On being introduced by Hon.B. K. Bruce, on the occasion of the twenty-third anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,Frederick Douglassspoke as follows:
On being introduced by Hon.B. K. Bruce, on the occasion of the twenty-third anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,Frederick Douglassspoke as follows:
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:Your committee of arrangements were pleased to select me as your orator of the day, on an occasion similar to this, two years ago. At that time, while appreciating the honor conferred upon me, I ventured to express the wish that some one of the many competent colored young men of this city and District had been chosen to discharge this honorable duty in my stead. There were excellent reasons for that wish then, and there are even much better reasons for the same wish now. Time and cultivation have largely added to the number of those from whom a suitable selection might have been made, and one of these silent, yet powerful, agents whose mission it is to create and destroy all things mortal has left me much less desire for such distinguished service now than two years ago. Happily, however, the burden is not heavy or grievous, and the proper story of this occasion is simple, familiar, and easily told. In observing the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, we attract the attention of the American people to one of the most important and significant events in their national history, and at the same time evince a grateful and proper sense of the wonderful changes for the better that have taken place in our condition, and in that of the country generally. Though in its immediate and legal operation this act of emancipation was local in its range as to territory, and limited in its application as to the number of persons liberated by it, morally it looms upon us as a grand, comprehensive, and far-reaching measure.
To appreciate its importance we must not consider it as a single independent act standing alone, nor as one pertaining to this District only, nor to the colored people only. We must regard it as a part of a series of splendid public measures, as one of so many steps in the national progress looking to one beneficent and glorious result, a large contribution to thehonor and welfare of the whole country. It was the auspicious beginning of a great movement in the councils of the nation, made necessary by the war, and one which finally culminated in the complete and permanent abolition of slavery, not only in the District of Columbia, but in every part of the Republic. Thus viewed it was the one act which broke the gloomy spell that bound the nation in the bonds of servile, unnatural reverence and awe for slavery. It withdrew the sympathy of European nations from the rebellion; it brought the moral support of the civilized world to the loyal cause; it erased the foulest blot that ever stained our national escutcheon; it gave to the war for the Union a logical, humane, and consistent purpose; it solved a problem which was the standing grief of good men, and the perplexity of statesmen for ages; it gave courage and hope to our armies in the field; it weakened the rebellion; it raised the whole nation to a higher and happier plane of civilization, and placed the American people where they never were before, in a position where they could consistently and effectively preach liberty to all the nations of the world.
The 16th of April, the anniversary of this great act of the nation, strangely and erroneously enough has been considered simply as the colored man’s day only. The business of consecrating and preserving its memory has been, by common consent, relegated to him exclusively. But, in this, our fellow-citizens have been more generous to us than just to themselves. Colored men have very little more reason to hallow this day than have white men. If it brought freedom to us, it brought peace and safety to them, and hence they may well enough unite in this and similar celebrations, and regard the day as theirs as well as ours. No truth taught by our national history is more evident than this, that while slavery dominated the southern half of the Republic, and free institutions prevailed in the northern half, peace and harmony between the two sections were utterly and forever impossible. No man can serve two masters, and the attempt of our Government to do this was a stupendous failure. The union between liberty and slavery was a marriage without love, a house divided against itself; a couple unequally yoked together, held together by external force, not by moral cohesion; it brought happiness to neither, and misery to both.
Like any other embodiment of social and material interest peculiar to a given community, slavery generated its ownsentiments, its own morals, manners, and religion; and begot a character in all around it in favor of its own existence.
In nearly everything indigenous and peculiar to society in the two sections, they were as separate and distinct as are any two nations on the globe. The longer they were thus linked together in the bonds of outward union, the more palpable became their points of difference, and the more passionate became their hostility to each other. Liberty became more and more the glory of the North, and slavery more and more the idol of the South. Not even the bonds of Christian fellowship were strong enough to hold together the churches of the two sections.
In view of this settled and growing antagonism, only one of three courses was opened to the nation: The first was to make the country all slaves, the second was to make it all free, and the third was to divide the Union, and let each section set up a government of its own—the one based upon the system of slavery, and the other based upon the principles of the Declaration of American Independence.
Thanks to the wisdom, loyalty, patriotism, courage, and statesmanship developed by the crisis, the nation rejected equally the idea of making the country all slaves, and permitting two separate nations, with hostile civilizations, side by side, with a chafing, bloody border between them, but chose to give us one country, one citizenship, and one liberty for all the people, and hence we are here this evening. There was never any physical reason for the dissolution of the Union. The geographical and topographical conditions of the country all served to unite rather than to divide the two sections. It was moral not physical dynamite that blew the two sections asunder.
We are told by the poet that—
“Lands intersected by a narrow frith, abhor each other;Mountains interposed make enemies of nations,Which else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one.”
“Lands intersected by a narrow frith, abhor each other;Mountains interposed make enemies of nations,Which else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one.”
“Lands intersected by a narrow frith, abhor each other;Mountains interposed make enemies of nations,Which else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one.”
But in this case there were neither friths nor mountains to separate the South from the North, or to make our Southern brethren hate the people of the North. The moral cause of trouble in the system of slavery being now removed, peace and harmony are possible, and, I doubt not, these blessings, though long delayed, will finally come. In calling attention to the event which makes this day precious we honor ourselves, and honor the noble and brave men who brought it about. We render our humble tribute of gratitude to-day, not only to those whose valor and whose blood on the battlefield brought freedom to the American slave; not only to the great generals who led our armies, but to our great statesmen as well who framed our laws; and not to these only, but also to the noble army of men and women which preceded both statesmen and warriors in the cause of emancipation, and made these warriors and statesmen possible. Neither would our gratitude forget those who supplemented the great act of emancipation by carrying the blessings of education to the benighted South, thus preparing the liberated freedman for the duties of citizenship.
I need not stop here to call the roll of any of these classes. The nation knows the debt it owes them, and will never forget them. We have but to mention the honored name of Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential chair, of Ulysses S. Grant in the field, at whose bedside a grateful nation now stands mute in sympathy and sad expectation; of William Lloyd Garrison in the columns of theLiberator, of Wendell Phillips on the rostrum, of Charles Sumner in the Senate, to cause a host of noble men and women to start up and pass in review before us.
But I drop this brief reference to the history and personnel of the anti-slavery movement, and will speak of matters nearer our times and equally pertinent to this occasion. Those who abolished slavery did their work, and did it well. They served their day and generation with wisdom, courage, and fortitude, and are an example to this and coming generations. They bravely upheld the principles of liberty and justice, and it will go well with this nation and with us if we in our time, and if those who are to come after us in theirs, shall adhere to and uphold these same principles with equal zeal, courage, fidelity, and fortitude. One generation cannot safely rest on the achievements of another, and ought not so to rest.
Hitherto there has been little variety in the thoughts, resolutions, and addresses presented for consideration on occasions similar to this. Each celebration has been almost afac-simileof its predecessors. The speeches have been little more than echoes of those made before, because the conditions of their utterances have been so uniform, and all one way. To-day, however, conditions are changed, or appear to be changed. We do not stand where we stood one year ago. We are confronted by a new Administration. The termof twenty-four years of steady, unbroken, successful Republican rule is ended. The great Republican party that carried the country safely through the late war against the rebellion, emancipated the slave, saved the Union, reconstructed the government of the Southern States, enfranchised the freedmen, raised the national credit, improved the currency, decreased the national debt, and did more for the honor, prosperity, and glory of the American people than was ever done before in the same length of time by any party in any country under similar circumstances, has been defeated, humiliated, and driven from place and power.
For the first time since the chains fell from the limbs of the slaves of the District of Columbia; for the first time since slaves were raised from chattels to men; for the first time since they were clothed with the dignity of American citizenship they find themselves under the rule of a political party which steadily opposed their every step from bondage to freedom, and this fact may well enough give a peculiar coloring to the thoughts and feelings with which this anniversary of emancipation is celebrated.
The great question of the hour respects the true significance of this change in the national front. What does it portend? How will it affect our relations to the people and government of this country? How was this stupendous change brought about, and, in point of fact, it may be asked with some propriety if there has really been any serious change made in our condition by this change in the relations of parties?
To the eye of the colored man the change, or apparent change, in the political situation is very marked, and wears a very sinister aspect. He has so long been accustomed to think the Republican party the sheet-anchor of his liberty, the star of all his hopes, that he can see nought but ill in the ascendancy of the Democratic party. He addresses it much as did Hamlet his father’s ghost:
“Tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre.Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again.What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse,Again in complete steel, revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous, and we, poor fools of nature,So horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?”
“Tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre.Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again.What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse,Again in complete steel, revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous, and we, poor fools of nature,So horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?”
“Tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre.Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again.What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse,Again in complete steel, revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous, and we, poor fools of nature,So horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?”
It is, perhaps, too early to determine the full significanceof the return of the Democratic party to power, or to tell just how that return to power came about. One thing must be admitted, and that is that the power and vitality of the Democratic party have been vastly underrated. It has indulged in vices and crimes enough to have killed a dozen ordinary parties, and yet it lives. At times it has really seemed to be dead. Some said it had died by opposing the war for the Union, but it was not so. We thought the life had gone out of it when it took our late friend, Horace Greely, for its candidate for the Presidency and adopted a Republican platform, but it was not so.
It was the same old party in a new dress, and time has shown that it was as full of life and power as ever. The fact is, it was never either honestly dead or securely buried. Even when it slept it had one eye open, and saw better with that one eye than did the Republican party with its two. Our mistakes concerning it have been made abundantly clear by the late election and the dazzling splendor of the recent inauguration. We thought the Democratic party dead when it was alive, and the Republican party alive and strong when it was half dead. Long continuance in power had developed rival ambitions, personal animosities, factional combinations in the Republican party that were fatal to its success and even endangered its life.
One great lesson taught by Republican defeat is familiar to all. It is the folly of relying upon past good behavior for present success. Parties, like men, must act in the living present or fail. It is not what they have done or left undone in the past that turns the scale, but what they are doing, and mean to do now. The result shows that neither the past good conduct of the Republican party nor the past bad conduct of the Democratic party has had much to do with the late election.
Americans have too little memory for good or bad political conduct. The people have said in the late election, “We care nothing for your past; but what is your present character and work?” And in rendering judgment they have said, “We see little ground for preferring one to the other.”
But, fellow-citizens, it is consoling to think that this change in the political front justly implies no real change for the worse in the moral convictions of the American people. On the great questions that divided the parties during the periods of war and reconstruction there has been no change whatever. Upon all the great measures of justice, liberty, and civilization, originated and carried through Congress by the Republican party, I believe the heart of the nation to be still safe and sound. If the measures then in controversy between the parties were now submitted to the American people, I fully believe they would sustain them one and all by an overwhelming vote.
The trouble was that the Republican party in the late campaign forgot for the moment its high mission as the party of great moral ideas, and sought victory on grounds far below its ordinary level. It made national pelf more important and prominent than national purity. It made the body more important than the soul; national prosperity more important than national justice. There was no square issue made up between the parties. One talked in favor of the tariff and the other did not talk against it. Both together beat the air and raised a dust, confused counsel, blinded the voters, and rendered victory a thing of chance rather than a thing of choice. The Republican party was not more surprised by defeat than the Democratic party was astonished by victory. Twelve hundred votes would have changed the result; so that nothing for the future can be safely predicted upon the election either way. It does not imply that the Democratic party is in power to stay, or that the Republican party is out of power to stay, or that new parties are to arise and take the place of the old.
While it was painfully evident that the Republican party, during the late canvass, had little or nothing to say against the outrages committed upon the newly enfranchised people of the South, it was equally plain that the Democratic party had nothing to say in defense of these outrages. Yet it is not strange, in view of the history of the two parties, that much alarm was felt by colored people all over the South when they first learned that the great Republican party was defeated and that the Democratic party was soon to administer the National Government.
Ignorant as the colored people of the South have been, and may still be, about other matters of national importance, they have always been intelligent enough as to the character and relations of political parties. They have never been mistaken as to the historical difference between the party which gave them liberty and the party which sought to continue their enslavement. They had known the Democratic party long andwell and only as the party of the old master class. They naturally held the triumph of that party as a victory of the old master class. In the panic of the moment they saw in it a possible attempt to rehabilitate the old order of government in the South, in which they would be greatly oppressed if not enslaved.
In the joy and exultation of the old master class over the defeat of the Republican party, and over the return of the old Democratic party to power, they read what they thought their doom. Jealous of their newly gained liberty, as well they might be, feeling themselves in peril and left naked to their enemies, their fears amounted to agony. But, thanks to the kind assurances promptly given by the President-elect and by other Democrats in high places, this alarm was transient, and has now given way in some measure to a feeling of confidence and security.
How long this feeling of confidence and security will last, however, will depend upon the future policy of the present administration. The inaugural address of President Cleveland was all that any friend of liberty and justice could reasonably ask for the freedmen. It was a frank and manly avowal, worthy of the occasion. It accepted their citizenship as a fact settled beyond debate, and as a subject which ought to attract attention only with a view to the improvement of their character and their better qualification by education for the duties and responsibilities of citizens of the Republic.
No better words have dropped from the east portico of the Capitol since the inauguration days of Abraham Lincoln and Gen. Grant. I believe they were sincerely spoken, but whether the President will be able to administer the government in the light of those liberal sentiments is an open question. The one-man power in our government is very great, but the power of party may be greater. The President is not the autocrat, but the executive of the nation. But, happily, the executive is yet a power, and may be able to obtain the support of the co-ordinate branches of the government in so plain a duty as protecting the rights of the colored citizens, with those of all other citizens of the Republic. For one, though Republican I am, and have been, and ever expect to be, though I did what I could to elect James G. Blaine as President of the United States, I am disposed to trust President Cleveland. By his words, as well as by his oath of office, solemnly subscribed to before uncounted thousands of American citizens,he is held and firmly bound to execute the Constitution of the United States in the fullness of its spirit and in the completeness of its letter, and thus far he has shown no disposition to shrink from that duty.
The Southern question is evidently the most difficult question with which President Cleveland will have to deal. Hard as it may be to manage his party on the civil service question, where he has only to deal with hungry and thirsty office-seekers, nineteen out of every twenty of whom he must necessarily offend by failing to find desirable places for them, he will find it incomparably harder to meet that party’s wishes in dealing with the Southern question. There are several methods of disposing of this Southern question open to him, and there are lions in the way, whichever method he may adopt.
First. He may adopt a policy of total indifference. He may shut his eyes to the fact that in all of the Gulf States political rights of colored citizens are literally stamped out; that the Constitution which he has solemnly sworn to support and enforce is under the feet of the mob; that in those States there is no such thing as a fair election and an honest count. He may utterly refuse to interfere by word or deed for the enforcement of the Constitution and for the protection of the ballot, and let the Southern question drift whithersoever it will, to a port of safety or to a rock of disaster. He will probably be counselled to pursue the course of President Hayes, but I hope he will refuse to follow it. The reasons which supported that policy do not exist in the case of a Democratic President. Mr. Hayes made a virtue of necessity. He had fair warning that not a dollar or a dime would be voted by a Democratic Congress if the army were kept in the South. The cry of the country was against what was called bayonet rule.
Secondly. The President may pursue a temporizing policy; keep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the heart, a half-hearted, a neither hot nor cold, a good Lord and good devil policy. He may try to avoid giving offence to any, and thus succeed in pleasing none; a policy which no man or party can pursue without inviting and earning the scorn and contempt of all honest men and of all honest parties.
Thirdly. He may decide to accept the Mississippi plan of conducting elections at the South; encourage violence and crime; elevate to office the men whose hands are reddest with innocent blood; force the negroes out of Southern politics bythe shot-gun and the bulldozer’s whip; cheat them out of the elective franchise; suppress the Republican vote; kill off their white Republican leaders, and keep the South solid; and keep its one hundred and fifty-three electoral votes—obtained thus by force, fraud, and red-handed violence—ready to be cast for a Democratic candidate in 1888. This might be acceptable to a certain class of Democrats at the South, but the Democrats of the North would abhor and denounce it as a bloody and hell-black policy. It would hurl the party from power in spite of the solid South, and keep it out of power another four and twenty years.
Fourthly. He may sustain a policy of absolute fidelity to all the requirements of the Constitution as it is, and, as John Adams said of the Declaration of Independence, he may bravely say to the South and to the nation: “Sink or swim, survive or perish, I am for the Constitution in all its parts! I will be true to my oath, and I will, to the best of my ability, and to the fullest extent of my power, defend, protect, and maintain the rights of all citizens, without regard to race or color.”
There can be no doubt as to which of these methods of treating the Southern question is the most honest and safe one. There may be many wrong ways for individuals or nations to pursue, but there is but one right way, and it remains to be seen if this is the one the present administration will adopt and pursue. Left to the promptings of his own heart and his own view of his constitutional duties, and to his own sense of the requirements of consistency, and even expediency, I firmly believe that President Cleveland would do his utmost to protect and defend the constitutional rights of all classes of citizens. But he is not left to himself, and may adopt a different policy.
One thing seems plain, which it is well for all parties to know and consider. It is this: There are 7,000,000 of colored citizens now in this Republic. They stand between the two great parties—the Republican party and the Democratic party—and whichever of these two parties shall be most just and true to these 7,000,000 may safely count upon a long lease of power in this Republic. It is not their votes alone that will tell. There is deep down among the people of this country a love of justice and fair play, and that fact will tell. It is now as it was in the time of war, and it will be so in all time. The party which takes the negro on its side will triumph. The world moves, and the conditions of success and failure have changed.
Formerly, devotion to slavery was the condition upon which the success of the Democratic party was based. But time and events have swept away this abhorred condition. Liberty, not slavery, is now the autocrat of the Republic. Neither politics nor religion can succeed in the future by pandering to the prejudices arising out of slavery. Let the great Democratic party realize this fact, and shape its policy in accordance with it; let it do justice to the negro, and it will certainly succeed itself in power four years hence, and long years after.
On the contrary, if it forgets the nation’s progress, falls back into its old ruts, and seeks success on the old conditions; if it forgets that slavery has now become an anachronism, a superstition of the past, having no proper relation to the age and body of our times, it will be ignominiously driven from place and power four years hence, and no arm can, or ought to, save it.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which,Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which,Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which,Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
This tide is now rising at the feet of President Cleveland and his administration, and, as I have said, it remains to be seen if it will be wisely taken at the flood. Depend upon it, if the Democratic party does not avail itself of the colored man’s support the Republican party certainly will. That party is still the colored man’s party, and it will be all the more likely to consider the claims of the colored man, in view of its late defeat, and the causes by which that defeat was brought about. Twelve hundred more colored votes in the State of New York would have saved that party from defeat.
Unless the ballot is protected better than heretofore the Augusta speech of the Hon. James G. Blaine, delivered after the election, will be the keynote of the Republican campaign four years hence. There is only one way to prevent the success of the Republican party if that issue is permitted to be raised. The Northern people were sound for free soil; sound for free speech; sound for the Union; sound for reconstruction in other days, and they will be sound for justice and liberty and a free ballot to the newly enfranchised citizens when that issue shall be fairly presented as a living issue between the two contending parties.
The great mistake made by the leaders of the Republican party during the late canvass was the failure to recognize the facts now stated, and their refusal to act upon them. They had become tired of the old issues and wanted new ones. They made their appeal to the pocket of the nation, and not to the heart of the nation. They attended to the mint, anise, and cummin of politics, but omitted the weightier matters of the law—judgment, mercy, and faith. They were loud for the protection of things, but silent for the protection of men. These things they ought to have done, and not left the other undone.
The idea that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach to any people, was, for a time, lost sight of. The all-engrossing thought of the campaign was a judicious, discriminating protective tariff. The great thing was protection to the wool of Ohio; to the iron of Pennsylvania, and to American manufactures generally. Little was said, thought, or felt about national integrity, the importance of maintaining good faith with the freedmen or the Indian, or the protection of the constitutional rights of American citizens, except where such rights were in no danger.
The great thing to be protected was American industry against competition with the pauper labor of Europe—not protection of the starving labor of the South. The body of the nation was everything; the soul of the nation was nothing. It did not appear from the campaign speeches that it was important to protect and preserve both, or that the body was not more dependent upon bread for life than was the soul dependent upon truth, justice, benevolence, and good faith for health and life. In the absence of these, the soul of the nation starves, sickens, and dies. It may not fall at once upon the withdrawal of these, but persistent injustice will, in the end, do its certain work of moral destruction. No nation, no party, no man can live long and flourish on falsehood, deceit, injustice, and broken pledges. Loyalty will perish where protection and good faith are denied and withheld, and nothing other that this should be expected, either by a party, a man, or by a government. On the other hand, where good faith is maintained, where justice is upheld, where truth and right prevail, the government will be like the wise man’s house in Scripture—the winds may blow, the rains may descend, the flood may come and beat upon it, but it will stand, because it is founded upon the solid rock of principle. Ispeak this, not only for the Republican party, but for all parties. Though I am a party man, to me parties are valuable only as they subserve the ends of good government. When they persistently violate the fundamental rights of the humblest and weakest in the land I scout them, despise them, and leave them.
We boast of our riches, power, and glory as a nation, and we have reason to do so. But what is prosperity, what is power, what is national glory, when national honor, national good faith, and national protection to the rights of our citizens are denied? Of what avail is citizenship and the elective franchise where a whole people are deliberately abandoned to anarchy by the Government under which they live, and told they must protect themselves from violence as best they may, for, practically, this is just what the American Government has said to the colored and white Republican voters of the South during the last eight years. Minister Lowell was accused of not protecting the rights of Irish-Americans in England, and our ships are just now ordered to Panama to look after the interests of American citizens in Central America. This is all right, but when and where have our army and navy gone to protect the rights of American citizens at home? To say, “I am a Roman citizen!” could once arrest the bloody scourge and cause the brutal tyrant to turn pale. But who cares now for the citizenship of any American Republican, black or white, in Mississippi or South Carolina? We are rich and powerful. But we should remember that the whole vast volume of human history is dotted all along with the wrecks of nations which have perished amid wealth, luxury, and splendor. What doth it profit a nation to gain the whole world if it shall lose its own soul? Henry Clay, in 1839, made an elaborate defence of the right to hold property in man. Two hundred years of legislation has sanctioned and identified negro slaves as property. When warned by anti-slavery men of the dreadful consequences of perpetuating slavery, he said that that warning had been given fifty years before, and that it had been answered by fifty years of unexampled prosperity. His idea was that if slavery were a curse God would not allow a nation that upheld it to prosper. The argument was sophistical, but it contained a great truth after all, and time only was required to verify it. He forgot that God reigns in eternity; that space is sometimes given for repentance. He did notremember, as Jefferson did, that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Had Mr. Clay lived to see, as we have seen, the union of his beloved country rent asunder at the centre, and hostile armies composed of his beloved countrymen on the field of battle, amid dust, smoke, and fire, blowing each other to pieces from the cannon’s mouth; had he seen five hundred thousand of the youth and flower of both sections of this land cut down by the sword and flung down into bloody graves; had he seen in the wake of this fratricidal war the smoldering ruins of noble towns and cities, and the nation staggering under a debt heavier than a mountain of gold; had he seen the sullen discontent and deadly hate which survived the war, and traced all these calamities and more, as he must do, to the existence of slavery, he would, in all the bitterness of his soul, have cursed the day when he poured out his eloquence in defence of that system which brought upon his country these accumulated horrors.
The lesson of this national experience is in place to-day, and it would be well for this nation to study and learn it. Look abroad! What rocks Europe to-day? What causes the Emperor of all the Russias to be uneasy on his pillow? What makes Austria tremble? Why does England start up frantically at midnight and search her premises? You know, and I know, that these countries have aggrieved classes among them who have just ground of complaint against their governments.
Now, fellow-citizens, let me speak plainly. This is an age when men go to and fro in the earth, and knowledge increases oppressed peoples all over the world are protesting with earthquake emphasis against all forms of injustice, some by one means and some by another. Examples, like certain diseases, are contagious. Railroads, steam navigation, electric wires, newspapers, and traveling emissaries are abroad. Can you be quite sure that the oppressed laborers in this country, white and colored, will not some day make common cause and learn some of the dangerous modes of protest against injustice adopted in other countries? I deal in no threats, for myself or for any of my countrymen, and am only for peaceful methods; but I say to all oppressors, “Have a care how you goad and imbrute the colored man of the South!” He is weak, but not powerless. He is submissive to wrongs, but not insensible to his rights. He is hopeful, but not incapable of despair. He can endure, but even to him may come a time when he shall think endurance has ceased to be a virtue. All the world is a school, and in it one lesson is just now being taught in letters of fire and blood, and that is, the utter insecurity of life and property in the presence of an aggrieved class. This lesson can be learned by the ignorant as well as by the wise. Who can blame the negro if, when he is driven from the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the schoolhouse, denied equal rights on railroads and steamboats, called out of his bed at midnight and whipped by regulators, compelled to live in rags and wretchedness, and his wages kept back by fraud, denied a fair trial when accused of crime, he shall imitate the example of other oppressed classes and invokes some terrible explosive power as a means of bringing his oppressors to their senses, and making them respect the claims of justice? This would indeed be madness, but oppression will make even a wise man mad.
It should not be forgotten that the negro is not what he was twenty years ago. Kossuth once said that bayonets think. The negro is beginning to think. Years ago a book had as little to say to him and had as little meaning for him as a brick. It was then a thing of darkness and silence. Now it is a thing of light and speech. Education, the sheet anchor of safety to society where liberty and justice are secure, is a dangerous thing to society in the presence of injustice and oppression.
I pursue this thought no further. A hint to the wise ought to be sufficient. Let not my words be construed as a menace, but taken as I mean them—as a warning; not interpreted as inviting disaster, but considered as designed to avert disaster.
Fellow-citizens, many things calculated to make us thoughtful have occurred since I addressed you on an occasion like this, two years ago; but nothing has occurred which ought to make us more thoughtful than the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the civil rights bill. That decision came upon the country like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. It came without warning. It was a surprise to enemies and a bitter disappointment to friends. Had the bench been composed of Democratic judges some such a decision might have come upon us without producing any very startling effect. But the fact was otherwise. This blow was dealt us in the house of our friends. The bench wascomposed of nine learned Republican judges, and of these nine honorable men only one came to our help, I mean Honorable Justice John M. Harlan. He stood up for the rights of colored citizens as those rights are defined by the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
It was a magnificent spectacle, this grand representation of American justice standing alone, and the country will not soon forget it. Without meaning any disrespect to the Supreme Court, or reflecting upon the purity of its motives, I must say here, as I have said elsewhere, and shall say many times over if my life is spared, that that decision is the most striking illustration I have ever seen of how it is possible to keep alive the letter of the law and at the same time stab its spirit to death. Portia strictly construed the law of Venice for mercy, and this rule of construction has the approval of all the ages, but the Supreme Court of the United States construed American law against the weak and in the interest of prejudice and brutality. Never before was made so clear the meaning of Paul’s saying, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
I am glad, and I know that you are glad, that there was one man on that bench who had the mind and heart to be as true to liberty in this its day as was the old Supreme Court of slavery in its day. While slavery existed all presumptions were made in its favor. The obvious intention of the law prevailed, but now the plain intention of the law has been strangled by the letter of the law.
The fourteenth amendment of the Constitution was plainly intended to secure equal rights to all citizens of the United States, without regard to race or color, and Congress was authorized to carry out this provision by appropriate legislation. But by this decision of the Supreme Court the fourteenth amendment has been slain in the house of its friends. I have no doubt that that decision contributed to the defeat of the Republican party in the late election. I repeat, that decision may well make colored men thoughtful.
Kentucky has done many evil things in her time, but she has also done many great and good things. She has recently given us a law by which equal educational advantages have been extended to colored children. Long ago she gave us James G. Birney, the first abolition candidate for the presidency of the United States; a former slave-holder, but onewho emancipated his slaves on his own motion; a genuine gentleman of the old school, and one to be gratefully remembered by every friend of liberty in this country. She has given us Cassius M. Clay, the man who fought his way to freedom of speech on his native soil. She has given us John G. Fee, the earnest and devoted educator of the freedman. Nor is this all. She has given us two of the largest hearts and broadest minds of which our country can boast; men who had the courage of their convictions, and who dared, at the peril of what men hold most dear, to be true to their convictions. These strong men—one dead and the other living—are Abraham Lincoln and John M. Harlan. Abraham Lincoln is already enshrined in the hearts of the American people, and Justice John M. Harlan will hold a place beside him in the hearts of his countrymen.
You remember the public meeting held in Lincoln Hall, and the free expression of opinion upon the unsoundness of the decision of the Supreme Court on the civil rights bill. You will also remember that the ablest and boldest words there spoken were from the lips of Robert G. Ingersoll, a man everywhere spoken against as an infidel and a blasphemer. Well, my friends, better be an infidel and a so-called blasphemer than a hypocrite who steals the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.
Infidel though Mr. Ingersoll may be called, he never turned his back upon his colored brothers, as did the evangelical Christians of this city on the occasion of the late visit of Mr. Moody. Of all the forms of negro hate in this world, save me from that one which clothes itself with the name of the loving Jesus, who, when on earth, especially identified himself with the lowest classes of suffering men, and the proof given of his Messiahship was that the poor had the Gospel preached unto them. The negro can go into the circus, the theatre, the cars, and can be admitted into the lectures of Mr. Ingersoll, but cannot go into an Evangelical Christian meeting.
I do not forget that on the occasion of the civil rights meeting I have mentioned, one evangelical clergyman, a real man of God, gave to the gospel trumpet a certain sound. The religion of Dr. John E. Rankin, like the love of his Redeemer, is not bounded by race or color, but takes in the whole human family. No truer man than he ever ascended a Washington pulpit.
In conclusion let me say one word more of the soul of the nation and of the importance of keeping it sensitive and responsive to the claims of truth, justice, liberty, and progress. In speaking of the soul of the nation I deal in no cant phraseology. I speak of that mysterious, invisible, impalpable something which underlies the life alike of individuals and of nations, and determines their character and destiny.
It is the soul that makes a nation great or small, noble or ignoble, weak or strong. It is the soul that exalts it to happiness, or sinks it to misery. While it modifies and shapes all physical conditions, it is itself superior to all such conditions. It is the spiritual side of humanity. Fire cannot burn it, water cannot quench it. Though occult and impalpable, it is just as real as granite or iron. The laws of its life are spiritual, not carnal, and it must conform to these laws or it starves and dies. The outward semblance of it may survive for a time, just as ancient temples and old cathedrals may stand long after the spirit that inspired them has vanished. But they, too, will moulder to ruin and vanish. The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous; for upon these conditions depend the life of its life.
A few years ago a terrible and desolating fire swept over the proud young city of Chicago, and left her architectural splendors in ashes. In a few hours her “cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces” and solemn temples crumbled to dust, and were scattered to the four winds of heaven, so that no man could find them, but there remained the invisible soul of a great people, full of energy, enterprise, and faith, and hence, out of the ashes and hollow desolation, a grander Chicago than the one destroyed arose “as if by magic.”
“What constitutes a state?Not high raised battlements, or labored mound,Thick walls or moated gate;Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;Not bays and broad armed ports,Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride.No, men; high-minded men!With power as far above dull brutes endued,In forest, brake, or den,As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;Men who their duties know,But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.”
“What constitutes a state?Not high raised battlements, or labored mound,Thick walls or moated gate;Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;Not bays and broad armed ports,Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride.No, men; high-minded men!With power as far above dull brutes endued,In forest, brake, or den,As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;Men who their duties know,But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.”
“What constitutes a state?Not high raised battlements, or labored mound,Thick walls or moated gate;Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;Not bays and broad armed ports,Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride.No, men; high-minded men!With power as far above dull brutes endued,In forest, brake, or den,As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;Men who their duties know,But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.”
In introducing Mr.Frederick Douglass, on the occasion of the Twenty-fourth Anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Prof.J. M. Gregorymade the following remarks:
In introducing Mr.Frederick Douglass, on the occasion of the Twenty-fourth Anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Prof.J. M. Gregorymade the following remarks:
Ladies and Gentlemen:For many years prior to 1861 the friends of freedom, seeing the prominence slavery had acquired because of its existence at the capital of the nation, and the evil influence which it necessarily exerted upon legislation, sought in vain by petitions and other measures for its abolition in the District of Columbia. It was not, however, till the national conscience began to be quickened by the reverses of our armies, and legislators to realize the dangers which threatened the life of the nation, that the cause could muster sufficient strength to gain a hearing in Congress.
On the 16th of December, 1861, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced into the Senate a bill providing for the immediate emancipation of slaves in the District upon the payment to the owners of $300 for each slave. As was to be expected the bill was antagonized by pro-slavery men in the Senate and House. They feared that the measure proposed was the entering wedge for the final overthrow of their pet institution in the South. As subsequent events proved their fears were not without foundation. Notwithstanding the bitter opposition which the bill encountered, it passed both houses of Congress in less than four months from its first introduction in the Senate, and was approved by the President on the 16th of April, just twenty-four years ago to-day.
The debates on this and kindred questions makes memorable the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and they are of special interest because they indicated a new departure in the line of argument pursued by Northern statesmen. They based their arguments for emancipation, not upon grounds of expediency, but the great principles of right and justice.
The importance of this act must not be overlooked. It struck the shackles from the limbs of 3,000 human beings and placed them in the ranks of freemen. It took away theshame which slavery had brought upon the National Capital. But this was not all. It elevated the nation in its own eyes and in the eyes of the civilized world, and roused a feeling of patriotism and pride. It called forth an expression from the National Legislature, and a majority of the members by solemn vote arrayed themselves on the side of emancipation and liberty, in opposition to slavery and oppression. It was the forerunner of the great emancipation proclamation—that proclamation which more than all his other acts makes the name of Abraham Lincoln secure to all posterity.
In our rejoicing on this occasion we should not forget to hold in grateful remembrance the men whose votes secured the passage of the bill, and especially its author, a man who by his works proved himself a friend of the oppressed, Hon. Henry Wilson, the benefactor of the District.
When the emancipation bill became a law in 1862, there were 15,000 colored people in the District of Columbia, 12,000 of whom were free and the remainder slaves. They maintained eight schools for the education of their children, and were the owners of twelve churches, which cost about $75,000. With the increase of population came the demand for more churches, so that to-day they have eighty churches and missions in the District. Many of the churches are very valuable and located on some of the principal streets and avenues, the new Metropolitan Church alone being valued at $100,000.
Under the old system the word “colored” appeared opposite the name of each colored person paying taxes on the books of the Collector of Taxes. Now, no such distinction is made, and there are no data from which the number paying taxes among colored citizens can be definitely known. From information received at the tax office, I judge that there are about 180 persons with property assessed individually at $1,000, the assessed valuation of real estate in this District being two-thirds to actual cash valuation. It will be quite in keeping with the facts to say that two of our citizens have acquired property valued at $100,000 each, two at $75,000, six at $25,000, fifteen at $20,000, twenty at $10,000, and fifty at $5,000, making in the aggregate at least a million of dollars. I am positively assured that the increase in the valuation of property owned by colored men since emancipation is 100 per cent. This, we think, is a most creditable showing for our property interests.
Of the 15,000 colored people in the District at the time of emancipation there were proportionately more skilled carpenters and masons than now in a population of 70,000. But labor has become more diversified. We are now engaged in pursuits in which we had no experience before the war. In 1861 a colored lawyer was a personage unknown to the national capital. Now half a dozen colored lawyers successfully practice their profession in the courts of the District. Then we had no physicians, regular graduates of medical schools; now a dozen or more follow the practice of medicine in the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and are recognized as men of skill and ability by the profession. One of these physicians, with his assistant, is in charge of the Freedman’s Hospital, one of the largest and most successful hospitals in the country. Government employment tends to keep out many from some business occupations in which the people in other large cities engage, but this disadvantage, if disadvantage it be considered, operates no more against us than against other citizens.
The greatest progress made, however, and that which is necessarily the first in order of time and importance, has been in matters of education. The schools have increased from 8 to 174, with an average attendance of 9,000 children, giving employment to more than 100 teachers. Twelve of the school-houses in which these schools are conducted are among the largest and most convenient school buildings in the District. Too much cannot be said in praise of the teachers, supervising principals, superintendent and trustees, for it is by their combined efforts largely that the schools have attained that degree of excellence for which they are known. Howard University and Wayland Seminary, placed on heights commanding beautiful views of Washington, are among the results of emancipation. These institutions grew out of the necessities of the times to meet the wants of colored youth for higher and professional education. It is proper that we should take pride in our schools and institutions of learning, for they are the chief instruments through which our children are to receive the training which will fit them to properly discharge the duties that will afterward devolve upon them as men and women and to elevate the race to an equality of development and enlightenment with other peoples.
We often hear the question asked, “What are we to do with the Americanized negro?” Articles have appeared in newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines giving what the author regards as a proper solution of the negro problem, so-called. But I ask why should there be a negro problem any more than a problem for any other class of the American people? We need not go far to seek the answer. It is found in the fact that in certain parts of our country the people are not willing to receive the negro into full fellowship and to grant him the civil and political rights enjoyed in common by other citizens. They take from him the means of elevation and then reproach him with inferiority. They would rejoice to rid the country of his presence by colonization, but seeing the utter hopelessness of the colonization scheme, they seek to inflame the public mind against him by constant appeals to the low and narrow prejudices entertained by certain classes of the American people. When the 300 colored citizens from Cleveland visited President-elect Garfield at Mentor, he said in reply to the address, to which he had given respectful attention, that he did not profess to be more of a friend to colored men than hundreds of others, but he was in favor of giving, and, so far as it was consistent with the duties of his office, would give themopportunityto achieve success for themselves. This is all we ask to-day. This is all we can reasonably ask. Give us fair play, equal opportunity, and we will work out our own destinies.
Ten years ago, in this city, on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln, an eminent divine, after congratulating the orator of the day upon his masterly portrayal of the character of the martyr President, turned to General Grant and said: “There is but one Frederick Douglass.” This distinguished citizen, the orator who paid the eloquent tribute to the memory of Mr. Lincoln on the occasion referred to, the Hon. Frederick Douglass, will now address you.
At the conclusion of Prof. Gregory’s remarks Mr. Douglass said:
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:I appear before you again, and for the third time since my residence among you, to assist in the celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. And while I highly appreciate the honor and the confidence implied in your call upon me to do so, when I consider the importance of the task it has imposed, I can say in all sincerity, as I have said before, that I wish that your choice of speaker had fallen upon one of our young men, quite as well qualified to serve you as myself. I want to see them coming to the front as I am retiring to the rear.Then the fact that I have several times addressed you upon subjects naturally suggested by the recurrence of this interesting anniversary is, of itself, somewhat embarrassing. It is not an easy task to speak many times on the same subject, before the same audience, without repeating the same views and sentiments. If, therefore, you find me committing this offence to-day, you will consider the difficulty of avoiding it, and also that the same views and sentiments are as pertinent and necessary to-day as years ago. You need not fear, however, that I shall inflict upon you any one of my former orations. I am not bound by any such necessity. The field is broad, and the material is abundant. The phases of public affairs touching the colored people of the United States are never stationary. They change with every season, and often many times in the course of a single year. There is no standing still for anybody in this world. We are either rising or falling, advancing or retreating.
Last year, at this time, we were confronted with an unusual and somewhat alarming state of facts. We stood at the gateway of a new and strange administration. After wandering about during twenty-four years, seeking rest and finding none, often hungry and sometimes thirsty, and, though not feeding swine or eating husks, yet not unfrequently found in very low places and wasting the substance of the national family, our prodigal Democratic son, with one tremendous effort of will, returned to the White House, and was received with every demonstration of parental joy and gladness. Of course this did not take place without a murmur of complaint and disapproval. There was an elder brother here as elsewhere; one who had remained at home, worked the old farm, kept the fences in repair; one who had done his duty and made things in the old house comfortable and pleasant generally. Indeed, but for his elder brother, the Republican party, the house would have been broken up, the whole family turned out of doors and scattered in poverty and destitution. It was natural, therefore, when this elder brother saw the great doings at the White House one year ago, when he heard the music and saw the dancing, and learned what it was all about, he was not over well pleased, and thought his father not only soft-hearted, but a little soft-headed, and a trifle ungrateful, if not crazy withal. But elder brothers, you know, are usually reasonable and patient, and are generally quite submissive to parental authority, and though he knewthe bad character of the young truant who had now come home, he hoped he had reformed. How far this cheerful and patient hope has been justified by one year of this administration I will not now stop to say; I may, however, remark, as a prelude to what I shall hereafter say, that as far as the colored people of the country are concerned, their condition seems no better and not much worse than under previous administrations. Lynch law, violence, and murder have gone on about the same as formerly, and without the least show of Federal interference or popular rebuke. The Constitution has been openly violated with the usual impunity, and the colored vote has been as completely nullified, suppressed, and scouted as if the fifteenth amendment formed no part of the Constitution, and as if every colored citizen of the South had been struck dead by lightning or blown to atoms by dynamite. There have also been the usual number of outrages committed against the civil rights of colored citizens on highways and by-ways, by land and by water, and the courts of the country, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, have shown the same disposition to punish the innocent and shield the guilty, as during the presidency of Mr. Arthur. Perhaps colored men have fared a little worse, so far as office-holding is concerned. In some of the Departments, I am sorry to say, there have been many dismissals, but, even in this respect, colored men have not suffered much more than one-armed soldiers, and other loyal white men, whose places were wanted by deserving Democrats. Upon the whole, candor compels me to admit that this twenty-fourth year of our freedom finds us thoughtful, somewhat mystified by what is passing around us, but hopeful, strong to suffer, and yet strong to strive, with a moderate degree of faith that, under the Constitution and its amendments, we shall yet be clothed with dignity of freedom and American citizenship. But more of this in the right place.
I take it that no apology is needed for these annual celebrations, for, notwithstanding the unfriendly outlook of affairs, we have yet much over which to rejoice. Besides, such demonstrations of popular feeling in regard to large benefits received and progress made, are consistent with and creditable to human nature. They have been observed all along the line of by-gone ages, and are peculiar to no class, clime, race, or color. From the day that Moses is said to have smote the Red Sea, and the Hebrews passed safely overfrom Egyptian bondage, leaving Pharaoh overwhelmed and struggling with that hell of waters, down to the 4th of July, 1776, when the fathers of this Republic threw off the British yoke, declared their independence, and appealed to the god of battles, similar events to that which we now celebrate have been gratefully and joyfully commemorated.
If, for any reason, I feel like apologizing to-day, it is not for this celebration, but for an incident connected with it, and by which it is greatly marred. For the first time since the emancipation of the slaves of the District of Columbia we have two celebrations in progress at the same time. This should not be so. By this fact we have said to the world that we are not sufficiently united as a people to celebrate our freedom together. This spectacle of division among men working for a common cause is not pleasing in any case, and is especially displeasing and shocking in this instance. Without attempting to show which party is to blame in this controversy, I have no hesitation in saying that this division itself is most unfortunate, disgraceful, and mortifying. It cannot fail, I fear, to make an unfavorable impression for us upon thoughtful observers. But, standing here as your mouthpiece to-day, I beg the disgusted public to remember that colored men are but men, and that the best men will sometimes differ, and will often differ more widely and violently about trifles than about things of substance, where a difference of opinion would be at least dignified. Something must, however, be pardoned to the spirit of liberty, especially in those who have but recently acquired liberty. There is always some awkwardness in the gait of men who, for the first time, have on their Sunday clothes. When we have enjoyed the blessings of liberty longer we shall put away such childish things and shall act more wisely. We shall think more of a common cause and its requirements and less of obligation to support the claims of rival individual leaders. Depend upon it, a repetition of this spectacle will bring our celebrations into disgrace and make them despicable.
The thought is already gaining ground, that we have not heretofore received the best influence which this anniversary is capable of exerting; that tinsel show, gaudy display, and straggling processions, which empty the alleys and dark places of our city into the broad daylight of our thronged streets and avenues, thus thrusting upon the public view a vastly undue proportion of the most unfortunate, unimproved, and unprogressive class of the colored people, and thereby inviting public disgust and contempt, and repelling the more thrifty and self-respecting among us, is a positive hurt to the whole colored population of this city. These annual celebrations of ours should be so arranged as to make a favorable impression for us upon ourselves and upon our fellow-citizens. They should bring into notice the very best elements of our colored population, and in what is said and done on these occasions, we should find a deeper and broader comprehension of our relations and duties. They should kindle in us higher hopes, nobler aspirations, and stimulate us to more earnest endeavors; they should help us to shorten the distance between ourselves and the more highly advanced and highly favored people among whom we are. If they fail to produce, in some measure, such results, they had better be discontinued. I am sure that such a lecture as I have now given on this point may be distasteful to a part of this assembly. But I can say, in all truth, that nothing short of a profound desire to promote the best interests of all concerned, has emboldened me to run the risk of such displeasure, and I hope the motive will excuse my offence.
And now, fellow-citizens, I turn away from this and other merely race considerations, to those common to all our fellow citizens, yet happily those in which we, too, are included. I call attention to the proposed celebration of the centennial anniversary of our present form of government. The year 1789 will never cease to be memorable in the history and progress of the American people. It was in that year of grace that the founders of the American Republic, having tested the strength and discovered the weakness of the old articles of colonial confederation, bravely decided to lay those articles aside as no longer adequate to successful and permanent national existence, and resolved to form a new compact and adopt a new constitution, better suited, in their judgment, to their national character and to their governmental wants. In this instrument they set forth six definite and cardinal objects to be attained by this new departure. These were: First. “To form a more perfect union.” Second. “To establish justice.” Third. “To provide for the common defense.” Fourth. “To insure domestic tranquillity.” Fifth. “To promote the general welfare.” And sixth. “Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Perhaps there never was an instrument framed by men at the beginning of any national career designed to accomplish nobler objects than those set forth in the preamble of this constitution. They are objects worthy of a great nation, worthy of those who gave to the world the immortal Declaration of Independence, in which they asserted the equal rights of man, and boldly declared in the face of all the divine right governments of Europe the doctrine that governments derive their right to govern from the consent of the governed.
How far these fundamental objects, solemnly set forth in the Constitution, have been realized by the practical operation of the Government created under it, I will not stop just now to state or explain. Whether the Union has been perfectly formed, whether under the ægis of the Constitution the sacred principle of justice has been established, whether the general welfare has been promoted, or whether the blessings of liberty have been secured, are questions to which reference may be made in a subsequent part of this address. For the present I refer to this grand starting point in the nation’s history for another purpose. I wish simply to remind you of the flight of time; that we are now drawing near the close of the first century of our national existence, and the notice that should be taken of that fact. Without going into the general questions raised a moment ago, as to the fulfillment of what was promised in the Constitution, we may, in passing, affirm what must be admitted by all, that under this form of government so happily described, and so faithfully upheld by the great lamented Abraham Lincoln, as “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” this nation has become rich, great, progressive, and strong. This fact is cheerfully acknowledged by the whole sisterhood of contemporaneous nations. From thirteen comparatively weak and sparsely populated States, skirting and hovering along the line of our Atlantic coast, constituting a mere string of isolated communities, we now have thirty-eight States covering our broad continent, extending from east to west, and from sea to sea. Under our Constitution the desert and solitary places have been reclaimed and made to blossom as the rose. From a population of seven millions, we have reached the enormous number of fifty millions; and in less than half a century we shall have double that number. Such an augmentation of wealth, power, and population has no example in the experience of any nation in ancient or modern times. The mind grows dizzy in contemplation of the futureof a country so great and so increasing in greatness, and to whose greatness there seems to be no limit. The question naturally arises, what is to be the effect of such accumulated wealth, such vast increase of population, such expanded domain, and such augmentation of national power? Plainly enough either one of two very opposite conditions may arise. It may either blast or bless, it may lift us to heaven or sink us to perdition.
If we shall become proud, selfish, imperious, oppressive, and rapacious; if we shall persist in trampling on the weak and exalting the strong, worshipping the rich and despising the poor, our doom as a nation is already foreshadowed.
That Almighty Power recognized in one form or another by all thoughtful men; that Almighty Power which controls every atom of the earth, and governs the universe; that Almighty Power which stood and measured the globe, which beheld and drove asunder the nations, will surely deal with us in the future as that Power has dealt in the past with other wicked nations—it will bring us to dust and ashes. The rule of life for individuals and for nations is the same. Neither can escape the consequences of transgression. As they sow, so shall they reap. There is no salvation for either outside of a life of truth and justice. Contradiction to this in theory, for either individuals or nations, is a damning heresy; and contradiction to this in practice is certain destruction.
Large and imposing plans are just now proposed, and are maturing, for the appropriate celebration of this first centennial year of our national life. If these plans should be perfected and executed, as they probably will be, and as they certainly should be, Washington will witness a demonstration in this line far transcending in grandeur and sublimity the centennial exposition in the city of Philadelphia ten years ago.
These celebrations, like our own, have large uses. They serve as lofty pedestals or platforms from which the national patriotism and intelligence may survey the past, and, in some sense, penetrate and divine the national future.
It is also fit and proper that our young and beautiful city of Washington should be the theatre of such a grand national centennial demonstration. It is the capital of the nation, and is, in some sense, the shining sun of our national system, around which our thirty-eight States, linked and inter-linked in one unbroken national interest, revolve in union. Upon this spot no one citizen has more rights than another.The right to be here is vested in all alike. Distance does not diminish or alienate, contiguity does not increase any man’s right on this soil. In this capital of the nation California is equal to Virginia, and, as Webster said of Bunker Hill, “Wherever else we may be strangers, we are all at home here.”
As a part of the people of this great country, we may feel ourselves included. We represent the class which has enriched our soil with its blood, watered it with its tears, and defended it with its strong arms, but have hitherto been excluded from all part in our national glory. Now, however, all is changed. We may look forward with pleasure to the promised National Centennial Exposition, and take some credit to ourselves for helping to make the District of Columbia a suitable place for such a display. We have at least done a large proportion of the most laborious and needed work to this end.
The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution of the United States in granting to the nation, through its Congress, exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, has in nothing been more abundantly and happily vindicated than in the abolition of slavery, and in making it the freest territory of this country. The benefits of this act are, however, not confined to the colored people. They are shared by all the people of this District; not more by the colored than by the white people.
Washington owes nothing to Maryland or Virginia (though born of those parents) in comparison to its debt to the nation. Through the National Government it has become the elegant and beautiful city that it is. It is the nation that has graded and paved its broad and far-reaching streets and avenues; it is the nation that has fenced and beautified its numerous parks and reservations, and made them the joy of our children, and the admiration of our visitors; it is the nation that has adorned its ample public squares and circles with choice flowers, flowing fountains, and imposing statuary; it is the nation that has erected enduring monuments of bronze and marble in honor of our statesmen, warriors, patriots, and heroes; it is the nation that has built here those vast structures, the different departments, and crowned yonder hill with a Capitol, one of the proudest architectural wonders of the world; it is the nation that has built Washington Monument, the pride of the city, the tallest structure that everrose from the ground toward heaven at the bidding of human pride, patriotism, or piety, standing there in full view of all comers, whether approaching by land or water, with its base deep down in the earth, and its capstone against the sky, receiving and reflecting every light and shadow of the passing hour, steady alike in sunshine and storm, defying lightning, whirlwind, and earthquake—its grandeur and sublimity, like Niagara, impress us more and more the longer we hold it in range of vision.
But the nation, as I have already said, has done more for the District of Columbia than to clothe it with material greatness and splendor. It has, by the act of emancipation, imparted to it a moral beauty. It has not only made it a pleasure to the eye, but a joy to the heart. No material adornment or addition has ever done or could do for this District what the abolition of slavery has done. The nation did a great and good thing fifteen years ago by giving us a local government, and a Shepherd that lifted the city out of its deep mud and above its blinding dust and put it on the way to its present greatness, but it did a greater and better thing when it lifted it out of the mire of barbarism coincident with slavery.
Fellow-citizens, we are proud to-day, and justly proud, of the prosperity and the increasing liberality of Washington. With all our fellow-citizens we behold it with pride and pleasure rising and spreading noiselessly around us, almost like the temple of Solomon, without the sound of a hammer. New faces meet us at the corners of the streets and greet us in the market-places. Conveniences and improvements are multiplying on every hand. We walk in the shade of its beautiful trees by day and in the rays of its soft electric lights by night. We make it warm where it is cool, and cool where it is warm, and healthy where it is noxious. Our magnificence fills the stranger and sojourner with admiration and wonder. The contrast between the old time of slavery and the new dispensation of liberty looms upon us on every hand. We feel it in the very air we breathe, and in the friendly aspect of all around us. But time would fail to tell of the vast and wonderful advancement in civilization made in this city by the abolition of slavery.
Perhaps a better idea could be formed of what has been done for Washington and for us by imagining what would be the case in a return to the old condition of things. Imaginethe wheels of progress reversed; imagine that by some strange and mysterious freak of fortune slavery, with all its horrid concomitants, was revived; imagine that under the dome of yonder Capitol legislation was carried on, as formerly, by men with pistols in their belts and bullets in their pockets; imagine the right of speech denied, the right of petition stamped out, the press of the District muzzled, and a word in the streets against slavery the sign for a mob; imagine a lone woman like Miss Myrtilla Miner, having to defend her right to teach colored girls to read and write with a pistol in her hand, here in this very city, now dotted all over with colored schools, which rival in magnificence the white schools of any other city of the Union; imagine this, and more, and ask yourselves the question. What progress has been made in liberty and civilization within the borders of this capital? Further on let us ask: Of what avail would be our cloud-capped towers, our gorgeous palaces, and our solemn temples if slavery again held sway here? Of what avail would be our marble halls if once more they resounded with the crack of the slave whip, the clank of the fetter, and the rattle of chains; if slave auctions were held in front of the halls of justice, and chain-gangs were marched over Pennsylvania avenue to the Long Bridge for the New Orleans market? Of what avail would be our state dinners, our splendid receptions if, like Babylon of old, our people were making merchandise of God’s image, trafficking in human blood and in the souls and bodies of men? Were this District once more covered with this moral blight and mildew you would hear of no plans, as now, for celebrating within its borders the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Bold and audacious as were the advocates of slavery in the olden time they would have been ashamed to invite here the representatives of the civilized world to inspect the workings of their slave system. To have done so would have been like inviting a clean man to touch pitch, a humane man to witness an execution, a tender-hearted woman to witness a slaughter. In its boldest days slavery drew in its claws and presented a velvet paw to strangers. They knew it was like Lord Granby’s character, which could only pass without reprobation as it passed without observation. Emancipation liberated the master as well as the slave. The fact that our citizens are now loudly proclaiming Washington to be theright place for the celebration of the discovery of the continent by Columbus, and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, is an acknowledgement of and attestation of the higher civilization that has, in their judgment, come here with the abolition of slavery. They no longer dread the gaze of civilized men. They no longer fear lest a word of liberty should fall into the ear of a trembling captive and awaken his manhood. They are no longer required to defend with their lips what they must have condemned in their hearts. When the galling chain dropped from the limbs of the slave the mantle of shame dropped from the brows of their masters. The emancipation of the one was the deliverance of the other; so that this day, in fact, belongs to the one as truly as it belongs to the other, though it is left to us alone to keep it in memory.