Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1866-09-13
THE MULATTO CONVENTION.
THIRD DAYS PROCEEDINGS.

Address to the People of the United State.
| Endorsement of Resolutions
Adopted CoIoured Suffrage, Sc, &c.
The mulatto convention assembled in
Philadelphia on Thursday morning, at the
National Hall. The meeting was called to
order by Mr.. Speed-the chairman, and
prayer was offered by the Rev. Debell, af-
ter which q number of resolutions were in
troduced and considerable business trans
acted. An address to the people was then
read by Senator Creswell, of Maryland, its
author, and its character might have been
inferred from the remark of Mr.. Bolts
in moving its adoption he said it was the
most formidable Indictment ever brought
against any man in the country, (Andrew
johnson, and that its severity consisted in
its truth.
| ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE.
The representatives of eight millions of
American citizens appeal for protection and
Justice to their friends and brothers in the
States that have been spared the cruelties
of rebellion and the direct horrors of civil
war. Here, on the spot where freedom was
born, offered and pledged by the fathers of
the republic, we impore your help against
reorganized oppression, whose sole OBJ
| Ject it is to remit the control of our desti-
| MES to the controllers of the rebellion, af-
| ter they have been vanquished in honora-
| BILE battle, and thus at once to punish us for
| our devotion to our country, and to entrench
| themselves in the official Notifications of
the government. Others have related the
thrilling story Of our wrongs from reading
and observation. We come before you as
unchallenged witnesses, and speak from
personal knowledge our sad experience. If
you fail us we are more utterly deserted and
betrayed than had the contest of arms been
decided against us, for in that case even
victorious slavery would have found profit
in the speedy pardon of those who had been
among its bravest foes.
Unexpected perjury in the highest place
of the government, accidently filled by one
who adds cruelty to ingratitude, and for
gives the guilty as he proscribes the inno-
cent, has stimulated the almost eXtinguished
revenge of the beaten conspirators, and now
the rebels, who offered to yield up every
thing to save their own lives, are seeking to
consign us to bloody graves. Where we
expected to find benefactor, we find per-
secuter. Having lost our champion, we
return to you, who can make Presidents,
and punish traitors. Our last hope, under
God, is in the unity and firmness of the
States that elected Abraham Lincoln and
defeated Jefferson Davis. The best state
ment of our case is the appalling yet un-
conscious confession of Andrew Johnson,
who, in savage hatred of his own record,
proclaims his purpose to clOthe four mil
lions of traitors with the power to impOv
erish and degrade eight million Of loyal
men. Our wrongs bear alike upon all races,
and our tyrants unchecked by you, will
award the same fate to white and black
We can remain as we are Only as interiors
and victims. We may fly from our homes,
but we should fear to trust our fate with
those who, after denOuncing and defeating
treason, refused just rights to those who
had bravely assisted them in the good work.
Till we are wholly rescued there is neither
peace for you nor prosperity Tor us. We
cannot better define at once our wrongs
and our wants than by declaring that since
Andew johnson affiliated with his early
slanderers and our constant enemies, his
hand has been laid heavily upon every
earnest loyalist in the South. History,
the Just Judgment of the present, and the
certain confirmation of the future, invite
and command us to declare That after re-
| iecting his own remedies for restoring the
Union, he has resorted to the weapons of
| traitors to bruise and beat down patriots.
| That after declaring that none but the loyal
should govern the reconstructed South, he
has practiced upon the maxim that none
but traitors shall rule. That while III the
North he has removed conscientious men
from office, and filled many of the vacan-
cies with the sympathlzers of treason IN
the South He has removed the proved
and trusted patriot, and selected the equal
ly proved and convicted traitor. That
after brave men who had fought for the old
flag have been nominated for positions,
their names have been recalled and ayOwed
I L hat Il
Unionist III the South who stands fast to
Andrew JohnsOn's covenants from 1861 to
1868 has been ostracised That he has
corrupted the local courts by offering pre-
miums for defiance of the laws OF Con-
gress, and by openly discouraging the OBJ
servance of the oath against treason. That
while refusing to punish one conspicuous
traitor though thousands had earned the
penalty of death, moro than a thousand
devoted Union citizens have been murdered
in cold blood since the surrender of Gen.
Lee, and in no case have their assassins
been brought to Judgment. That he has
pardoned some of the worst of the rebel
criminals North and South, including some
who have taken human life in circumstan-
ces of unparalleled atrocity. That while
denouncing and lettering the operations of
the Freedmens Bureau, he, with a full
the black men are lazy, rebelliOus, and has
concealed the fact that more whites than
blacks have been protected and fed by that
noble organization and that, while declar-
ing that it was corruptly managed, and eX-
pensive to the government he has connived
at a system of profigacy in the use of the
public patronage and public money wholly
without parallel, save when the traitors
bankrupted the treasury and sought to dis
organize and scatter the army and navy
only to make it more easy to capture and
destroy the government That while de-
claring against the injustice of leaving
eleven States unrepresented he has refused
to authorize the liberal plan of Congress
simply because it recognizes the loyal ma
jority, and refuse to perpetuate the traitor
minority. That in every State south Of
Mason and Dixons line his policy has
wrought the most deplorablc consequent
ces, social moral and political. 1t has
embroidered returned rebels to threaten
civil war in Maryland, Missouri, West
Virginia and Tennessee, unless the pat
riots who saved and sealed these States
to the old flag, surrender to their ar
rogant demands. It has corrupted high
State officials elevated by Union men, and
IN an Orca bo To-