American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-11-01

ed people sit with humilityat. the feet OF
any child. or man or weulan, who will
teach them. II the whites who have
been reared in Ignorance, and taught
that all labor is disgraceful and edueation
unnecessary, will not learn, let them be
excluded with black men who may choose
to remain in Ignorance. fdn AZ
IF the colored citizens do not learn when
the opportunity shall be afforded, leg
them be excluded, but let the law bejust
and it's restrictions apply equally to Az
Men who are Ignorant can learn /; men
who are peor, if we secure their right
to acquire land by. purchase and under
The homestead law in the South, eau and
will acquire wealth Whatever, there
fore, BE the rule, let til repeat apply to
all {Applause.)a j would, were the
matter submitted TO me give the poor and
ignorant the right to vote !; the strong
the wise, the wealthy man, can take care
of himself 1t is the poor and the ig
norant who need the suffrage to protect
Agrin, throw the mass Of the poor and
ignorant people in the voting population,
and the wise, the wealthy, the powerful,
will see that they must establish a sys
tenn of public education; for if they al.
low ignorance and vice, TO prevail around
them, ignorance and vice may legislate
away their rights and property. Thus
it is that the North takes its poor child
rem from the cutters and the purlies of
The city and educates them aud those
who enter our schools in poverty and
weakness often leave with minds enlight-
ened and enlarged, and finally go to the
grave men of wealth, their flames and
honorable achievements recorded in his.
tory. Iwouid say, give the suffrage all
over the country to the poor and the ig-
norant, and so coustrain the wealthy and
powerful to look to the welfare Of the
poor and the ignorant.
And still again would as a purely
selfish measure, take the poor blacks into
our political family Let me illustrate
my meaning You are sick, bleeding,
torn, thieves and robbers have been up
on you, as they have been upon our coun-
try for four years. You have two persons
to choose between On the ono hand
you have friend-black. poor ignorant,
but who knows there is God and who
fears his punishmcnts-wh instinctivelg
clung to you through all the time when
the robbers were stripping and assaillng
you,--who, in spite of his poverty and
ignorance, has been willing to lay down
his life to save yours. On the other
hand You may seek the aid of man
stronger than you arc, of great intelli-
gence and learning, acute, powerful, un-
scrupulous, fearing neither God, man
nor the devil You must put your life
in the hands of one or the other. Which
will YOU choose would take the poor
and ignorant friend, and would try, with
his aid, to keep the powerful enemy of ;
and that is what you must do in the
South. Applause. You must either
take the poor, ignorant masses, who, du-
ring the war, have been your friends, have
fed you in hospitals, have released you
frcm prisons, have piloted you by night
through marshes and woods, and have
been ready to lay down their lives for
you, Enthusiastic cheers, or you must
take the brothers and friends and associ-
ates Of } ohm g. Breckenridge and effer-
son Davis as your rulers for such, by
the aid of Northern sympathizers, they
will be. For myself, as God is my judge,
will never consciously cast vote in
the American Congress that shall favor
the admission of a representative from a
reconstructed State under an oligarchic
or aristocratic Constitution. [Great and
long continued applause.
/ have said, my friends, that | am
pleading our own cause | will not in
suit these kind people of African descent
who are here tonight by pretending that
/ an pleading for them alone. do not
wish them to think, as one did when ]
spoke here last, that mean to throw con.
tempt upon them in the plea which
make; but, as have said, | regard five
as more than one, and wish them to
understand that | plead for ourselves fol
the Almighty has so inextricably inter.
woven the duty of justice to them with
our own welfare that in pleading with
you to extend justice to them, | plead
with you to promote your own peace, pros.
perity and happiness, nay, to guaran-
lee your own freedom here in Philadel
phia. sa1' ta9.a'
1a why you may say, ' the slavery
question is settled, and our fathers ban
ished it from this State" | know thai
slavery. in name, is ended, but you may
change the name without changing the
thing. If'you leave four millions Of la
boring people at the South without the
right to tostifyih open court, without the
right to make contract as any othel
person may, without the right to free ed
ucation, such as is enjoyed by the child
rem of Northern laboring people, you, in
fact, leave slavery there. You surren
Ger those four millions Of laboring peo
pie and their posterity to be preyed ppor
by aristocratic capitalists, and used as in
struments for degrading whatever other
millions of laboring men and women may
90 to dwell among them.
The negro question, il left in this con
dition, will be in the future what the sla
very question has been in the past. But
under the new state of circumstances