The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1864-04-06
REMARKS OF
Yolr, S. S. Go1,
OF OHIO,
OF OHIO,
In House Of Representatives, March 1864.
"BRoTHERHOOD OF MAN"

w IoUSe " IeepTcScHSuttOcS, INuTCH Aoof
aBRoTHERHooD OF MAN"
Mr., BLISS obtained the floor.
| Mr.. cox. Will the gentleman yielc
to me?
Mr.. BLISS. I will.
Mr.. COX. I did not intend to ask
this favor of my colleague. I thought
lit was understood that when I made OBJ
lection to the gentleman Mr.. Dumont-
proceeding, l would have as much time
Extended to me as was extended to him.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair did not
understand that any objection was made
| Mr., BOUTWELL,. I move that the
gentleman from Ohio be permitted to
proceed. sr
Mr.. COX. I thank the gentleman from
Massachusetts, for his motion, for he is
always courteous. I do not intend to take
up much time now. I dislike to enter the
lists on this afternoon, which is set apart
for general debating society, when no
business is done. when no action is to be
taken on bills, with but few people in the
galleries and scarcely any members on the
floor, and when gentlemen gravely read
their compositions like schoolboys and
send them out through the country as
grand speeches 1t is such farce that
disdain to enter into it. 1t was only
when incidentally | came here to-day on
other business and happened to hear the
same old farrago that | have heard SO
often about something wrote thirteen
years ago, (but just as true now as then
that l was induced to ask the floor for a
few minutes. The gentleman from In
diana Mr., Dumont is frank enough to
say that the quotation from my book,
which has been rung in my district for
the last seven years, does not favor the
political and social equality of the negro.
Nobody but an idiot or a fool would ever
have drawn from the extract any conclu-
sion looking to negro equality, socially or
legally. Nobody but man utterly in
sensible to decent criticism would ever
have drawn such conclusion. But why
then, does he parade it? IF it proves
nothing of that kind, it is meaning less as
an answer to my remarks against negro
equality and miscegenation. There was
no sense or propriety in the dozen speeches
made here predicated upon the extract.
All there was in the quotation was this:
the observation of young traveller of a
phenomenon which appeared in the Cistine
Chapel, IN Rome, aud which struck him
as a remarkable exception to the general
rule as to colored men. He saw there
an Abyssinian of the same color, with the
negro, but different order of being from
the Congo African we have here, for the
Abyssinianis is altogether different in mind,
body, and character from our African.
He comes from different stock or type
men. The traveller saw there a colored
man. speaking before the dignitaries of
the great Catholic church. and he natu-
rally expressed his astonishment at such
a wonderful phenomenon, such STRANGE
admixtures of society,"" just as / would
express my astonishment at hearing any
thing decent from the gentleman from
Iowa, Mr. Grinnell M
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman
from Ohio is not in order. . ..,.-,,
Mr.. COX Why did not the Chair
call the gentleman from Indiana to order
when he charged indecency upon me?
Why was not the gentleman from Iowa
Mr.. Grinnell] called to order when, on
q former day, in my absence, he used my
own name in connection with pro-slavery
church movements, for which he had no
warrant in fact or in parliamentary de-
corum?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman
from Ohio will observe the rules.
Mr.. cox. I will, am sorry to have
been led into any impropriety Of debate.
The g brotherhood referred to in the
book from which the quotation has been
made was the equality which prevailed in
the Roman Catholic church, and which
regarded every man as equal before God
and the priesthood, not any political or
social, much less any amalganatiDg equal
tity. | found The solution of the strange
phenomenon in the page of Macaulay
i He informs US that in the Catholic church
and in the middle ages, even the here
ditary villein or slave might become the
spiritual master of the hereditary master
| Nor is this peculiar to that era. Go tc
Mobile, where slavery still exists, and
you will find this same equality before
God, while political and social inequality
of the black and white still remains
You will fiud the black man and his mas
ter kneelng before the same alter in the
Catholic church, while, if you should &C
to New YORK and visit any of the canting
4 lhypocriticul, pharisaical churches lik,
.fCheever's. you will find that a negro il
,tnot allowed to occupy the same pew with
a white man. 1 have always had kline
feelings for the negro in his proper plac,
and condition. l never doubted that tn,
negro had a soul or that he was amenable
as well as the white man, to the common
God and Father. That was the poin
which the Catholic Church might proper
|ly recognize. 1t was the solution CAV,
of the scene in lCistine chapel. That i
what I said in the extract that has beei
paraded here again and again, and whicl
afforded so much merriment to those VIII,
4 knew no better. ntH4 a5,yf 5gsH
lp When referred to our Chaplain re
tferred not so much to his prayer about
common brotherhood as tocertain prayer