March, 1870, President U. S. Grant sent
a special message to Congress, calling the attention of that body to
the proclamation of the Secretary of State in reference to the
ratification of the Amendment by twenty-nine of the States.
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT GRANT ON RATIFICATION OF THE
FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT:
"_To the Senate and House of Representatives:_
"It is unusual to notify the two houses of Congress, by message,
of the promulgation, by proclamation of the Secretary of State,
of the ratification of a constitutional amendment. In view,
however, of the vast importance of the XVth Amendment to the
Constitution, this day declared a part of that revered
instrument, I deem a departure from the usual custom justifiable.
A measure which makes at once four millions of people voters, who
were heretofore declared by the highest tribunal in the land not
citizens of the United States, nor eligible to become so, (with
the assertion that, 'at the time of the Declaration of
Independence, the opinion was fixed and universal in the
civilized portion of the white race, regarded as an axiom in
morals as well as in politics, that black men had no rights which
the white man was bound to respect,') is indeed a measure of
grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the
foundation of our free government to the present day.
"Institutions like ours, in which all power is derived directly
from the people, must depend mainly upon their intelligence,
patriotism, and industry. I call the attention, therefore, of the
newly-enfranchised race to the importance of their striving in
every honorable manner to make themselves worthy of their new
privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by our laws I
would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new
citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a
republican government could not endure without intelligence and
education generally diffused among the people. The 'Father of his
Country,' in his farewell address, uses this language: 'Promote,
then, as a matter of primary importance, institutions for the
general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of
the government gives force to public opinion, it is essential
that public opinion should be enlightened.' In his first annual
message to Congress the same views are forcibly presented, and
are again urged in his eighth message.
"I repeat that the adaption of the XVth Amendment to the
Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes
the most important event that has occurred since the nation came
into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the
heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington.
If these recommendations were important then, with a population
of but a few millions, how much more important now, with a
population of forty millions, and increasing in a rapid ratio.
"I would therefore call upon Congress to take all the means
within their constitutional powers to promote and encourage
popular education throughout the country; and upon the people
everywhere to see to it that all who possess and exercise
political rights shall have the opportunity to acquire the
knowledge which will make their share in the government a
blessing and not a danger. By such means only can the benefits
contemplated by this amendment to the Constitution be secured.
"U. S. GRANT.
"EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 30, 1870."
CERTIFICATE OF MR. SECRETARY FISH RESPECTING THE RATIFICATION OF
THE XVTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION, MARCH 30, 1870.
"HAMILTON FISH, SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
"_To all to whom these presents may come, greeting_:
"Know ye that the Congress of the United States, on or about the
27th day of February, in the year 1869, passed a resolution in
the words and figures following, to wit:
"A RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the
United States.
"_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of
both houses concurring.)_ That the following article be proposed
to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by
three-fourths of said legislatures, shall be valid as part of the
Constitution, namely:
"ARTICLE XV.
"SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any
State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.
"SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
"And, further, that it appears, from official documents on file
in this department, that the amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the
legislatures of the States of North Carolina, West Virginia,
Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Maine, Louisiana, Michigan, South
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois,
Indiana, New York, New Hampshire, Nevada, Vermont, Virginia,
Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
Rhode Island, Nebraska, and Texas; in all, twenty-nine States.
"And, further, that the States whose legislatures have so
ratified the said proposed amendment constitute three-fourths of
the whole number of States in the United States.
"And, further, that it appears, from an official document on file
in this department, that the legislature of the State of New York
has since passed resolutions claiming to withdraw the said
ratification of the said amendment which had been made by the
legislature of that State, and of which official notice had been
filed in this department.
"And, further, that it appears, from an official document on file
in this department, that the legislature of Georgia has by
resolution ratified the said proposed amendment.
"Now, therefore, be it known that I, Hamilton Fish, Secretary of
State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the 2d
section of the act of Congress, approved the 20th day of April,
1818, entitled "An act to provide for the publication of the laws
of the United States, and for other purposes," do hereby certify,
that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and
purposes, as part of the Constitution of the United States.
"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the Department of State to be affixed.
"Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, in the
year of our Lord, 1870, and of the independence of the United
States, the ninety-fourth.
[SEAL.]
"HAMILTON FISH."
The Emancipation Proclamation itself did not call forth such genuine
and wide-spread rejoicing as the message of President Grant. The event
was celebrated by the Colored people in all the larger cities North
and South. Processions, orations, music and dancing proclaimed the
unbounded joy of the new citizen. In Philadelphia Frederick Douglass,
Bishop Jabez P. Campbell, I. C. Wears, and others delivered eloquent
addresses to enthusiastic audiences. Mr. Douglass deeply wounded the
religious feelings of his race by declaring; "I shall not dwell in
any hackneyed cant by thanking God for this deliverance which has
been wrought out through our common humanity." A hundred pulpits, a
hundred trenchant pens sprang at the declaration with fiery
indignation; and it was some years before the bold orator was able to
make himself tolerable to his people. There was little of the spirit
of tolerance among the Colored people at the time, and upon such an
occasion the remark was regarded as imprudent, to say the least.
A new era was opened up before the Colored people. They were now for
the first time in possession of their full political rights. On the
25th of February, 1870, Hiram R. Revels took his seat as United States
Senator from Mississippi. On the 9th of January, 1861, Mississippi
passed her ordinance of secession, and Jefferson Davis resigned his
seat as United States Senator. Within a brief decade a civil war had
raged for four and a half years; and after the seceding Mississippi
had passed through the refining fires of battle and had been purged of
slavery, she sent to succeed the arch traitor a _Negro_,[123] a
representative of the race that Mr. Davis intended to be the
corner-stone of his new government!![124] It was God's work, and
marvellous in the eyes of the world. But this was not all. Just one
year from the day and hour Senator Revels took his seat in the United
States Senate, on the 24th of February, 1871, Jefferson F. Long, a
_Negro_, was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives from
Georgia, the State of Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the
Confederate States!! And then, as if to add glory to glory, the
American Government despatched E. D. Bassett, a Colored man from
Pennsylvania, as Minister Resident and Consul-General to Hayti! And
with almost the same stroke of his pen, President Grant sent J. Milton
Turner, a Colored man from Missouri, as Resident Minister and
Consul-General to Liberia! Mr. Bassett came from Philadelphia where
the Declaration of Independence was written and proclaimed, and where
the noble Dr. Franklin had stood against the slavery compromises of
the Constitution! Philadelphia, then, the birthplace of American
Independence, had the honor of furnishing the first Negro who was to
illustrate the lofty sentiment of the equality of _all_ men before the
law. And the republic that Mr. Bassett went to had won diplomatic
relations with all the civilized powers of the earth through the
matchless valor and splendid statesmanship of Toussaint L'Ouverture.
This was a black republic that had a history and a name among the
peoples of the world.
Mr. Turner went from Missouri, the first State to violate the
ordinance of 1787, and to establish slavery "northwest of the Ohio"
River. He went to a republic on the West Coast of Africa that had been
built by the industry, intelligence, and piety of Negroes who had
flown from the accursed influences of American slavery. The
slave-ships had disappeared from the coast, and commercial fleets,
from all lands came to trade with the citizens of a free republic
whose ministers were welcomed in every court of Europe, and whose
official acts were clothed with the authority and majesty of "_the
Republic of Liberia_!"
In this same period Frederick Douglass was made a Presidential Elector
for the State of New York; and thus helped cast the vote of that great
commonwealth for U. S. Grant as President, in 1872. In the chief city
of this State the first Federal Congress met, and on the first day of
its first session spent the entire time in discussing the slavery
question. Through the streets of this same city Mr. Douglass had to
skulk and hide from slave-catchers on his way from the hell of
slavery, to the land of freedom. In this city, a few years later, he
was hounded by a pro-slavery mob,--but at last he represented the
popular will of its noblest citizens when they had chosen him to act
for them in the Electoral College.
Born a slave, some time during the present century, on the eastern
shore, Maryland, in the county of Talbot, and in the district of
Tuckahoe, Frederick Douglass was destined by nature and God to be a
giant in the great moral agitation for the extinction of slavery and
the redemption of his race. He came of two extremes--representative
Negro and representative Saxon. Tall, large-boned, colossal frame,
compact head, broad, expressive face adorned with small brown,
mischievous eyes, nose slightly Grecian, chin square set, and thin
lips, Frederick Douglass would attract attention upon the streets of
any city in Europe or America. His life as a slave was studded with
painful experiences. Early separation from his mother, neglect, and
then cruel treatment gave to the holy cause of freedom one of its
ablest champions, and to slavery one of its most invincible opponents.
Transferred from Talbot County to Baltimore, Maryland, where he spent
seven years, Mr. Douglass began to extend the horizon of his
intellectual vision, and to come face to face with the hideous monster
of slavery in the moments of reflection upon his condition in contrast
with that of a fairer race about him. Inadvertently his mistress began
to teach him characters of letters; but she was stopped by the advice
of her husband, because it was thought inimical to the interest of the
master to teach his slave. But having lighted the taper of knowledge
in the mind of the slave boy, it was forever beyond human power to put
it out. The incidents and surroundings of young Douglass peopled his
brain with ideas, gave wings to his thoughts and order to his
reasoning. The word of reproof, the angry look, and the precautions to
prevent him from acquiring knowledge rankled in his young heart and
covered his moral sky with thick clouds of despair. He reasoned
himself right out of slavery, and ran away and went North.
David Ruggles, a Colored gentleman of intelligence, took charge of Mr.
Douglass in New York, and sent him to New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Having married in New York a free Colored woman from Baltimore named
"Anna," he was ready now to enter upon the duties of the new life as a
freeman. He found in one Nathan Johnson, an intelligent and
industrious Colored man of New Bedford, a warm friend, who advanced
him a sum of money to redeem baggage held for fare, and gave him the
name which he has since rendered illustrious.
The intellectual growth of Mr. Douglass from this on was almost
phenomenal. He devoured knowledge with avidity, and retained and
utilized all he got. He used information as good business men use
money. He made every idea bear interest; and now setting the music of
his soul to the words he acquired, he soon earned a reputation as a
gifted conversationalist and an impressive orator.
In the summer of 1841 an anti-slavery convention was held at
Nantucket, Massachusetts, under the direction of William Lloyd
Garrison. Mr. Douglass had attended several meetings in New Bedford,
where he had listened to a defence of his race and a denunciation of
its oppressors. And when he heard of the forthcoming convention at
Nantucket he resolved to take a little respite from the hard work he
was performing in a brass foundry, and attend. Previous to this he had
felt the warm heart of Mr. Garrison beating for the slave through the
columns of the "Liberator"; had received a copy each week for a long
time, had mastered its matchless arguments against slavery, and was,
therefore, possessed with an idea of the anti-slavery cause. At
Nantucket he was sought out of the vast audience and requested by
William C. Coffin, of New Bedford, where he had heard the fervid
eloquence of the young man as an exhorter in the Colored Methodist
Church, to make a speech. The hesitancy and diffidence of Mr. Douglass
were overcome by the importunate invitation to speak. He spoke: and
from that hour a new sphere opened to him; from that hour he began to
exert an influence against slavery which for a generation was second
only to that of Mr. Garrison. He was engaged as an agent of the
Anti-Slavery Society led by Mr. Garrison. He was taken in charge by
George Foster, and in his company made a lecturing tour of the eastern
tier of counties in the old Bay State. The meetings were announced a
few days ahead of the lecturer. He was advertised as a "fugitive
slave," as "a chattel," as "a thing" that could talk and give an
interesting account of the cruelties of slavery. As a narrator he had
few equals among the most polished white gentlemen of all New England.
His white friends were charmed by the lucidity and succinctness of his
account of his life as a slave, and always insisted upon his
narrative. But he was more than a narrator, more than a story-teller;
he was an orator, and in dealing with the problem of slavery proved
himself to be a thinker. The old story of his bondage became stale to
him. His friends' advice to keep on telling the same story could no
longer be complied with; and dashing out of the beaten path of
narration he began a career as an orator that has had no parallel on
this continent. He found no adequate satisfaction in relating the
experiences of a slave; his soul burned with a holy indignation
against the institution of slavery. Having increased his vocabulary of
words and his information concerning the purposes and plans of the
Anti-Slavery Society, he was prepared to make an assault upon slavery.
Instead of being the pupil of the anti-slavery friends who had
furnished him a great opportunity, his close reasoning, blighting
irony, merciless invective, and matchless eloquence made him the peer
of any anti-slavery orator of his times. His appearance on the
anti-slavery platform was sudden. He appeared as a new star of
magnificent magnitude and surpassing beauty. All eyes were turned
toward the "fugitive slave orator." His eloquence so astounded the
people that few would believe he had ever felt the cruel touch of the
lash. Moreover, he had withheld from the public, the State and place
of his nativity and the circumstances of his escape. He had done this
purposely for prudential reasons. In those days there was no
protection that protected a fugitive slave against the slave-catcher
assisted by the United States courts. To reveal his master's name and
recount the exciting circumstances under which he had made his escape
from bondage, Mr. Douglass felt was but to invite the slave-hounds to
Massachusetts and endanger his liberty. But there were many good
friends hard by who were ready to pay the market value of Mr. Douglass
if a price were placed upon his flesh and blood. They urged him,
therefore, to write out an account of his life as a slave,--to be
specific; and to boldly mention names of places and persons. In 1845 a
pamphlet written by Mr. Douglass, embodying the experiences of a
"fugitive slave," was published by the Anti-Slavery Society. It
breathed a fiery zeal into the apathy of the North, and drew the fire
of the Southern press and people. For safety his friends sent him
abroad. During the voyage, in accepting an invitation to deliver a
lecture on slavery, he gave offence to some pro-slavery men who
desired very much to feed his body to the inhabitants of the deep. But
a resolute captain and a few friends were able to reduce the wrath of
the Southerners to a minimum. The occurrence on shipboard duly found
its way into the public journals of London; and the Southern gentlemen
in an attempt to justify their conduct in a card drew upon themselves
the wrath of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and gave Mr.
Douglass an advertisement such as he could never have secured
otherwise.
Mr. Douglass spent nearly two years in Europe lecturing and writing in
the cause of anti-slavery. He made a profound impression and helped
the anti-slavery cause amazingly.
During his absence he wrote an occasional letter to the editor of the
"Liberator," and the first is, for composition, vigorous English,
symbols of thought, similes, and irony, superior to any letter he ever
wrote before or since. It bore date of January 1, 1846.
"MY DEAR FRIEND GARRISON: Up to this time I have given no direct
expression of the views, feelings, and opinions which I have
formed, respecting the character and condition of the people of
this land. I have refrained thus, purposely. I wish to speak
advisedly, and in order to do this, I have waited till, I trust,
experience has brought my opinions to an intelligent maturity. I
have been thus careful, not because I think what I say will have
much effect in shaping the opinions of the world, but because
whatever of influence I may possess, whether little or much, I
wish it to go in the right direction, and according to truth. I
hardly need say that, in speaking of Ireland, I shall be
influenced by no prejudices in favor of America. I think my
circumstances all forbid that. I have no end to serve, no creed
to uphold, no government to defend; and as to nation, I belong to
none. I have no protection at home, or resting-place abroad. The
land of my birth welcomes me to her shores only as a slave, and
spurns with contempt the idea of treating me differently; so that
I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw
in the land of my birth. 'I am a stranger with thee, and a
sojourner, as all my fathers were.' That men should be patriotic,
is to me perfectly natural; and as a philosophical fact, I am
able to give it an _intellectual_ recognition. But no further can
I go. If ever I had any patriotism, or any capacity for the
feeling, it was whipped out of me long since, by the lash of the
American soul-drivers.
"In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her
bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her
beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains.
But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to
mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal
spirit of slave-holding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that
with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren
are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her
most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged
sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to
reproach myself that any thing could fall from my lips in praise
of such a land. America will not allow her children to love her.
She seems bent on compelling those who would be her warmest
friends, to be her worst enemies. May God give her repentance,
before it is too late, is the ardent prayer of my heart. I will
continue to pray, labor, and wait, believing that she cannot
always be insensible to the dictates of justice, or deaf to the
voice of humanity.
"My opportunities for learning the character and condition of the
people of this land have been very great. I have travelled almost
from the Hill of Howth to the Giant's Causeway, and from the
Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear. During these travels, I have met
with much in the character and condition of the people to
approve, and much to condemn; much that has thrilled me with
pleasure, and very much that has filled me with pain. I will not,
in this letter, attempt to give any description of those scenes
which have given me pain. This I will do hereafter. I have
enough, and more than your subscribers will be disposed to read
at one time, of the bright side of the picture. I can truly say,
I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since
landing in this country. I seem to have undergone a
transformation. I live a new life. The warm and generous
cooperation extended to me by the friends of my despised race;
the prompt and liberal manner with which the press has rendered
me its aid; the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have
flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my down-trodden and
long-enslaved fellow-countrymen portrayed; the deep sympathy for
the slave, and the strong abhorrence of the slave-holder,
everywhere evinced; the cordiality with which members and
ministers of various religious bodies, and of various shades of
religious opinion, have embraced me, and lent me their aid; the
kind hospitality constantly proffered me by persons of the
highest rank in society; the spirit of freedom that seems to
animate all with whom I come in contact, and the entire absence
of every thing that looked like prejudice against me, on account
of the color of my skin--contrasted so strongly with my long and
bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder
and amazement on the transition. In the southern part of the
United States, I was a slave, thought of and spoken of as
property; in the language of the LAW, '_held, taken, reputed, and
adjudged to be a chattel in the hands of my owners and
possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to
all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever_.' (Brev.
Digest, 224.) In the northern states, a fugitive slave, liable to
be hunted at any moment like a felon, and to be hurled into the
terrible jaws of slavery-doomed by an inveterate prejudice
against color to insult and outrage on every hand, (Massachussetts
out of the question)--denied the privileges and courtesies common
to others in the use of the most humble means of conveyance--shut
out from the cabins of steamboats--refused admission to
respectable hotels--caricatured, scorned, scoffed, mocked, and
maltreated with impunity by any one, (no matter how black his
heart,) so he has a white skin. But now behold the change! Eleven
days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of
the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under
a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of
America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald
Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around
in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as
his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab--I am seated
beside white people--I reach the hotel--I enter the same door--I
am shown into the same parlor--I dine at the same table--and no
one is offended.
No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no
difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship,
instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as
any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me
of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every
turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I
go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to
tell me, '_We don't allow niggers in here!_'
"I remember, about two years ago, there was in Boston, near the
south-west corner of Boston Common, a menagerie. I had long
desired to see such a collection as I understood was being
exhibited there. Never having had an opportunity while a slave, I
resolved to seize this, my first, since my escape. I went, and as
I approached the entrance to gain admission, I was met and told
by the door-keeper, in a harsh and contemptuous tone, '_We don't
allow niggers in here!_' I also remember attending a revival
meeting in the Rev. Henry Jackson's meeting-house, at New
Bedford, and going up the broad aisle to find a seat, I was met
by a good deacon, who told me, in a pious tone, '_We don't allow
niggers in here!_' Soon after my arrival in New Bedford, from the
South, I had a strong desire to attend the Lyceum, but was told,
'_They don't allow niggers in here!_' While passing from New York
to Boston, on the steamer 'Massachusetts,' on the night of the
9th of December, 1843, when chilled almost through with the cold,
I went into the cabin to get a little warm. I was soon touched
upon the shoulder, and told, '_We don't allow niggers in here!_'
On arriving in Boston, from an anti-slavery tour, hungry and
tired, I went into an eating-house, near my friend, Mr.
Campbell's, to get some refreshments. I was met by a lad in a
white apron, '_We don't allow niggers in here!_' A week or two
before leaving the United States, I had a meeting appointed at
Weymouth, the home of that glorious band of true abolitionists,
the Weston family, and others. On attempting to take a seat in
the omnibus to that place, I was told by the driver (and I never
shall forget his fiendish hate), '_I don't allow niggers in
here!_' Thank heaven for the respite I now enjoy! I had been in
Dublin but a few days, when a gentleman of great respectability
kindly offered to conduct me through all the public buildings of
that beautiful city; and a little afterward, I found myself
dining with the lord mayor of Dublin. What a pity there was not
some American democratic Christian at the door of his splendid
mansion, to bark out at my approach, '_They don't allow niggers
in here!_' The truth is, the people here know nothing of the
republican negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They
measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual
worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may
be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the
color of a man's skin.
This species of aristocracy belongs preeminently to 'the land of
the free, and the home of the brave.' I have never found it
abroad, in any but Americans. It sticks to them wherever they go.
They find it almost as hard to get rid of, as to get rid of their
skins.
"The second day after my arrival at Liverpool, in company with my
friend, Buffum, and several other friends, I went to Eaton Hall,
the residence of the Marquis of Westminster, one of the most
splendid buildings in England. On approaching the door, I found
several of our American passengers, who came out with us in the
'Cambria,' waiting for admission, as but one party was allowed in
the house at a time. We all had to wait till the company within
came out. And of all the faces, expressive of chagrin, those of
the Americans were preëminent. They looked as sour as vinegar,
and as bitter as gall, when they found I was to be admitted on
equal terms with themselves. When the door was opened, I walked
in, on an equal footing with my white fellow-citizens, and from
all I could see, I had as much attention paid me by the servants
that showed us through the house, as any with a paler skin. As I
walked through the building, the statuary did not fall down, the
pictures did not leap from their places, the doors did not refuse
to open, and the servants did not say, '_We don't allow niggers
in here_.'
"A happy new year to you, and all the friends of freedom."
During the time of his visit in Europe a few friends, under the
inspiration of one Mrs. Henry Richardson, raised money, purchased Mr.
Douglass, and placed his freedom papers in his hands. The documents
are of quaint historic value.
"The following is a copy of these curious papers, both of my
transfer from Thomas to Hugh Auld, and from Hugh to myself:
"Know all men by these Presents, That I, Thomas Auld, of Talbot
county, and state of Maryland, for and in consideration of the
sum of one hundred dollars, current money, to me paid by Hugh
Auld, of the city of Baltimore, in the said state, at and before
the sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof,
I, the said Thomas Auld, do hereby acknowledge, have granted,
bargained, and sold, and by these presents do grant, bargain, and
sell unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, administrators, and
assigns, ONE NEGRO MAN, by the name of FREDERICK BAILY, or
DOUGLASS, as he calls himself--he is now about twenty-eight years
of age--to have and to hold the said negro man for life. And I,
the said Thomas Auld, for myself, my heirs, executors, and
administrators, all and singular, the said FREDERICK BAILY,
_alias_ DOUGLASS, unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors,
administrators, and assigns, against me, the said Thomas Auld, my
executors, and administrators, and against all and every other
person or persons whatsoever, shall and will warrant and forever
defend by these presents. In witness whereof, I set my hand and
seal, this thirteenth day of November, eighteen hundred and
forty-six.
THOMAS AULD.
"Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of Wrightson Jones.
"JOHN C. LEAS."
"The authenticity of this bill of sale is attested by N.
Harrington, a justice of the peace of the state of Maryland, and
for the county of Talbot, dated same day as above.
* * * * *
"To all whom it may concern: Be it known, that I, Hugh Auld, of
the city of Baltimore, in Baltimore county, in the state of
Maryland, for divers good causes and considerations, me thereunto
moving, have released from slavery, liberated, manumitted, and
set free, and by these presents do hereby release from slavery,
liberate, manumit, and set free, MY NEGRO MAN, named FREDERICK
BAILY, otherwise called DOUGLASS, being of the age of
twenty-eight years, or thereabouts, and able to work and gain a
sufficient livelihood and maintenance; and him the said negro
man, named FREDERICK BAILY, otherwise called FREDERICK DOUGLASS,
I do declare to be henceforth free, manumitted, and discharged
from all manner of servitude to me, my executors, and
administrators forever.
"In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the fifth of December, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and forty-six.
HUGH AULD.
"Sealed and delivered in presence of T. Hanson Belt.
"JAMES N. S. T. WRIGHT."
Mr. Douglass had returned to America, but the truths he proclaimed in
England, Ireland, and Scotland echoed adown their mountains, and
reverberated among their hills. The Church of Scotland and the press
of England were distressed with the problem of slavery. The public
conscience had been touched, and there was "no rest for the wicked."
Mr. Douglass had received his name--Douglass--from Nathan Johnson, of
New Bedford, Massachusetts, because he had just been reading about the
virtuous Douglass in the works of Sir Walter Scott. How wonderful
then, in the light of a few years, that a fugitive slave from America,
bearing one of the most powerful names in Scotland should lean against
the pillars of the _Free Church of Scotland_, and meet and vanquish
its brightest and ablest teachers (the friends of slavery,
unfortunately), Doctors Cunningham and Candlish!
It will be remembered that Mr. Garrison had built his school upon the
fundamental idea that slavery was constitutional; and that in order to
secure the overthrow of the institution he was compelled to do his
work outside of the Constitution; and to effect the good desired, the
Union should be dissolved. With these views Mr. Douglass had coincided
at first, and into the ranks of this party he had entered. But upon
his return from England he changed his residence and views about the
same time, and established his home and a newspaper in Rochester, New
York State. Mr. Douglass gave his reasons for leaving the Garrisonian
party as follows:
"About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole
subject, I became convinced that there was no necessity for
dissolving the 'union between the northern and southern states';
that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an
abolitionist; that to abstain from voting, was to refuse to
exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery;
and that the constitution of the United States not only contained
no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is,
in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding
the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as
the supreme law of the land."[125]
It was charged by some persons that for financial reasons Mr. Douglass
changed his views and residence; that the Garrisonians were poor; but
that Gerrit Smith was rich; and that he assisted Mr. Douglass in
establishing the "North Star," a weekly paper. But Mr. Douglass was a
man of boldness of thought and independence of character; and whatever
the motives were which led him away from his early friends he at least
deserved credit for possessing the courage necessary to such a change.
But Mr. Douglass was not the only anti-slavery man who imagined that
the Constitution was an anti-slavery instrument. This was the error of
Charles Sumner. Slavery was as legal as the right of the Government to
coin money. As has been shown already, it was recognized and protected
by law when the British sceptre ruled the colonies; it was recognized
by all the courts during the Confederacy; it was acknowledged as a
legal fact by the Treaty of Paris of 1782, and of Ghent in 1814: the
gentlemen who framed the Constitution fixed the basis of
representation in Congress upon three fifths of the slaves; and gave
the owners of slaves a fugitive slave law, at the birth of the
nation, by which to hunt their slaves in all the States and
Territories of North America. But Mr. Douglass lived long enough to
see that he was wrong and Mr. Garrison right; that the dissolution of
the Union was the only way to free his race. In his way he did his
part as faithfully and as honestly as any of his brethren in either
one of the anti-slavery parties.
Having established a reputation as an orator in England and America;
and having lifted over the tangled path of his fugitive brethren the
unerring, friendly "North Star," he now turned his attention to
debating. It was a matter of regret that two such powerful and
accomplished orators as Frederick Douglass and Samuel Ringgold Ward
should have taken up so much precious time in splitting hairs on the
constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery. Perhaps it did
good. It certainly did the men good. It was an education to them, and
exciting to their audiences. Mr. Douglass's forte was in oratory; in
exposing the hideousness of slavery and the wrongs of his race. Mr.
Ward--a _protégé_ of Gerrit Smith's--was scholarly, thoughtful,
logical, and eloquent. Mr. Douglass was generally worsted in debate,
but always triumphant in oratory. A careful study of Mr. Douglass's
speeches from the time he began his career as a public speaker down to
the present time reveals wonderful progress in their grammatical and
synthetical structure. He grew all the time. On the 12th of May, 1846,
he delivered a speech at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, from
which the following is extracted:
"All the slaveholder asks of me is silence. He does not ask me to
go abroad and preach _in favor_ of slavery; he does not ask any
one to do that. He would not say that slavery is a good thing,
but the best under the circumstances. The slaveholders want total
darkness on the subject. They want the hatchway shut down, that
the monster may crawl in his den of darkness, crushing human
hopes and happiness, destroying the bondman at will, and having
no one to reprove or rebuke him. Slavery shrinks from the light;
it hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds
should be reproved. To tear off the mask from this abominable
system, to expose it to the light of heaven, aye, to the heat of
the sun, that it may burn and wither it out of existence, is my
object in coining to this country. I want the slaveholder
surrounded, as by a wall of anti-slavery fire, so that he may see
the condemnation of himself and his system glaring down in
letters of light. I want him to feel that he has no sympathy in
England, Scotland, or Ireland; that he has none in Canada, none
in Mexico, none among the poor wild Indians; that the voice of
the civilized, aye, and savage world is against him. I would have
condemnation blaze down upon him in every direction, till,
stunned and overwhelmed with shame and confusion, he is compelled
to let go the grasp he holds upon the persons of his victims, and
restore them to their long-lost rights."
This was in 1846. On the 5th of July, 1852, at Rochester, New York,
he, perhaps, made the most effective speech of his life. The poet
Sheridan has written: "Eloquence consists in the man, the subject, and
the occasion." None of these conditions were wanting. There was the
man, the incomparable Douglass; the wrongs of slavery was his subject;
and the occasion was the 4th of July.
"FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I
called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I
represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great
principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied
in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I,
therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the
national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout
gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to
us?
"Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative
answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then
would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For
who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm
him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that
would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so
stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the
hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude
had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like
that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the 'lame man leap as
an hart.'
"But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad
sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the
pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only
reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in
which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The
sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought
stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is _yours_, not
_mine_. _You_ may rejoice, _I_ must mourn. To drag a man in
fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call
upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking
me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.
And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a
nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by
the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people.
"'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when
we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive
required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us
mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we
sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.'
"Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the
mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous
yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant
shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully
remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, 'may my
right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth!' To forget them, to pass lightly over their
wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason
most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before
God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN
SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics
from the slave's point of view. Standing there, identified with
the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate
to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of
this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of
July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the
professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems
equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past,
false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to
the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave
on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is
outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name
of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and
trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all
the emphasis I can command, every thing that serves to perpetuate
slavery--the great sin and shame of America! 'I will not
equivocate; I will not excuse'; I will use the severest language
I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man,
whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at
heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just."
His speech in England was labored, heavy, and some portions of it
ambitious. But here are measured sentences, graceful transitions,
truth made forcible, and the oratory refined. Thus he went on from
good to better, until the managers of leading lecture-courses of the
land felt that the season would not be a success without Frederick
Douglass. He began to venture into deeper water; to expound problems
not exactly in line with the only theme that he was complete master
of. His attempts at wit usually missed fire. He could not be funny. He
was in earnest from the first moment the light broke into his mind in
Baltimore. He was rarely eloquent except when denouncing slavery. He
was not at his best in abstract thought: too much logic dampened his
enthusiasm; and an attempt at elaborate preparation weakened his
discourse. He was majestic when speaking of the insults he had
received or the wrongs his race were suffering. Martin Luther said
during the religious struggle in Germany for freedom of thought:
"Sorrow has pressed many sweet songs out of me." It was the sorrows of
the child-heart of Douglass the chattel, and the sorrows of the great
man-heart of Douglass the human being, that gave the world such
remarkable eloquence. There were but two chords in his soul that could
yield a rich sound, viz.: sorrow and indignation. Sorrow for the
helpless slave, and indignation against the heartless master, made him
grand, majestic, and eloquent beyond comparison.
Although he was going constantly he saved his means, and raised a
family of two girls--one dying in her teens, an affliction he took
deeply to heart--and three boys. When the war was on at high tide, and
Colored soldiers required, he gave all he had, three stalwart boys,
while he made it very uncomfortable for the Copperheads at home. At
the close of the war he moved to Washington and became deeply
interested in the practical work of reconstruction. He was appointed
one of the Commissioners to visit San Domingo, when General Grant
recommended its annexation to the United States; was a trustee of
Howard University and of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust
Company. Unfortunately he accepted the presidency of the latter
institution after nearly all the thieves had got through with it, and
was its official head when the crash and ruin came.
Mr. Douglass's home[126] life has been pure and elevated. He has done
well by his boys; and has aided many young men to places of usefulness
and profit. He strangely and violently opposed the exodus of his race
from the South, and thereby incurred the opposition of the Northern
press and the anathemas of the Colored people. It was not just the
thing, men said--white and black,--for a man who had been a slave in
the South, and had come North to find a market for his labor, to
oppose his brethren in their flight from economic slavery and the
shot-gun policy of the South. His efforts to state and justify his
position before the Colored people of New York were received with an
impatient air and tolerated even for the time with ill grace. Before
the Social Science Congress at Saratoga, New York, he met Richard T.
Greener, a young Colored man, in a discussion of this subject. But Mr.
Greener, a son of Harvard College, with a keen and merciless logic,
cut right through the sophistries of Mr. Douglass; and although the
latter gentleman threw bouquets at the audience, and indulged in the
most exquisite word-painting, he was compelled to leave the field a
vanquished disputant.
President Hayes appointed Mr. Douglass United States Marshall for the
District of Columbia, an office which he held until President Garfield
made him Recorder of Deeds for the same district. He has accumulated a
comfortable little fortune, has published three books, edited two
newspapers, passed through a checkered and busy life; and to-day, full
of honors and years, he stands confessedly as the first man of his
race in North America. Not that he is the greatest in every sense; but
considering "the depths from whence he came," the work he has
accomplished, the character untarnished,--his memory and character,
like the granite shaft, will have an enduring and undying place in the
gratitude of humanity throughout the world.
Among the representative young men of color in the United States--and
now, happily in the process of time, their name is legion--Richard
Theodore Greener has undisputed standing. He was born in Pennsylvania
in 1844, but spent most of his life in Massachusetts. His father and
grandfather were men of unusual intelligence, social energy, and
public spirit. Richard T. early manifested an eagerness to learn and a
capacity to retain and utilize. He enjoyed better surroundings in
childhood than the average Colored child a generation ago; and always
accustomed to hear the English correctly spoken, he had in himself
all the required conditions to acquire a thorough education. Having
obtained a start in the common schools, he turned to Oberlin College,
Lorain County, Ohio,--at that time an institution toward which the
Colored people of the country were very partial, and whose
anti-slavery professors they loved with wonderful tenderness. For some
of these professors, in the _Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case_, had
preferred imprisonment in preference to obedience to the unholy
fugitive-slave law. The years of 1862-3 were spent at Oberlin, and Mr.
Greener showed himself an excellent student. His ambition was to excel
in every thing. Not exactly satisfied with the course of studies at
Oberlin, he went to Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. This
institution was a feeder for Harvard, and using uniform text-books he
was placed in line and harmony with the course of studies to be
pursued at Cambridge. He entered Harvard College in the autumn of
1865, and graduated with high honors in 1870.[127] He was the first of
his race to enter this famous university, and while there did himself
credit, and honored the race from which he sprang. All his
performances were creditable. He won a second prize for reading aloud
in his freshman year; in his sophomore year he won the first prize for
the Boylston Declamation, notwithstanding members of the junior and
senior classes contested. During his junior year he did not contest,
preferring to tutor two of the competitors who were successful. In his
senior year he won the two highest prizes, viz: the First Bowdoin for
a Dissertation on "The Tenures of Land in Ireland," and the "Boylston
Prize for Oratory."
The entrance, achievements, and graduation of Mr. Greener received the
thoughtful and grateful attention of the press of Europe and America;
while what he did was a stimulating example to the young men of his
race in the United States.
At the time of his graduation there was a great demand for and a
wide-spread need of educated Colored men as teachers. The Institute
for Colored Youth, in Philadelphia, had been but recently deprived of
its principal, Prof. E. D. Bassett, who had been sent as Resident
Minister and Consul-General to the Republic of Hayti. Mr. Greener was
called to take the chair vacated by Mr. Bassett. He was principal of
this institution from Sept., 1870, to Dec., 1872. From Philadelphia he
was called to fill a similar position in Sumner High School, at
Washington, D. C. He did not remain long in Washington. His fame as an
educator had grown until he was celebrated as a teacher throughout the
country. He was offered and accepted the Chair of Metaphysics and
Logic in the University of South Carolina, situate at Columbia. He
remained here until 1877, when the Hampton Government found no virtue
in a Negro as a teacher in an institution of the fame and standing of
this university. In 1877 he was made Dean of the Law Department of
Howard University, Washington, D. C., and held the position until
1880. He graduated from the Law School of the University of South
Carolina, and has practised in Washington since his residence there.
In addition to his work as teacher, lawyer, and orator, Prof. Greener
was associate editor of the _New National Era_ at Washington, D. C.,
and his editorial _Young Men to the Front_, gave him a reputation as a
progressive and aggressive leader which he has sustained ever since
with marked ability.
As a political speaker he began while in college, in 1868, and has
continued down to the present time. He is a pleasant speaker, and
acceptable and efficient in a campaign. As an orator and writer he
excels. His early style was burdened, like that of the late Charles
Sumner, with a too-abundant classical illustration and quotation; but
during the last five years his illustrations are drawn largely from
the English classics and history. His ablest effort at oratory was his
oration on _Charles Sumner, the Idealist, Statesman, and Scholar_. It
was by all odds the finest effort of its kind delivered in this
country. It was eminently fitting that a representative of the race
toward whose elevation Mr. Sumner contributed his splendid talents,
and a graduate from the same College that honored Sumner, and from the
State that gave him birth and opportunity, should give the true
analysis of his noble life and spotless character.
In the "National Quarterly Review" for July, 1880, Prof. Greener
replied to an article from the pen of Mr. James Parton on _Antipathy
to the Negro_, published in the "North American Review." Prof.
Greener's theme was _The Intellectual Position of the Negro_. The
following paragraphs give a fair idea of the style of Mr. Greener:
"The writer himself appears not to feel such an antipathy to us
that it must need find expression; for his liberality is well
known to those who have read his writings for the past fifteen
years. Nor is there any apparent ground for its appearance
because of any new or startling exhibitions of _antipathia_
against us noticeable at the present time. No argument was needed
to prove that there has been an unreasonable and unreasoning
prejudice against negroes as a class, a long-existing antipathy,
seemingly, ineradicable, sometimes dying out it would appear, and
then bursting forth afresh from no apparent cause. If Mr. Parton
means to assert that such prejudice is ineradicable, or is
increasing, or is even rapidly passing away, then is his venture
insufficient, because it fails to support either of these views.
It does not even attempt to show that the supposed antipathy is
general, for the author expressly, and, we think, very properly,
relegates its exercise to those whom he calls the most
ignorant--the 'meanest' of mankind.
"If his intention was to attack a senseless antipathy, hold it up
to ridicule, show its absurdity, analyze its constituent parts,
and suggest some easy and safe way for Americans to rid
themselves of unchristian and un-American prejudices, then has he
again conspicuously failed to carry out such purpose. He asserts
the existence of antipathies, but only by inference does he
discourage their maintenance, although on other topics he is
rather outspoken whenever he cares to express his own
convictions.
"On this question Mr. Parton is, to say the least, vacillating,
because he fails to exhibit any platform upon which we may combat
those who support early prejudices and justify their continuance
from the mere fact of their existence. We never expect Mr.
Gayarré and Mr. Henry Watterson to look calmly and
dispassionately at these questions from the negro's point of
view. The one gives us the old argument of De Bow's _Review_, and
the other deals out the _ex parte_ views of the present leaders
of the South. The one line of argument has been answered over and
over again by the old anti-slavery leaders; the pungent
generalizations of the latter, the present generation of negroes
can answer whenever the opportunity is afforded them.
"But Mr. Parton was born in a cooler and calmer atmosphere, where
men are accustomed to give a reason for the faith that is in
them, and hence it is necessary, in opening any discussion such
as he had provoked, that he should assign some ground of
opposition or support--Christian, Pagan, utilitarian,
constitutional, optimist, or pessimist.
"The very apparent friendliness of his intentions makes even a
legitimate conclusion from him seem mere conjecture, likely to be
successfully controverted by any subtle thinker and opponent. No
definite conclusion is, indeed, reached with regard to the first
query (Jefferson's fourteenth) with which Mr. Parton opens his
article: Whether the white and black races can live together on
this continent as equals. He lets us see at the close,
incidentally only, what his opinion is, and it inclines to the
negative. But throughout the article he is in the anomalous and
dubious position of one who opens a discussion which he cannot
end, and the logical result of whose own opinion he dares not
boldly state. The illustrations of the early opinions of Madison
and Jefferson only show how permanent a factor the negro is in
American history and polity, and how utterly futile are all
attempts at his expatriation. Following Mr. Parton's advice, the
negro has always prudently abstained from putting 'himself
against inexorable facts.' He is careful, however, to make sure
of two things,--that the alleged facts are verities and that they
are inexorable. Prejudice we acknowledge as a fact; but we know
that it is neither an ineradicable nor an inexorable one. We find
fault with Mr. Parton because he starts a trail on antipathy,
evidently purposeless, and fails to track it down either
systematically or persistently, but branches off, _desipere in
loco_, to talk loosely of 'physical antipathy,' meaning what we
usually term natural antipathy; and at last, emerging from the
'brush,' where he has been hopelessly beating about from Pliny to
Mrs. Kemble, he gains a partial 'open' once more by asserting a
truism--that it is the 'ignorance of a despised class' (the lack
of knowledge we have of them) which nourishes these 'insensate
antipathies.' Here we are at one with Mr. Parton. Those who know
us most intimately, who have associated with us in the nursery,
at school, in college, in trade, in the tenderer and confidential
relations of life, in health, in sickness, and in death, as
trusted guides, as brave soldiers, as magnanimous enemies, as
educated and respected men and women, give up all senseless
antipathies, and feel ashamed to Confess they ever cherished any
prejudice against a race whose record is as unsullied as that of
any in the land."
The following passages from a most brilliant speech at the Dinner of
the Harvard Club of New York, exhibit a pure, perspicuous, and
charming style:
"What Sir John Coleridge in his 'Life of Keble' says of the
traditions and influences of Oxford, each son of Harvard must
feel is true also of Cambridge. The traditions, the patriotic
record, and the scholarly attainments of her alumni are the pride
of the College. Her contribution to letters, to statesmanship,
and to active business life, will keep her memory perennially
green. Not one of the humblest of her children, who has felt the
touch of her pure spirit, or enjoyed the benefits of her culture,
can fail to remember what she expects of her sons wherever they
may be: to stand fast for good government, to maintain the
right, to uphold honesty and character, to be, if nothing else,
good citizens, and to perform, to the extent of their ability,
every duty assumed or imposed upon them,--democratic in their
aristocracy, catholic in their liberality, impartial in judgment,
and uncompromising in their convictions of duty. [Cheers and
applause.]
"Harvard's impartiality was not demonstrated solely by my
admission to the College. In 1770, when Crispus Attucks died a
patriot martyr on State Street, she answered the rising spirit of
independence and liberty by abolishing all distinctions founded
upon color, blood, and rank. Since that day, there has been but
one test for all. Ability, character, and merit,--these are the
sole passports to her favor. [Applause.]
"When, in my adopted State, I stood on the battered ramparts of
Wagner, and recalled the fair-haired son of Harvard who died
there with his brave black troops of Massachusetts,--
"'him who, deadly hurt, agen
Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men,
Thet rived the Rebel line asunder,'--
I thanked God, with patriotic pleasure, that the first contingent
of negro troops from the North should have been led to death and
fame by an alumnus of Harvard; and I remembered, with additional
pride of race and college, that the first regiment of black
troops raised on South Carolina soil were taught to drill, to
fight, to plough, and to read by a brave, eloquent, and scholarly
descendant of the Puritans and of Harvard, Thomas Wentworth
Higginson. [Great applause and cheers.]
"Is it strange, then, brothers, that I there resolved for myself
to maintain the standard of the College, so far as I was able, in
public and in private life? I am honored by the invitation to be
present here to-night. Around me I see faces I have not looked
upon for a decade. Many are the intimacies of the College, the
society, the buskin, and the oar which they bring up, from
classmates and college friends. I miss, as all Harvard men must
miss to-night, the venerable and kindly figure of Andrew Preston
Peabody, the student's friend, the consoler of the plucked, the
encourager of the strong, Mæcenas's benign almoner, the
felicitous exponent of Harvard's Congregational Unitarianism. I
miss, too, another of high scholarship, of rare poetic taste, of
broad liberality--my personal friend, Elbridge Jefferson Cutler,
loved alike by students and his fellow-members of the Faculty for
his conscientious performance of duty and his genial nature.
"Mr. President and brothers, my time is up. I give you 'Fair
Harvard,' the exemplar, the prototype of that ideal America, of
which the greatest American poet has written,--
"'Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan,
Thet man's devices can't unmake a man,
An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in
Against the poorest child of Adam's kin."
"[Great applause.]"
Prof. Greener rendered legal services in the case of Cadet Whittaker
at West Point, and in the trial at New York City, where, as associate
counsel with ex-Gov. Chamberlain,--an able lawyer and a magnificent
orator,--he developed ability and industry as an attorney, and earned
the gratitude of his race.
Prof. Greener entered Harvard as a member of the Baptist Church; but
the transcendentalism and rationalism of the place quite swept him
from his spiritual moorings. In a recent address before a literary
society in Washington, D. C., he is represented to have maintained
that Mohammedanism was better for the indigenous races of Africa than
Christianity. Dr. John William Draper made a similar mistake in his
"_Conflict between Religion and Science!_" The learned doctor should
have written "Conflict between the Church and Science." Religion is
not and never was at war with science. Prof. Greener should have
written, "Mohammedanism better for the Africans than Snake Worship."
This brilliant young man cannot afford to attempt to exalt
Mohammedanism above the cross of our dear Redeemer, and expect to have
leadership in the Negro race in America. Nor can he support the
detestable ideas and execrable philosophy of Senator John P. Jones,
which seek to shut out the Chinaman from free America. The Negro must
stand by the weak in a fight like this, remembering the pit from which
he was dug. But Prof. Greener is young as well as talented; and seeing
his mistake, will place himself in harmony with not only the rights of
his race, but those of humanity everywhere.
Blanche K. Bruce was born a slave on a plantation in Prince Edward
County, Virginia, March 1, 1841, and in the very month and week of the
anniversary of his birth he was sworn in as United States Senator from
Mississippi. Reared a slave there was nothing in his early life of an
unusual nature. He secured his freedom at the end of the war, and
immediately sought the opportunities and privileges that would, if
properly used, fit him for his new life as a man and a citizen. He
went to Oberlin College where, in the Preparatory Department, he
applied himself to his studies, attached himself to his classmates by
charming personal manners, and gentlemanly deportment. He realized
that there were many splendid opportunities awaiting young men of
color at the South; and that profitable positions were going begging.
Mr. Bruce made his appearance in Mississippi at an opportune moment.
The State was just undergoing a process of reconstruction. He appeared
at the capital, Jackson, with seventy-five cents in his pocket; was a
stranger to every person in the city. He mingled in the great throng,
joined in the discussions that took place by little knots of
politicians, made every man his friend to whom he talked, and when the
State Senate was organized secured the position of Sergeant-at-arms.
He attracted the attention of Gov. Alcorn, who appointed him a member
of his staff with the rank of colonel. Col. Bruce was not merely
Sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, but was a power behind that body. His
intelligence, his knowledge of the character of the legislation needed
for the people of Mississippi, and the excellent impression he made
upon the members, gave him great power in suggesting and influencing
legislation.
The sheriffs of Mississippi were not elected in those days; and the
Governor had to look a good ways to find the proper men for such
positions. His faith in Col. Bruce as a man and an officer led him to
select him to be sheriff of Bolivar County. Col. Bruce discharged the
delicate duties of his office with eminent ability, and attained a
popularity very remarkable under the circumstances.
During this time, while other politicians were dropping their money at
the gaming-table and in the wine cup, Col. Bruce was saving his funds,
and after purchasing a splendid farm at Floraville, on the Mississippi
River, he made cautious and profitable investments in property and
bonds. His executive ability was marvellous, and his successful
management of his own business and that of the people of the county
made him friends among all classes and in both political parties. He
was appointed tax-collector for his county, a position that was
calculated to tax the most accomplished financier and business man in
the State. But Col. Bruce took to the position rare abilities, and
managed his office with such matchless skill, that when the term of
Henry R. Pease expired, he was chosen United States Senator from
Mississippi on the third of February, 1875, for the constitutional
term of six years. He took his seat on the 4th of March, 1875.
He did nothing in the line of oratory while in the Senate. That was
not his forte. He was an excellent worker, a faithful committee-man,
and finally was chairman of the Committee on the Freedman's Savings
Bank, etc. Mr. Bruce was chairman of the Committee on Mississippi
Levees, where he performed good work. He presided over the Senate with
dignity several times. To the charge that he was a "silent Senator,"
it may be observed that it was infinitely better that he remained
silent, than in breaking the silence to exhibit a mental feebleness in
attempting to handle problems to which most of the Senators had given
years of patient study. His conduct was admirable; his discretion
wise; his service faithful, and his influence upon the honorable
Senate and the country at large beneficial to himself and helpful to
his race.
In the convention of the Republican party at Chicago, in 1880, he was
a candidate for Vice-President. In the spring of 1881, after the close
of his senatorial career the President nominated him to be Register of
the United States Treasury, and the nomination was confirmed without
reference, after a complimentary speech from his associate, Senator L.
Q. C. Lamar. He has appeared as a political speaker on several
occasions. As nature did not intend him for this work, his efforts
appear to be the products of hard labor, but nevertheless excellent;
his estimable and scholarly wife (_née_ Miss Wilson, of Cleveland,
Ohio) has been a great blessing to him;--a good wife and a helpful
companion. From a penniless slave he has risen to the position of
writing his name upon the currency of the country. Register Bruce is a
genial gentleman, a fast friend, and an able officer.
John Mercer Langston was born a slave in Virginia; is a graduate of
Oberlin College and Theological Institution, and as a lawyer, college
president, foreign minister, and politician, has exerted a wide
influence for the good of his race. As Secretary of the Board of
Health for the District of Columbia, and as President of the Howard
University, he displayed remarkable executive ability and sound
business judgment. He is one of the bravest of the brave in public
matters, and his influence upon young Colored men has been wide-spread
and admirable. He is now serving as Resident Minister and
Consul-General to Hayti; and ranks among the best diplomats of our
Government.
In Massachusetts, Charles L. Mitchell, George L. Ruffin, John J.
Smith, J. B. Smith, and Wm. J. Walker have been members of the
Legislature. In Illinois, a Colored man has held a position in the
Board of Commissioners for Cook County--Chicago; and one has been sent
to the Legislature. In Ohio, two Colored men have been members of the
Legislature, one from Cincinnati and the other from Cleveland. Gov.
Charles Foster was the first Executive in any of the Northern States
to appoint a Colored man to a responsible position; and in this, as in
nearly every other thing, Ohio has taken the lead. The present member
(John P. Green) of the Legislature of Ohio representing Cuyahoga
County, is a young man of excellent abilities both as a lawyer and as
an orator. John P. Green was born at New Berne, North Carolina, April
2, 1845, of free parents. His father died in 1850, and his widow was
left to small resources in raising her family. But being an excellent
seamstress she did very well for her five-year-old son, while she had
an infant in her arms.
In 1857 Mrs. Green moved to Ohio and located at Cleveland. Her son
John was now able and willing to assist his mother some; and so as an
errand-boy he hired himself out for $4 per month. He obtained about a
year and one half of instruction in the common schools, and did well.
In 1862 he became a waiter in a hotel, and spent every leisure moment
in study. He succeeded in learning something of Latin and Algebra,
without a teacher.
Mr. Green had acquired an excellent style of composition, and to
secure funds with which to complete his education, he wrote and
published a pamphlet containing _Essays on Miscellaneous Subjects_, by
a self-educated Colored youth. He sold about 1,500 copies in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and New York, and then entered the Cleveland Central
High School. He completed a four years' classical course in two years,
two terms, and two months. He graduated at the head of a class of
twenty-three. He entered the law office of Judge Jesse P. Bishop, and
in 1870 graduated from the Cleveland Law School. He turned his face
Southward, and having settled in South Carolina, began the practice of
law, which was attended with great success. But the climate was not
agreeable to his health, and in 1872 he returned to the scenes of his
early toils and struggles. He became a practising attorney in
Cleveland, and in the spring of 1873 was elected a justice of the
peace for Cuyahoga County by a majority of 3,000 votes. He served
three terms as a justice, and in eight years of service as such
decided more than 12,000 cases. As a justice he has had no equal for
many years. In 1877 he was nominated for the Legislature, but was
defeated by sixty-two votes. In 1881 he was again before the people
for the Legislature, and was elected by a handsome majority.
Mr. Green is rather a remarkable young man; and with good health and a
fair field he is bound to make a success. He will bear comparison with
any of his associates in the Legislature; and, as a clear, impressive
speaker, has few equals in that body.
There are yet at least one hundred representative men of color worthy
of the places they hold in the respect and confidence of their race
and the country. Their number is rapidly increasing; and ere many
years there will be no lack of representative Colored men.[128]
Colored women had fewer privileges of education before the war, and
indeed since the war, than the men of their race, yet, nevertheless,
many of these women have shown themselves capable and useful.
FRANCES ELLEN HARPER
was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1825. She was not permitted to
enjoy the blessings of early educational training, but in after-years
proved herself to be a woman of most remarkable intellectual powers.
She applied herself to study, most assiduously; and when she had
reached woman's estate was well educated.
She developed early a fondness for poetry, which she has since
cultivated; and some of her efforts are not without merit. She excels
as an essayist and lecturer. She has been heard upon many of the
leading lecture platforms of the country; and her efforts to elevate
her sisters have been crowned with most signal success.
MARY ANN SHADD CAREY,
of Delaware, but more recently of Washington, D. C., as a lecturer,
writer, and school teacher, has done and is doing a great deal for the
educational and social advancement of the Colored people.
FANNY M. JACKSON--
at present Mrs. Fanny M. Jackson Coppin--was born in the District of
Columbia, in 1837. Though left an orphan when quite a child, Mrs.
Sarah Clark, her aunt, took charge of her, and gave her a first-class
education. She prosecuted the gentlemen's course in Oberlin College,
and graduated with high honors.
Deeply impressed with the need of educated teachers for the schools of
her race, she accepted a position at once in the Institute for Colored
Youth, at Philadelphia, Pa. And here for many years she has taught
with eminent success, and exerted a pure and womanly influence upon
all the students that have come into her classes.
Without doubt she is the most thoroughly competent and successful of
the Colored women teachers of her time. And her example of race pride,
industry, enthusiasm, and nobility of character will remain the
inheritance and inspiration of the pupils of the school she helped
make the pride of the Colored people of Pennsylvania.
LOUISE DE MORTIE,
of Norfolk, Virginia, was born of free parents in that place, in 1833,
but being denied the privileges of education, turned her face toward
Massachusetts.
In 1853 she took up her residence in Boston. She immediately began to
avail herself of all the opportunities of education. A most beautiful
girl, possessed of a sweet disposition and a remarkable memory, she
won a host of friends, and took high standing as a pupil.
In 1862 she began a most remarkable career as a public reader. An
elocutionist by nature, she added the refinement of the art; and with
her handsome presence, engaging manners, and richly-toned voice, she
took high rank in her profession. Just as she was attracting public
attention by her genius, she learned of the destitution that was
wasting the Colored orphans of New Orleans. Thither she hastened in
the spirit of Christian love; and there she labored with an
intelligence and zeal which made her a heroine among her people. In
1867 she raised sufficient funds to build an asylum for the Colored
orphans of New Orleans. But just then the yellow fever overtook her in
her work of mercy, and she fell a victim to its deadly touch on the
10th of October, 1867, saying so touchingly, "I belong to God, our
Father," as she expired.
Although cut off in the morning of a useful life, she is of blessed
memory among those for whose improvement and elevation she gave the
strength of a brilliant mind and the warmth of a genuine Christian
heart.
MISS CHARLOTTE L. FORTUNE--
now the wife of the young and gifted clergyman, Rev. Frank J.
Grimke,--is a native of Pennsylvania. She comes of one of the best
Colored families of the State. She went to Salem, Massachusetts, in
1854, where she began a course of studies in the "Higginson High
School." She proved to be a student of more than usual application,
and although a member of a class of white youths, Miss Fortune was
awarded the honor of writing the Parting Hymn for the class. It was
sung at the last examination, and was warmly praised by all who heard
it.
Miss Fortune became a contributor to the columns of the "Anti-Slavery
Standard" and "Atlantic Monthly." She wrote both prose and poetry, and
did admirably in each.
EDMONIA LEWIS,
the Negro sculptress, is in herself a great prophecy of the
possibilities of her sisters in America. Of lowly birth, left an
orphan when quite young, unable to obtain a liberal education, she
nevertheless determined to be somebody and do something.
Some years ago, while yet in humble circumstances, she visited Boston.
Upon seeing a statue of Benjamin Franklin she stood transfixed before
it. It stirred the latent genius within the untutored child, and
produced an emotion she had never felt before. "I, too, can make a
stone man," she said. Almost instinctively, she turned to that great
Apostle of Human Liberty, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, and asked his advice.
The kind-hearted agitator gave her a note to Mr. Brackett, the Boston
sculptor. He received her kindly, heard her express the desire and
ambition of her heart, and then giving her a model of a human foot and
some clay, said: "Go home and make that. If there is any thing in you
it will come out." She tried, but her teacher broke up her work and
told her to try again. And so she did, and triumphed.
Since then, this ambitious Negro girl has won a position as an artist,
a studio in Rome, and a place in the admiration of the lovers of art
on two continents. She has produced many meritorious works of art, the
most noteworthy being _Hagar in the Wilderness_; a group of the
_Madonna with the Infant Christ and_ _two adoring Angels_; _Forever
Free_; _Hiawatha's Wooing_; a bust of _Longfellow, the Poet_; a bust
of _John Brown_; and a medallion portrait of _Wendell Phillips_. The
_Madonna_ was purchased by the Marquis of Bute, Disraeli's Lothair.
She has been well received in Rome, and her studio has become an
object of interest to travellers from all countries.
Of late many intelligent young Colored women have risen to take their
places in society, and as wives and mothers are doing much to elevate
the tone of the race and its homes. Great care must be given to the
education of the Colored women of America; for virtuous, intelligent,
educated, cultured, and pious wives and mothers are the hope of the
Negro race. Without them educated Colored men and the miraculous
results of emancipation will go for nothing.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] Hiram R. Revels was the successor of Mr. Jefferson Davis. He was
a Methodist preacher from Mississippi. It was our privilege to be
present in the Senate when he was sworn in and took his seat.
[124] This idea had been put forth in a speech by Alexander H.
Stephens just after he had been chosen Vice-president of the
Confederate States.
[125] My Bondage and My Freedom, p. 396.
[126] While this history is passing through the press, the sad
intelligence comes of the death, after a painful illness, of his
beloved wife. All through her life she was justly proud of her husband
and children; and she leaves a precious memory.
[127] Mr. Greener was turned back one year upon the ground of alleged
imperfection in mathematics; but it was done in support of an old
theory, long since exploded, that the Negro has no capacity for the
solution of mathematical problems. We know this to be the case. But
the charming nature and natural pluck of young Greener brought him out
at last without a blemish in any of his studies.
[128] Biography is quite a different thing from history; and the
Colored men who may imagine themselves neglected ought to remember
that this is a _History of the Negro Race_. We have mentioned these
men as representative of several classes.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
ITS ORIGIN, GROWTH, ORGANIZATION, AND EXCELLENT INFLUENCE.--ITS
PUBLISHING HOUSE, PERIODICALS, AND PAPERS.--ITS NUMERICAL AND
FINANCIAL STRENGTH.--ITS MISSIONARY AND EDUCATIONAL
SPIRIT.--WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church of America has exerted a wider
and better influence upon the Negro race than any other organization
created and managed by Negroes. The hateful and hurtful spirit of
caste and race prejudice in the Protestant Church during and after the
American Revolution drove the Negroes out. The Rev. Richard Allen, of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the founder of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. He gathered a few Christians in his private
dwelling, during the year 1816, and organized a church and named it
"_Bethel_." Its first General Conference was held in Philadelphia
during the same year with the following representation:
Rev. Richard Allen, Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, James Champion, and
Thomas Webster, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Daniel Coker, Richard
Williams, Henry Harden, Stephen Hill, Edward Williamson, and Nicholas
Gailliard, of Baltimore, Maryland; Peter Spencer, of Wilmington,
Delaware; Jacob Marsh, Edward Jackson, and William Andrew, of
Attleborough, Pennsylvania; Peter Cuff, of Salem, New Jersey.
The minutes of the Conference of 1817 were lost, but in 1818 there
were seven itinerants: Baltimore Conference--Rev. Daniel Coker,
Richard Williams, and Rev. Charles Pierce; Philadelphia
Conference--Bishop Allen, Rev. William Paul Quinn, Jacob Tapsico, and
Rev. Clayton Durham.
The Church grew mightily, increasing in favor with God and man. The
zeal of its ministers was wonderful, and the spirit of missions and
consecration to the work wrought miracles for the cause. In 1826 the
strength of the Church was as follows:
Bishops 2
Annual conferences 2
Itinerant preachers 17
Stations 2
Circuits 10
Missions 5
Total number of members 7,927
Amount of salary for travelling preachers $1,054.50
Amount of incidental expenses $97.25
The grand total amount of money raised in 1826 for all purposes was
$1,151.75. In 1836 there were:
Bishops 3
Conferences 4
Travelling preachers 27
Stations 7
Circuits 18
Missions 2
Churches 86
Probable value of church property $43,000.00
Total salary of pastors $1,126.29
Amount raised for general purposes $259.59
Total amount of money raised in 1836 for all purposes, $1,385.88. The
total number of members in 1836 was 7,594. This was a decrease of 333
members, and is to be accounted for in the numerous sales of slaves in
the Baltimore Conference, as the decrease was in that conference. In
1846 there were:
Bishops 4
Annual conferences 6
Travelling preachers 40
Stations 16
Circuits and missions 25
Churches 198
Probable value of church property $90,000.00
Total amount raised to support ministers $6,267.43½
Amount raised for general purposes $963.59½
The grand total amount of money raised in 1846 for all purposes was
$7,231.03.
There were supported in the Church in 1846 three educational societies
and three missionary societies.
In 1866 there were:
Annual conferences 10
Bishops 4
Travelling preachers 185
Stations 50
Circuits 39
Missions 96
Churches 285
Probable value of church property $823,000.00
Number of Sunday-school teachers and officers, 21,000
" " volumes in libraries 17,818
" " members 50,000
The amount of money expended to assist the widows and orphans was
$5,000. The amount paid this year for the support of the pastors was
$83,593. The amount expended for Sunday-school work was $3,000.