The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-23 00:00:00

President Johnson and the Negroes.

A delegation of coloured representatives from different
States of America now in Washington to urge the interests
of the coloured people before the Government had an inter-
view with President Johnson on the 7th inst. Among the
members of the delegation was Frederick Douglass. The
President shook hands with him first, and then with each
of the other members. The first speaker (Mr. G. T. Down-
ing), who addressed the President, said that the coloured
people were not satisfied with the amendment prohibiting
slavery, but wished it to be enforced by appropriate legis-
lation. They cherished the hope that they might be fully
enfranchised, not in one district alone, but throughout the
land : anything less than that would be less than their just
due. The rest of the proceedings are thus reported in the
New York papers :
Frederick Douglass advanced and addressed the Presi-
dent, saying—Mr. President, We are not here to enlighten
you, sir, as to your duties as the chief magistrate of this
republic, but to show our respect, and to present in brief
the claims of our race to your favourable consideration. In
the order of Divine Providence you are placed in a position
where you have the power to save or destroy us—to bless
or blast us-I-I mean our whole race. Your noble and hu-
mane
predecessor placed in our hands the sword to assist
in saving the nation, and we do hope that you, his able
successor, will favourably regard the placing in our hands
the ballot with which to save ourselves. We shall submit
no argument on that point. The fact that we are the sub-
jects of Government and subject to taxation, to volunteer
in the service of the country, subject to being drafted, sub-
ject to bear the burdens of the State, makes it not improper
that we should ask to share in the privileges of the condi-
tion. I have no speech to make on this occasion. I simply
make these observations as a limited expression of the views
and feelings of the delegation with which I have come.
The following is substantially the response of the Presi-
dent :—ln reply to some of your inquiries—not to make a
speech about this matter, for it is always best to talk plainly
and distinctly about such questions-1 will say that if I
have not given evidence in my former course that I am a
friend of humanity, and to that portion of it which con-
stitutes the coloured population, I can give no evidence
hereafter. Everything that I have had, both as regards life
and property, has been perilled in this cause; and I feel and
think that I understand, not to be egotistical, what should
be the true direction of this question, and what course of
policy would result in the amelioration and ultimate eleva-
tion, not only of the coloured, but of the great mass of the
people of the United States. I say that if I have not given
evidence that I am a friend of humanity, and especially the
friend of the coloured man, in my past conduct, there is
nothing that I can do that would. I repeat—all that I
possessed—life, liberty, and property—have been put in
connection with that question, when I had every induce-
ment held out to take the other course, by adopting which
1 I would have accomplished, perhaps, all that the most
ambitious might have desired. If I know myself and the
feelings of my own heart, they have been for the coloured
man. I have owned slaves and bought slaves, but I never
sold one. I might say, however, that practically, so far
as my connection with slaves has gone, I have been their
slave instead of they being mine. Some have oven fol-
lowed me here, while others are occupying and enjoying
my property with my consent. For the coloured race my
means, my time, my all have been perilled ; and now, at
this late day, after giving evidence that is tangible, that is
practical, 1 am free to say that I do not like to be ari aigned
by some who can get up handsomely rounded periods and
deal in rhetoric, and talk about abstract ideas of liberty,
who never perilled life, liberty, or property. This kind of
theoretical hollow friendship amounts to but very little.
While 1 say I am a friend of the coloured race, I do not
want to adopt a policy I believe will end in a contest be-
tween the races which, if persisted in, will result in the ex-
termination of one or the other. God forbid I should be
engaged in such work. Now it is always best to talk prac-
tically and in a common-sense way. I have said, and I re-
peat here, that if the coloured men in the United States
could find no other Moses, nor any Moses that would be
more able and efficient than myself, I would be their Moses
to lead them from bondage to freedom; that I would pass
them from a land where they bad lived in slavery to a land,
if it were within our reach, of freedom. I would be willing
to pass with them through the Red Sea to the land of pro-
mise, to the land of liberty. But lam not willing, under
either circumstance, to adopt a policy which I believe will
only result in the sacrifice of his life and the shedding of
his blood. I think 1 know what I say. I feel what I say,
and I feel well assured that if the policy urged by some be
persisted in it will result in great injury to the white as
well as coloured man. There is a great deal of talk about
the sword in one band accomplishing an end, and the ballot
accomplishing another at the ballot-box. These things are
all very well, and sometimes have forcible application. We
talk about justice, we talk about right, we say the white
man has been in the wrong in keeping the black man so
long in slavery. That is all true. Again, we talk about
the declaration of independentequality before the law. You
understand all that, and know haw to appreciate it. But
now let us look each other in the face. Let us go to the
great mass of coloured men in the slave States. Letus take ,
the condition in which they are in at the present time, and
it is bad enough, we all know, and suppose by some magic
touch you could say to every one," You shall vote to-mor-
row." How much would that ameliorate their condition at
this time? Let us get closer to the subject and talk about it.
What relation has the coloured man and the white man
heretofore occupied in the South? I opposed slavery
on two grounds. First, it was a great monopoly, enabling
those who controlled it to constitute an aristocracy, enab-
ling the few to derive great profits, and rule the many
with an iron rod, as it were ; and that is one great ob-
jection to it in a government, it being a monopoly. 1 was
opposed to it, secondly, upon the abstract principle. In
getting clear of a monopoly we were getting clear of
slavery at the same time. So you see there were two ends
accomplished in the accomplishment of the one.
Mr. Douglass—Mr. President, do you wish—
The President—l am not quite through yet. Slavery
has been abolished. A great national guarantee has been
given—one that cannot be revoked. I was getting at the
relation that existed between the white man and the black
man. A very small proportion of white persons, compared
with the whole number of such, owned the coloured people
of the South. I might instance the State of Tennessee. In
illustration, there were 27 non-slaveholders, and yet the
slave power controlled that State. Let us talk about this
matter as it is. Although the coloured man was in slavery
there, and owned as property, in the sense and in the lan-
guage of that locality, and of that community, yet in com-
paring his condition and his position with the non-slave-
holder, he usually estimated his importance just in propor-
tion to the number of slaves that his master owned with
the non-slaveholder. Have you never lived upon a plan-
tation ?
Mr. Douglass —I have, your excellency.
The President —When you would look ever and see a
man who had a large family, struggling hard upon a poor
piece of land, you thought a great deal less of him than you
did of your own master ?
MI. Douglass—Not I.
The President—Well, I know such was the case with a
large majority of you. In those sections where such is the
case, we know there is an enmity—we know there is a hate.
The poor white man, on the other hand, was opposed to the
slave and his master, for the coloured man and his master,
combined, kept him in slavery by depriving him of a fair
participation in the labour and production of the rich lands
of the country. Do you know that the coloured man in
going to hunt a master, as they call it, for the next year,
preferred hiring to a man who owned slaves rather than
to one who did not? I know the facts, at all events.
Mr. Douglass—Because they treated him better.
The President—They did not consider it quite as re-
spectable to hire to a mad who did not own negroes as to
hire to one who did.