Clarksville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1865-1867, 1867-05-17

ADDREss TO THE FREEDMEs.-In com1
ri apce with the request of our colored peo1
Pile deneralf I'm 4 Quarles madstheuP al
advisory talk on iAf Saturday. The densely
pseke hail oi the Gymnssism lnstitate---
Sled b solored men both from the country
Aud -town-attestea the confidence Of lie
freedmen in their distinguished counsellor.
Such-trus on the part of the negro race IL a
very high compliment to any man that has
been STAKEHOLDER and worn The gray be-
sides. Unlettered as the colored man has
been and still is, he possesses strongly in
stinstive recognition Of the true gentleman.
This intuition had become an assured con-
viction, as ID Che character Of Gen. Quarles,
with the colored people Of our county, by o
personal. acquaintance of twenty-five. years
or more. Hence their immense attendance
and unqualified satisfaction with bis remarks
Ger. Qdarles addressed them from stand
point wholly unpolitical. He could not well
do otherwise, since he ia declared from either
voting or running for Office. From this neu-
trail ground, he urged upon the freedmen the
consideration of subjects more important to
them than party issues. He did not ask
them to vote for either Conservative or Rad
ical, bat appealed to their sense Of duty and
fairness to vote only when they had become
sufficiently enlightened upon party issues to
cast their ballot upon their own unbiased
convictions. He briefly reviewed the histo-
ry Of slavery and showed that we were in
debted mainly 10 Old and New England for
the Institution. He told the colored people
how the North had abolished IL because it
was unpro6tabIe' In ;acir cold and sterile
cline, and when they discovered this, then
they emancipated their slaves by law, to
take effect in ninety days after its passage,
He showed how, in the interim of ninety
days the cody lPuritans shipped all the
slaves 70 the South, sold them and put the
money in their pockets and SO when the day
of their freedom came around all were in the
cotton fields of the South. All this THE
proved to them by an authority not
to be gainsayed-that Of W. q. Brownlow
himself. He then convinced them from of.
fetal records, that their emancipation In the
South was due to neither the Northern or
Southern man--that it was not designed by
the North any more, than the South in the
and therefore the colored man had
only to thank Cad alone for his freedom
As to his present political rights in Tennes-
see, Gen. Quarles established to the cow ic-
ton of his bearers, that these were due only
10 the apprehensions of those who gave them
for the Offices they held, and granted by them
as only the last resort Of desperation. He
forced conviction upon this point by stating
that clause Of the law, enfranchising them
which prevents the colored man from holding
office. Gen. Quarles then urged upon the
freedmen TO view the claims of all parties
from this point of obligation to neither. But
we have not space to give all his admirable
speech and whilst We have mentioned
mainly its political points, all will remember
that he dwet far less upon these than upon
he question of how best to make the black
nan worthy Of his new privileges of free
nan, through moral and mental cultivation.
The best evidence we can give of its true
value and power is the fact that the two col
,red speakers, who had been sent here by
he Radicals, to make reply to what they
thought would be flaming appeal
for Mr.. Etheridge, could find nothing in
Gen. Qusrles' address to point text for the in
purposes.