This instructive letter is full of wise warnings, to which we cannot be
indifferent. It is testimony, but it is also argument.
The necessity of this measure appears not only from Georgia, but
even from Pennsylvania. I have in my hands an article by Richard T.
Greener, the principal of the Colored Institute at Philadelphia, where
he vindicates the pending bill. I read a brief passage, and simply
in reply to the Senator from Maine, on the necessity of Congressional
action. Mr. Greener is no unworthy representative of his race. He knows
well how to vindicate their rights. Here is what he says:--
“Not three weeks ago, the Committee which waited on the
President from this city, in behalf of Mr. Sumner’s bill, were
refused accommodations at the dépôt restaurant in Washington,
and only succeeded in being entertained by insisting upon
just treatment. It has scarcely been three months since the
secretary of the American legation at Port-au-Prince, Rev. J.
Theodore Holly, with his wife and three children, was refused
a state-room on the steamer running between New Haven and New
York city.”