MR. PRESIDENT,--My friend, the Chairman of the Committee, says that
this proposition is correct in principle. But to my mind nothing is
clearer than that where anything is correct in principle it must by
inevitable law be correct in practice. Nobody here makes this law,--not
the Senate, not Congress. By a higher law than any from human power,
whatever is correct in principle must be correct in practice.
I stand on this rule. It is the teaching of all history; it is the
teaching of human life; especially is it the teaching of our national
experience during these latter eventful years. How often have
propositions been opposed in this Chamber as correct in principle, but
not practical! And how often what was correct in principle triumphed
over every obstacle! When the proposition for the abolition of Slavery
in the District was brought forward, we were told that it was correct
in principle, but that it would not work well,--that it was not
practical! So when the proposition was brought forward to give the
colored people the right to testify in court, we were assured that it
was correct in principle, but that it would not be practical.
The same objection was made to the proposition that colored people
should ride in the horse-cars; and I was gravely told that white
people would not use the cars, if they were opened to colored people.
The proposition prevailed, and you and others know whether any injury
therefrom has been done to the cars.
Then, again, when it was proposed to give the ballot to all, it was
announced that it might be correct in principle, but that it was not
practical; and I, Sir, was seriously assured by an eminent citizen that
it would bring about massacre at the polls.
Now that it is proposed to apply the same principle to the schools, we
are again assured, with equal seriousness and gravity, that, though
correct in principle, it is not practical. Sir, I take issue on that
general proposition. I insist that whatever is correct in principle is
practical. Anything else would make this world a failure, and obedience
to the laws of God impossible.
The provision which my friend would strike out is simply to carry into
education the same principle which we have carried into the court-room,
into the horse-car, and to the ballot-box: that is all. If there be any
argument in favor of the provision in these other cases, allow me to
say that it is stronger in the school-room, inasmuch as the child is
more impressionable than the man. You should not begin life with a rule
that sanctions a prejudice. Therefore do I insist, especially for the
sake of children, for the sake of those tender years most susceptible
to human influence, that we should banish a rule which will make them
grow up with a separation which will be to them a burden: a burden to
the white; for every prejudice is a burden to him who has it; and a
burden to the black, who will suffer always under the degradation.
With what consistency can you deny to the child equal rights in the
school-room and then give him equal rights at the ballot-box? Having
already accorded equal rights at the ballot-box, I insist upon his
equal right in the school-room also. One is the complement of the
other. It is not enough to give him a separate school, where he may
have the same kind of education with the white child. He will not have
the same kind of education. Every child, white or black, has a right to
be placed under precisely the same influences, with the same teachers,
in the same school-room, without any discrimination founded on his
color. You disown distinctions of sect: why keep up those of color?
A great protection to the colored child, and a great assurance of his
education, will be that he is educated on the same benches and by the
same teachers with the white child. You may give him what is sometimes
called an equivalent in another school; but this is not equality. His
right is to equality, and not to equivalency. He has equality only
when he comes into your common-school and finds no exclusion there on
account of his skin.
Strike out this provision, and you will say to the children of this
District: “There is a prejudice of color which we sanction; continue
it; grow up with it in your souls.” And worse still, the prejudice
which you sanction will extend from this centre over the whole country.
This is a centre, and not a corner. What we do here will be an example
in distant places.
My friend says that this provision will hurt the schools. Pardon me;
he is mistaken. It will help the schools. Everything that brings the
schools into harmony with great principles and with divine truth must
help them. Anything that makes them antagonistic to great principles
and to divine truth hurts them. Strike out this provision, and you hurt
them seriously, vitally,--you stab them here in the house of their
friends. In a bill to promote education you deal it a fatal blow.
Sir, as I cherish education, as I love freedom, as at all times I stand
by human rights, so do I cherish, love, and stand by this safeguard. It
is worth the whole bill. Strike it out, and the bill is too poor to be
adopted. If it should be passed, thus shorn,--I say it, Sir, because I
must say it,--it will bring disgrace upon Congress.
To the colored people here we owe, certainly, equality; we owe to
them the practical recognition of the promises of the Declaration of
Independence; and still further, we must see that the common schools of
this District are an example throughout the country. We cannot afford
to do less. Everywhere throughout the region lately cursed by Slavery
this dark prejudice still lingers and lowers. From our vantage-ground
here we must strike it, and, according to our power, destroy it. But if
the proposition of my friend prevails, you will encourage and foster it.
Now, Sir, against the statement of my friend, the Chairman, I oppose
the statement of experts,--I oppose a statement which, I venture to say
here, cannot be answered. It is not my statement. I should not venture
to say anything like that of anything that I said. I oppose a Report
made by the Trustees of the Colored Schools in Washington, and I ask
the attention of the Senate to what I read. It is a Report made to the
Secretary of the Interior, December 31, 1870, and communicated to the
Senate by the Secretary, January 18, 1871.[1] Under the head of “Need
of Additional Legislation” the Trustees of the Colored Schools express
themselves as follows:--
“It is our judgment that the best interests of the colored
people of this capital, and not theirs alone, but those of all
classes, require the abrogation of all laws and institutions
creating or tending to perpetuate distinctions based on color,
and the enactment in their stead of such provisions as shall
secure equal privileges to all classes of citizens. The laws
creating the present system of separate schools for colored
children in this District were enacted as a temporary expedient
to meet a condition of things which has now passed away.”[2]
How wise is that remark! These are colored men who wrote this. They
say:--
“The laws creating the present system of separate schools for
colored children in this District were enacted as a temporary
expedient to meet a condition of things which has now passed
away.”
That condition of things was a part of the legacy of Slavery. They then
proceed:--
“That they recognize and tend to perpetuate a cruel,
unreasonable, and unchristian prejudice, which has been and
is the source of untold wrong and injustice to that class of
the community which we represent, is ample reason for their
modification. The experience of this community for the last few
years has fully demonstrated that the association of different
races, in their daily occupations and civic duties, is as
consistent with the general convenience as it is with justice.
And custom is now fully reconciled at this capital to the
seating side by side of white and colored people in the railway
car, the jury-box, the municipal and Government offices, in
the city councils, and even in the Halls of the two Houses of
Congress. Yet, while the fathers may sit together in those high
places of honor and trust, the children are required by law to
be educated apart. We see neither reason nor justice in this
discrimination. If the fathers are fit to associate, why are
not the children equally so?”[3]
I should like my honorable friend, the Chairman, to answer that
question, when I have finished this Report: “If the fathers are fit
to associate, why are not the children equally so?” The Report then
proceeds:--
“Children, naturally, are not affected by this prejudice of
race or color. To educate them in separate schools tends
to beget and intensify it in their young minds, and so to
perpetuate it to future generations. If it is the intention of
the United States that these children shall become citizens in
fact, equal before the law with all others, why train them to
recognize these unjust and impolitic distinctions?”[4]
Here I would interpose the further inquiry, Why will you make your
school-house the nursery of prejudice inconsistent with the declared
principles of your institutions? The Report proceeds:--
“To do so is not only contrary to reason, but also to the
injunction of Scripture, which says, ‘Train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from
it.’”[5]
And yet, could my friend prevail, he would train up a child in the way
he should _not_ go; but he would not, I know, encourage him in this
prejudice. The Report proceeds:--
“Objection to the step here recommended has been made on the
ground of expediency. Every advanced step in the same direction
has been opposed on the same superficial allegation.
“The right of the colored man to ride in the railway cars,
to cast the ballot, to sit on the jury, to hold office, and
even to bear arms in defence of his country, has encountered
the same objection. We are confident that it will prove of no
greater weight in the present case than it has in the others.
There is no argument for equality at the ballot-box, in the
cars, on the jury, in holding office and bearing arms, which
is not equally applicable in the present case. We may go
further, and insist that equality in the other cases requires
equality here; otherwise the whole system is incomplete and
inharmonious.”[6]
Now my friend, the Chairman, would make the system incomplete and
inharmonious. He would continue here at the base that discord which he
would be one of the last to recognize in the higher stages. The Report
proceeds:--
“It is worthy of note in this connection, that some of the most
distinguished men in literary, social, and political circles in
this section of the country have recently, in setting forth
their claims to be considered the best and truest friends of
the people of color, taken pains to inform the public that they
were reared with colored children, played with them in the
sports of childhood, and were even suckled by colored nurses in
infancy; hence, that no prejudice against color exists on their
part. If this be so, then with what show of consistency or
reason can they object to the children of both classes sitting
side by side in school?
“That the custom of separation on account of color must
disappear from our public schools, as it has from our halls
of justice and of legislation, we regard as but a question
of time. Whether this unjust, unreasonable, and unchristian
discrimination against our children shall continue at the
capital of this great Republic is for the wisdom of Congress to
determine.
“We deem it proper to add, that a bill now before the honorable
Senate, entitled ‘A bill to secure equal rights in the public
schools of Washington and Georgetown,’ (Senate, No. 361,
Forty-First Congress, Second Session,) reported to that body
May 6, 1870, by Mr. Senator Sumner, meets our approbation.
It is plain and simple, and prescribes the true rule of
equality for our schools. This bill is in the nature of a
‘corner-stone.’”[7]
This Report, so honorable to these Trustees, showing that they have a
true appreciation of principle, also of what they owe to themselves
and their race, and I trust also a true appreciation of what they may
justly expect from Congress, concludes as follows:--
“In conclusion, the Trustees suggest that those equal
educational advantages to which all children are entitled,
in accordance with the great principle of Equality before
the Law, can be obtained only through the common school,
where all children meet together in the enjoyment of the
same opportunities, the same improvements, and the same
instructions. Whatever then is done for white children will be
shared by their colored brethren, and all shall enjoy the same
care and supervision.”[8]
This is signed, “William Syphax, William H. A. Wormley, Trustees of
Colored Schools.”
There is then a Minority Report, signed, “Charles King, Trustee of
Colored Schools of Washington and Georgetown,” dissenting in some
respects from the Majority Report, but coïnciding with it absolutely
on this most important question. From the Minority Report I read as
follows:--
“In reference to schools of mixed races I think a difference of
opinion may exist among the real friends of the colored people;
but the time is rapidly approaching when this discrimination
must be obliterated all over our country, and I know of no
better locality in which to make a beginning than in the
District of Columbia, and no better time than the present.”[9]
Sir, these are wise words. That is well put; whatever may be the
difficulties elsewhere, they should not be allowed to prevail here.
This member of the Board knows “no better locality in which to make a
beginning than in the District of Columbia, and no better time than the
present.”