Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1866-07-18
WEDNESDAY, JULY l8, 1866.

lhOI any iiOiNlO"ii9 , !
anu every way, than does Joe John,
son, the man that fought against him !
IN the armies oftreason. [Applause.l
That is what | want to see. want |
to see treason made odious and loyalty |
made respectable.
There is no Government
on this earth but ought to make every
man a citizen. do not mean by that
they ought to give him the right to
enjoy the privilege of voting, or hold
ing office, but he ought to be citizen,
so that he might be protected by the
laws and by the flag, wherever he may
be. A woman is citizen, child is
citizen, red man is citizen, or ought
to be, if he lives in your land, and is q
civilized person, and so ougt black
man. 1t gives them no rights except
the rights merely of a citizen. Zap
plause.l What rights does it give them?
1t gives them the rights l have men
tioned-none other. [ want to know
what magnanimity there is in a great
government like this that will allow
one Of our women, one of our children,
or red man, or a black man, to be
captured on the high seas and made
a prisoner, and then when the Gov
ernment is asked by the captive's
friends to demand him, say he is not
citizen of the United States, he cannot
claim our protection Now the man
must pay taxes, he must bear the bur-
dens Of Government, but he has no
claims to the protection Of the flag
You say, No, sir, he is not an Amer.
lean citizen" Sir, | want every man to
be citizen-man, woman and child,
irrespective of color. "Oh," but say
some friends in this country, "if you
do that you make voters Of the color
ed people" 1t does no such thing IF
the people of Illinois want the people
| of color to vote, they have the right to
make voters of them. If they don't
want to do it, they have the right TO
prohibit That right remains the same
with each State as it ever did. This
proposed provision of the Constitution
says to you and |, sir, that every man
is human being; that every man is
a citizen of the United States. You
have no right to go out and murder
| him; you have no right to take his
property; you have 10 right to take
his work without paying him his wa
| ges; you have no right TO abuse that
man or trifle with his rights and priv
ilcges. He is man even as you are,
and has the same protection from the
laws that you have. Any Christian
people on top of God earth that would
not give this protection of the law to
every human being, that had life
breathed into him by Our Father, COM
mits a great sin and sinks into ob!iv-
ion.
Sir, when you ask me how | became
such a great advocate of universal cit
| izenship, can answer the question. [
have had my prejudiceS just as other
men in this land, but when | marched
with the columns of loyal men on
Southern soil, and saw the flag of trea-
son defantly Haunted in our faces :;
when | looked around me and asked
for friends, Appealed to the white
man in vain; he was the friend of the
traitor, the sympathizer with rebel
lion but he owed allegiance, he tho't,
to treason, and not to the Government
Of the United States. But at the deep,
dark hour of night, the poor colored
man, bowed down by the chains of
slavery, would crawl thro' the marsh
es, and thro' the thickets, wade the
rivers, and come into your picket lines,
into your camps, and tell you where
the rebel forces lay, and how you
might attack treason and destroy it.
GCheers.1 That is the reason why |
cared not when [ found a man that
was my friend-a friend to my coun-
try-though his skin was black, l could
trust him sooner than | could the white
traitor ["That's so.']
Hence / want him TO have the pro-
lection Of the law; am in favor of his
having it. [ ask you, my countrymen,
| ask you, mothers, who are sitting
around in this little group, that have
fond sons that lie away far off beneath
the hot burning sands of Georgia,
whose faces you will see no more on
earth, whose graves you can never Wis.
it again, perhaps, and the old fathers,
too, and the little prattling babe, that
often asks his mother, "Mother, when
will my father again return to me p
to have the laws of this land so modi-
fed, 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, decrepid
negro, who has gained his liberty by
the march and prowess of American
arms, shall come along with basket
: of flowers, to strew upon the grave OF
some poor loyal soldier, that he shall
have the right to do it, and that nc