Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-06-13
Republican Meetings I'm nyirginis--speech
by q Colored Ohtosn.

The Republicans have fairly opened
the political campaign i'm Virginia. On
Friday Gen. Farnsworth, and J. NJ.
Langston, colored, of Oberlin, addressed
a large audience, white and colored, at
Leesburg, one Of the strongholds Of Sc
cession. Perfect good order Prevailed
On Saturday the same speakers address
ed meeting at Hamilton where an i'm
mense and orderly crowd were assembled.
The following is the substance Of Mr..
LaDgston's speech at Leesburg, as given
in a special TO the n. Y. Herald:
My friends, what does it mean that I
am permitted to stand here to-day, where
so many great Southern orators once
stood, and to whose voices you gaveyour
attention | was born slave, and when
a boy, left this State of Virginia, with
the fearful shadow of slavery haunting
me day and night-slavery- thing that
takes possession of every faculty of man
and Incorporates in the property of an
other his functions of soul and body
To this old State, where my father and
mother sleep their last sleep, am per-
mitted to come again to find no more
toiling gangs, sweltering in the cotton
fields, under the brutal lash of an over
seer, but to find the blackest man among
you a citizen of the United States, sup
ported and protected by the strong shield
of American law and liberty. He con-
graduated them that slavery was gone
slavery, the fell enemy of both white and
black men. Before the rebel fire was
ieveled at Fort Sumter, no white man
among them could with truth say he en-
joyed the full possession of civil, religious
and political liberty; for slavery fettered
the minds of all. In the name of his
white father and his black mother he
hailed with Joy this great boon of free
dom. In truth and soberness he declared
the emancipation of the black man was
equally the emancipation of the white.
When Samuel HOar went to plead in the
Supreme Court of South Carolina a case
involving the rights and liberties of GER
tain Massachusetts, citizens of African
descent he was maltreated and driven
from the State by mob of gentlemen of
property, whose action was dignified and
made honorable by legislative enact
ments in that State. His American citi-
zenslip was no shield against outrage.
as in the instance of the old Romans
Where was American liberty then for
We, o men, where? Hon. Charles Sum-
ner, with the Stars and Stripes waving
over his head, lay bleeding on the floor
of the Senate, felled by the hand of a
brutal stakeholder for denouncing the
accursed institution. Where, then, was
American liberty gone? Glimmering
through the dream of things that were,
schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an
hour. At last came the conflict of battle
not for the sake of the slave, as you
addressing the colored mem would still
be under the lash of your master. A
time, however. arrived when the un-
bridled license of slavery, put its hand
on the liberties of black men, and shook
the gauntlet of defiance in the face of
the nation. All is now changed and
if the white man stands up to the full
measure of American liberty the black
man shall stand beside him. But
where shall those men stand who rebel
led against the Government When a
child throws off the parental authority
he deserves to be punished; but if that
child repents father would exclaim:
81 forgive you. Bring hither the fatted
calf and let us rejoice" Let the South
ern men but write the sentence of re-
pentance and the peans of JOY which
will swell throughout the North will
melt into the harmony of love. If still
the Government will say,
"Stay whereyou are, and the loyal blacks
shall legislate for you" Standing before
cOlOred men and women, he would say:
"You have friends in the North as well
as in the South. Value them. BY edu-
eating yourselves you will learn to do so.
Gain the cultivation of everything that
pertains to well ordered life, and when
you make contract consider it as bind
ing and sacred" Speaking of the dis
in the North of the black
men, he said i'm the State of Ohio, where
he lived, by beautiful hocus pocus ar
they had twisted him out of
q black man into white man, and he
voted accordingly. When convenient
they reversed the process and put him in
the category of disfranchised niggers.-
He advised the colored men to go to work
and labor to acquire money. In fact, his
lesson, to them, laconieally stated, was
i'm the old and quaint express
sion, "Root pig or die" After giving
very fine advice to the colored men to
avoid whisky and tobacco educate them
selves for theif altered but ignored con-
dition, he returned thanks to the white
men for the kind and respectful hearing
they had given him.
At the termination of his speech a
crowd of whites and blacks gathered
around the speaker and shook his hand |
warmly.