APPENDIX.

[The following is the speech made by Chief-Justice Chase to the negroes at Charleston, under the circumstances narrated on page83:]

My Friends—In compliance with the request of General Saxton, your friend and mine, I will say a few words.

He has kindly introduced me as a friend of freedom; and such, since I have taken a man’s part in life, I have always been. It has ever been my earnest desire to see every man, of every race and every color, fully secured in the enjoyment of all natural rights, and provided with every legitimate means for the defense and maintenance of those rights.

No man, perhaps, has more deplored the war, from which the country is now emerging, than myself. No one would have made greater sacrifices to avert it. Earnestly desirous, as I always was, of the enfranchisement of every slave in the land, I never dreamed of seeking enfranchisement through war. I expected it through peaceful measures. Never doubting that it would come sometime; fully believing that by a wise and just administration of the National Government, friendly to freedom, but in strict conformity with the National Constitution, the time of its coming might be hastened; I yet would gladly have put aside, if I could, the cup of evil, of which our Nation has drunk so deeply. Not through those seas of blood, and those vast gulfs of cost, would I have willingly sought even the great good of universal emancipation.

But God, in His providence, permitted the madness of slavery-extension and slavery-domination to attempt the dismemberment of the Union by war. And when war came, there came also the idea, gradually growing into settled conviction in the hearts of the people, that slavery, having taken the sword, must perish by the sword. It was quite natural, perhaps, that I, having thoughtmuch on the relations of the enslaved masses to the Republic, should be among the first to recognize the fact that the colored people of the South, whether bond or free, were the natural allies of the Nation, [prolonged cheers,] in its struggle with rebellion, and the duty of the National Government to assert their rights, and welcome their aid. A very few months of experience and observation satisfied me that if we would succeed in the struggle we must, as a first and most necessary measure, strike the fetters from the bondsmen. [Cheers.]

Such was my counsel in the Cabinet; and when our honored President, whose martyrdom this Nation now mourns, in common with all lovers of freedom throughout the world, after long forbearance, made up his mind to declare all men in our land free, no one was more ready with his sanction, or more hearty in his approval than myself. [Cheers.]

So, too, when necessarily that other question arose: “Shall we give arms to the black men?” I could not doubt or hesitate. The argument was plain and irresistible: If we make them freemen, and their defense is the defense of the Nation, whose right and duty is it to bear arms, if not theirs? In this great struggle, now for universal freedom not less than for perpetual Union, who ought to take part, if not they? And how can we expect to succeed, if we fail to avail ourselves of the natural helps created for us by the very conditions of the war? When, therefore, the President, after much consideration, resolved to summon black soldiers to battle for the flag, I felt that it was a wise act, only too long delayed. [Cheers.]

And now, who can say that the colored man has not done his full part in the struggle? Who has made sacrifices which he has not made? Who has endured hardships which he has not endured? What ills have any suffered which he has not suffered?

If, then, he has contributed in just measure to the victory, shall he not partake of its fruits? If Union and Freedom have been secured through courage, and fortitude, and zeal, displayed by black as well as white soldiers, shall not the former be benefited in due measure as well as the latter? And since we all know that natural rights can not be made secure except through political rights, shall not the ballot—the freeman’s weapon in peace—replace the bayonet—the freeman’s weapon in war?

I believe the right of the black man to freedom, and security for freedom, as a result of the war, to be incontestible. I assert it as a simple matter of justice.

In my judgment, the safety of nations, as well as of individuals, stands in justice. It is a true saying, that, “he who walketh uprightly walketh surely.” The man or the nation that joins hands with justice and truth, and relies steadfastly on God’s providence, is sure to issue from every trial safely and triumphantly. Great struggles may have to be gone through; great sacrifices made; great dangers encountered; even great martyrdoms suffered. We have experienced all these. Multitudes of martyrs have perished in this war; the noblest of them all fell but lately by an assassin’s hand; but our great cause has thus far triumphed. There may be still perils ahead. Other martyrdoms may be needed. But over all, and through all, the just cause will surely come out triumphant in the end; for a just God is on the throne, and He wills the triumph of justice.

I have said that the battle is over and the victory won. The armies of rebellion are disbanded; peace is coming, and with it the duties of peace. What are these?

The condition of the country is peculiar. A great race, numbering four millions of souls, has been suddenly enfranchised. All men are now looking to see whether the prophecies of the enemies of that race will be fulfilled or falsified.

The answer to that question, men and women of color, is with you. Your enemies say that you will be disorderly, improvident, lazy; that wages will not tempt you to work; that you will starve rather than labor; that you will become drones and vagabonds. And while your enemies scatter these predictions, many who are not your enemies fear their fulfillment. It remains with you whether they shall be fulfilled or not.

You need not feel much anxiety about what people say of you. Feel rather that, under God, your salvation must come of yourselves. If, caring little about men’s sayings, you go straight on in the plain ways of duty; if by honesty, temperance, and industry, by faithfulness in all employments and to all trusts, and by readiness to work for fair wages, you prove yourselves useful men and women; if out of economical savings from each week’s earnings you lay up something for yourselves in a wet day; if, as cultivators of the soil, as mechanics, as traders, in this employmentor that employment, you do all in your power to increase the products and the resources of your county and State; and if, whatever you do, you make proofs of honesty, sobriety, and good will, you will save yourselves and fulfill the best hopes of your friends.

God forbid that I shall have yet, before I die, to hang my head and say—well, I expected a great deal of this people; that they would bear freedom; that they would be honest, industrious, and orderly; that they would make great progress in learning, in trades, in arts, and, finally, run the race, side by side, with the whites; but I find I was mistaken; they have allowed wretched prejudices and evil passions to grow up among them; they have neglected their opportunities and wasted their means; they have cherished mean envy and low jealousy, where they should have fostered noble emulation and generous rivalry in all good works; they have failed because unwilling to take their lot cheerfully, and persevere courageously in the work of self-improvement.

I may say, with the apostle, “I hope better things of you, though I thus speak.” I know the heart of the working-man, for I have known his experience. When a boy on a farm, in Ohio, where then the unbroken forest lay close to our dwelling, I knew what work was. In our rough log cabins we fared as hard and labored as hard as you fare or labor. All we had to go upon—all the capital we had—was good wills to work, patient endurance, and fair opportunity for education, which every white in the country, thank God, could have then; and every black boy, thank God again, can have now. It was on this capital we went to work, and we came to something; [loud cheers, and cries of “That you did!”] and you may go to work on the same capital and come to something also, if you will. I believe you will. You wont spend your time in fretting because this or that white man has a better time than you have, or more advantages; nor will you, I hope, take short cuts to what looks like success, but nine times out of ten will turn out to be failure.

I talk to you frankly and sincerely, as one who has always been your friend. As a friend, I earnestly advise you to lay your foundations well in morality, industry, education, and, above all, religion. Go to work patiently, and labor diligently; if you are soldiers, fight well; if preachers, preach faithfully; if carpenters, shove the plane with might and main; if you till the ground,grow as much cotton as the land will yield; if hired, work honestly for honest wages, until you can afford to hire laborers yourselves, and then pay honest wages. If you act thus, nobody need doubt your future. The result will gloriously surpass your hopes.

Now about the elective franchise. Major Delany has told you that he heard me say, in the Capitol at Washington, that the black man ought to have his vote. If he had happened to hear me twenty years ago in Cincinnati, he would have heard me say the same thing. [Cheers and prolonged applause.]

Matters have been working, since then, toward that result, and have a much better look now than then. If all the people—all the white people, I mean, for the colored people seem pretty well agreed—felt as I do, that it is the interest of all that the rights of all, in suffrage as in other matters, should be equal before the law, you would not have to wait long for equal rights at the ballot-box; no longer than it would take to pass the necessary law. [Cheers.] But very many of the white people do not see things as I do; and I do not know what the National Government proposes to do. I am not now, as you know, in the Cabinet councils; nor am I a politician; nor do I meddle with politics. I can only say this: I believe there is not a member of the Administration who would not be pleased to see suffrage universal; but I can not say, for I do not know, that the Administration is prepared to say that suffrage shall be universal.

What I do know is this; that if you are patient, and patiently claim your rights, and show by your acts that you deserve to be entrusted with suffrage, and inspire a confidence in the public mind that you will use it honestly, and use it too on the side of liberty, and order, and education, and improvement, you will not have to wait very long. I can say this safely on general principles. Common sense tells us that suffrage can not be denied long to large masses of people, who ask it and are not disqualified for its exercise. Believing in your future as I do, I feel sure you will have it sometime; perhaps very soon; perhaps a good while hence. If I had the power it would be very soon. It would, in my judgment, be safe in your hands to-day; and the whole country would be better off if suffrage were now universal.

But whatever may be the action of the white people here in Charleston, or of the Government at Washington, be patient.That you will have suffrage in the end, is just as sure as it is that you respect, yourselves and respect others, and do your best to prove your worthiness of it. Misconduct of any kind will not help you, but patience and perseverance in well-doing will help you mightily. So, too, if the National Government, taking all things into consideration, shall come to a conclusion different from mine, and delay to enroll you as citizens and voters, your best policy, in my judgment, is patience. I counsel no surrender of principle—no abandonment of your just claims; but I counsel patience. What good will fretting and worrying and complaining do? If I were in your place I would just go to work for all good objects, and show by my conduct that the Government, in making a delay, had made a mistake. [Cheers.] If you do so and the mistake is made, it will be the more speedily corrected.

Let me repeat, that I think it best for all men—white men, black men, and brown men, if you make that distinction, that all men of proper age and unconvicted of crime, should have the right of suffrage. It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization. He who has that right will usually respect himself more, be more respected, perform more, and more productive work, and do more to increase the wealth and welfare of the community, than he who has it not. Suffrage makes nations great. Hence I am in favor of suffrage for all; but if the Government shall think differently, or if circumstances delay its action, I counsel calmness, patience, industry, self-respect, Respect for others, and, with all these, firmness.

Such, in my judgment, is your duty. Ordinarily the simple performance of duty is so blessed of God, that men who live in the doing of it, are the best off, in all respects, even in this world. But if these immediate rewards do not attend its performance, still, if a man carries in his heart the consciousness of doing right, as in the sight God, rendering to each his due, withholding from none his right, contributing all he can to the general improvement, and diffusing happiness to the extent of his power through the sphere of which he is the center, he may go through life as happy as a king, though he may never be a king, and go at last where no wrong finds entrance, nor any error, because there reigns one God and one Father, before whom all his children are equal. [Prolonged cheers.]

[The following is a letter from Rev. Richard Fuller, D. D., of Baltimore, whose visit to his former slaves on St. Helena Island has been described. Dr. Fuller’s high position in the Baptist Church, and his prominence in former times as a defender of the divinity of slavery, in the discussions with President Wayland, give weight to his indorsement of the substantial accuracy of what has been said, in the foregoing pages, as to the condition and prospects of the Sea Island negroes. A few sentences of a purely personal nature are omitted:]

“My Dear Sir:—I could add very little to your clear and full statements concerning our visit to St. Helena, and the condition in which we found the negroes. I can only repeat that the freedmen at Port Royal, under General Saxton, seemed to me to present a favorable solution of the question of free labor.

Against my convictions and apprehensions, I was brought to the conclusion, that their former masters might cultivate their fields profitably by these hired servants.

You are mistaken, however, as I think, in speaking of the slaves on these islands as less advanced in intelligence, or morals than the colored people in the interior.

My interest in these people makes me constantly solicitous about their conduct. Never was there a problem more serious or difficult than that which is now before the Nation, as to this race, whose destiny has been confided to the wisdom and honor of our Government. I can only pray that God will give our rulers His aid and blessing in this critical and portentous crisis.

Most sincerely,RICHARD FULLER.”

Most sincerely,

RICHARD FULLER.”

LETTER FROM CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE TO A COMMITTEE OF COLORED MEN IN NEW ORLEANS.

New Orleans, June 6, 1865.

Gentlemen—I should hardly feel at liberty to decline the invitation you have tendered me, in behalf of the loyal colored Americans of New Orleans, to speak to them on the subject of their rights and duties as citizens, if I had not quite recently expressed my views at Charleston, in an address, reported with substantial accuracy, and already published in one of the most widely circulated journals of this city. But it seems superfluous to repeat them before another audience.

It is proper to say, however, that these views, having been formed years since, on much reflection, and confirmed, in a new and broader application, by the events of the civil war now happily ended, are not likely to undergo, hereafter, any material change.

That native freemen, of whatever complexion, are citizens of the United States; that all men held as slaves in the States which joined in the rebellion against the United States have become freemen through executive and legislative acts during the war; and that these freemen are now citizens, and consequently entitled to the rights of citizens, are propositions which, in my judgment, can not be successfully controverted.

And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise. They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action. Its justice is already acknowledged by great numbers of their white fellow-citizens, and these numbers constantly increase.

The peculiar conditions, however, under which these rights arise, seem to impose on those who assert them peculiar duties, or rather special obligations to the discharge of common duties. They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues. In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, and convince even the most prejudiced that the denialto them of any right which citizens may properly exercise is equally unwise and wrong.

Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage. It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress. May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the most speedy and certain revival of general prosperity?

Very respectfully, yours,

S. P. CHASE.

Messrs.J. B. Roudanez,L. GoelisandL. Banks, Committee.

The Captain-General of Cuba, in a conversation with Chief-Justice Chase, expressed the belief that Coolie labor would be gradually substituted for slave labor, and that slavery itself would come to an end in Cuba within ten years.

THE END.

PUBLICATIONS OF MOORE, WILSTACH & BALDWIN.

Any book in this list will be sent by mail for price annexed.August, 1865.

Any book in this list will be sent by mail for price annexed.

August, 1865.

MEDICAL BOOKS.

MUSIC BOOKS, Etc.

IN PRESS.

AFTER THE WAR; Down the Coast and Up the Mississippi. By [“Agate”]Whitelaw Reid, Special Correspondent of theCincinnati Gazette. 1 handsome volume, 12mo., of about 600 pages. Illustrated. When the tour of inspection to the cities of the Southern Coast was decided on by Chief JusticeChaseand several officials of the Treasury Department, the Judge complimented his friend, the Congressional Librarian, with an invitation to accompany him on the trip. Duly provided with a pass from President Johnson, Mr.Reidaccompanied the party, on board the Government SteamerWayanda, and spent a month or more in the voyage to New Orleans, and in visiting with the distinguished gentlemen the coast cities of the rebellious States. Occurring immediately after the Rebel armies had been disbanded, he became possessed of many facts, and witnessed many incidents replete with interest, which he has here given to the public in his own agreeable manner. As “Agate,” he is well known as one of the most brilliant descriptive writers in the country.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Now stereotyping and soon to be published by authority of the Secretary of War and the Judge Advocate General, the only authorized edition of

THE TRIAL OF THE CONSPIRATORS,

David E. Herold, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, Michael O’Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, George A. Atzerodt, Samuel A. Mudd, before a Military Commission, at Washington, specially convened by President Johnson. President of the Commission, Major-General David Hunter; Judge Advocate, Brigadier-General Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General; Special Judge Advocates, Hon. J. A. Bingham and Brevet Colonel H. L. Burnett; Special Provost Marshal of the Commission, Major-General Hartranft. Containing the Testimony, Documents introduced in Evidence, Discussion of Points of Law, Arguments of Counsel for the Accused, and the Reply of Special Judge Advocate, Hon. John A. Bingham; also, the Findings and Sentences of the Accused; with Portraits, on steel, engraved by Ritchie.Compiled and arranged byBenn Pitman, Recorder to the Commission. 1 vol. royal octavo, double columns. This Trial developed, not only the Plot and the details of the Assassination of President Lincoln, but a series of crimes and plots to which the more unscrupulous traitors resorted when the Rebellion gave token of failure by a contest of arms on the battle-field.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTEItems VI and VII are missing in the list in the footnote on p.90.Silently corrected typographical errors.Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

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