The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-07-31
The, Rights OF Citizenship.

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Hon. JoHN A. LOGAN, in a speech de-
liyered at Salem, Illinois on the 4th of
July, in advocating the constitutional
amendment, stated that the section con-
ferring the rights of citizenship upon freed
men did not confer the right Of suffrages,
but only protection Of great natural rights,
being equivalent to declaration that "ev
I cry man is a human being" and that "you
have no right to go out and murder him =;
you have no right to take his property; you
have no right to take his work without
paying him his wages; you have no right
to abuse that man or trife with his rights
and privileges He explained, why he, a
Douglas Democrat of 1860, advocated this
provision in the following emphatic and
eloquent language:
Sir, when you ask me how | became
such a great advocate OF universal citizen
ship, can answer the question. / have
had my prejudices, just as other men in
this land, but when l mached with the
columns of loyal men on southern sell, and
saw the flag of treason defiantly faunted
in our faces; when | looked around me and
asked for friends Iappealed to the white
man in vain; he was the friend Of the trai-
tor, the sympathizer with rebellion ;ho owed
allegiance, he thought, to treason, and not
to the Government Of the United States.
But at the deep, dark hour of night, the
poor colored men, bowed down by the
chains of slavery, would crawl through the
marshes, through thickets, wade the rivers
and come into our picket lines, into our
camps, and tell you where the rebel forces
lay, and how you might attack treason and
destroy it. Cheers. That is the reason
why / cared not when [ found man that
was my fricnd-a friend to my country,
though his skin was black, I could trust
him sooner than I could the white traitor.
T"That's So
Hence I want him to have the protec-
ton of the law; [ am in favor of his having
it, and shall ever be until he gets it. l ask
you, my countrymen, [ ask you, mothers,
who are sitting around in this little group,
that have fond sons that lie far off beneath
the hot burning sands of Georgia, whose
faces you will see no more on earth, whose
graves you can never visit again, perhaps,
and the old fathers, too, and the little prat
ting babe that often asks his mother
"Mother, when will my father again return
to me % to have the laws Of this land SO
modified, that while traitors in the South
have their gatherings, day after day, to
strew garlands Of flowers upon the graves
of rebel soldiers, that they may live in their
memory as long as life shall last, if some
poor, old, deerepit negro, who has gained
his liberty bv the march and prowess Of
American arms, shall come along with a
little basket of flowers to strew upon the
grave of some poor loyal soldier, that he
shall have the right to do it, and that no
person shall have the right to interfere,
and that he is to be protected. Emotion.
These rights they ought to have. We
ought to be willing to give them to every
human being on top Of Gods earth. |
hope this is not treason-at least don't
believe it is. Laughter | believe it is
but doing justice to those people and to
ourselves. 1t is Christian act on our
part, and we should not fail to perform it.
If we do, we fail to perform duty incum-
bent upon us toward men who have saved
the Government and wrenched it from the
hands Of treason, when they were fastened
upon its throat. .s..-'.--t ..s'-r.'7.-