Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1867-09-25
Wendell Phillips's Grafton
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.

Wendell Phillips's Grafton
T0USSAINT L'OUEERTURE.
| LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: IL have been
requested to offer you q sketch made
some years since, of one of the most
remarkable men of the last generation,
Toussaint ROuverture, the great chief
tain of st. Domingo-an unmixed ne
gro, with no drop of white blood in his
veins. Ny sketch Is, therefore, as you
may readily perceive, at once biogra-
ply and an srgument-a biography, of
course, very brief, and which 1 offer to
you as an argument in behalf of the
race from which he sprang. You per-
ceiye from the very announcement of
my subject that am about to compare
and weigh races indeed, am engag-
ed tonight in what you will think the
absurd effort to convince you that the
negro race, instead OF being that OBJ
ject of pity or contempt which we usu-
ally consider it, is entitled, juiged by
the facts Of history, to place close by
the side of the Saxon. Now races love
to be judged in two Ways-by the great
men they produce and by the average
merit Of the mass of the race. We
Saxons are proud of the Bacon, the
Shakespeare, the Hsmpden, the Han
cock, the Washington, the stars we
have lent to the galaxy of history; and
then we turn with equal pride to the
average merit of Saxon blood, since il
streamed forth from its German home.
So, again, there are three tests by which
races love to be tried. The first, the
basis of all, is courage-the element
which says, 'SThis continent is mine, |
from The Lakes to the Gulf; let him
beware that seeks to divide it.v (Cheersl
And the second is the recognition of
the force doubled by purpose liberty
regulated by law is the secret of Sax
on progress. And the third element |
is persistency, endurance; first a pur-
pose, then death or success. Now, out |
of these three elements is made that |
Saxon pluck which has placed our
race in the van of modern civilization. |
In the hour you lend me tonight I |
am to attempt the Quixotic effort to
convince you that the negro blood, in
stead Of standing at the bottom of the |
catalogue, judged either by its great
men or its masses, either by its courage
its purpose, or its endurance, takes its
place IS near to ours as any other blood
known to history. And for the pur-
pose of my argument take an island,
st. Domingo, about the size of South
Carolina, the third spot in America
upon which Columbus placed his foot.
Charmed by the magnifcence of its
scenery and fertility of its soil, he gave
it the fondest of all names, Hisponiola,
Little Spain. His successor, more pious,
rebsptised it from st. Dominic, st.
Domingo, and when the blacks, in 1901,
drove our white blood from its surface, Il
they drove our names with US, and gave
it the old name, Hsyti, the land of
mountains. It was originally tensnted
by the fllibusters, French and Span
ish, of the lrly commercial epoch,
the pirates OF that day as of ours. The
Spanish took the Eastern two-thirds,
the French the Western third of the |,
Island, and they gradually settled into
colonies. The French, to whom my
story belongs, became the pet colony /
of the mother land. Guarded by pecu-
liar privileges, enriched by the scions
Of its wealthy houses, aided by the un
matched fertility of its soil, It soon was
the richest gem in the Bourbon crown,
and at the perion to which call your
about the era of our Consti-
tuition, 1889, its wealth was almost in
credible. The efemmacy of the white 4
race riyaled that of the Sybsrite of an
tiquity, while the splendor of their pri-
vate life out shone Versailles, and their
lavish luxury found no mate but in the
mad prodigslity of the Cazsrs. At
this time tine Island held about 45, 900
whites, 10000 or 10000 mulattoes and !
SOC, 900 slaves. The mulattoes, as with d
Us, were children of the slAyeholders,
but unlike Us, the French stakeholder |
never forgot his child by bondWoman. Ii
He gave him everything but his name {
wealth, rich plantations, gangs of !
slaves; sent him TO Paris for his edu-
cation, summoned the best culture of /
France for the instruction OF his dsugh- :
ters, so that in 1870 the mulatto held
one-third of the real estate, and one I
quarter of the personal estate of this I
slsnd. But though educated and rich,
be bowed under the same yoke as with 1
is. His son might not sit on the same {
seat &C school with a white boy; he I
might not enter church where I
Shite man was worshiping he must, if
ne sntered town on horseback, dis 1
mount and lead his horse by the bri- 3
lie, and when he died, even his dust &
could not rest in the same soil with /
white body. /
1t was over this ground the white
nan melted in sensuslity, the mulatto | s
ceiling all the more keenly his deera- l
lstion from the very wealth and cul- s
,ure that he enjoyed, the slave sullen '
md indifferent, needing not the GUAR. {
els or the changes of the upper Air O
lit was over this population that there :
ourst in 1890 the thunder storm of the 4
French Revolution. The first words Z
hat reached the island were the mot
o of Jscobin Club-Liberty, Equality. 8
The white man heard them agast. He e
had read of the streets of Paris run. L
ling blood. The slave heard them Il
With indifference; it was quarrel be- b
Wixt upper sections which did not b
'oncern him. The mulatto heard i.
hem with welcome which no drerd h
# other sections could quell. Hastily Il
into Conventions. thew sent +
o Paris joint Committee of the whole S
'ody, laid at the feet of the National 1
the gift Of 100000 of ii
rancs, mortgaged their estates to one. L