Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1869-01-28
National Convention of Colored
men.
Adarss. to the co,ors.i CitIzens OF q


urday after adopting the following:
ADDRESS TO THE ooLoRED CITIZENS OF THE
UNITED STATES.
Fellop- Citixens: We, your representa-
tives assembled in national convention, hav-
ing attended to the business which you, in
fraternal trust, confided to us, respectfully
beg leave, at the conclusioa of our labors. to
address you briefly, yet earnestly, in refer
encc TO the condition which we now occupy
here in the land Of our nativity, and to the
iutics and responsibilities which are In con-
sequence devolved upon us, in order that we
nay attain to that equal status in the eye of
the law with our other fellow citizens which
we of right aspire to, and which we of right
ought to enjoy.
At the outset of our address we would de-
v0utly call upon you to join us In thanks to
Him In whose hands are the destinies of all
his creatures that, through the orderings Of
his providence, we speak to you under far
different circumstances from those in which
YOU have been addressed by your assembled
representatives at other periods of our bistO-
ry. Once you were called upon to labsr for
the overthrow of gigantic system of op-
preston, which held in its enslaving grasp
more than three millions of our kindred, and
for the recognition of our own claims to Cit
izens In these United States of America.
Now VIC can interchange congratulations
with you, that throughout the broad domain
If our beloved country, from the st. Johns
river upon the north to the Ri, Grande, and
from the Atlantic border to the Pacific coast,
the grand anthem Of liberty is intoned with
harmony unbrokcn by the discord which
would be caused bv the wailing of even one
unhappy slave. We can do so, too,- with
consciousness that we are not looked upon
tl,a,, 1tnI,N 20 .ars
ali,ns for the American people have spoken
through their Representatives in Congress.
and enacted that ''all persons born In the
United States, and not subject to any foreign
powers, excluding Indians not taxed, are
hereby declared TO he citizens of the United
States" Thus, fellow-ciiizens, we have rea-
son to rejoice in the fact that the past has
had its triumph for us, but our condition in
the present, together with the duties and
responsibilities which it enforces upon us,
demands our attention, and Of that condition
of those duties and responsibilities We would
now speak.
Asst our condition, we need not dwell
long upon that, for you understand fully the
necessity which prompted you to send US g..
meet together In convention. You know
that our citizenship, recognized as ii has
been by statutory provisions, has not secur-
ed for us throughout the different States of
this Union those franchises and immunities
which are the pride and boast of our white
fellow citizens. Each one Of you, in his own
individual locality, is painfully alive to the
grievasces (as various in their character as
| The localities themselves) which he is called
npnn 10 endure. But let us not be disheart-
I'd In view of those grievances. Let us re-
| member that
TIN nm ~, mi tabora f,,oot IN hn baavv 1,ad
And the woif dies in silence. Not bestowed
In vain let such examples be. Ifthey
Things of ignohle or savage mnod
Endure and shrirk not, We of nobler clay
Should temper 1t to bear. 1t Is but for day.
Let us grid ourselves up manfuly, and
contend for the removal of those grievances,
in the firm and confident trust that the same
God who has conferred blessings upon us in
the past will be equally propitious to us in
the future, and that, as He raised up for us.
then, hosts of sympathizing friends, to fol
low the leadership of Garrison, Gerrit
Smith, and an Abraham Lincoln, so He still
acc0rds tn us such friends SO largely increas-
ed in number, and bearing so many illustr-
ons names that to slngl6 OUT auy I'VE ar
three from that sparkling galaxy would seem
invidiOus. Suffice it that the mere mention
of those hOnored names serves to thrill us
now to the very core, and that they shall b.
cherished enduringly in our hearts, TO be
handed down to the greaiful remembrance
| of our latest posterity. God grant that each
one of the possessors Of those names may
long be spared to us and that the day may
he far, far distant when we shall be called
upon to lay him away, with tender hands,
| and with fearful eyes, by the side Of his la
test stricken c0mpeer ever to be-lamen-
| ted Thaddeus Stevens.
But. fellow citizens, let us not forget, in
our grateful recognition of those effectual
services for our benefit and behalf, that the
| MI loving Father allows them to us only
upon the condition TINT we labor earnestly
and untiringly In our own behalf He may.
indeed, send His Messiah as :" he way, the
truth and the life;" but every day He re-
quires Ills "to work out our own salvation
with fear and trembling" Still His promise,
that cannot lie, abides and assured beyond
a doubt is that guerdon Of success which
awaits us il we only toll faithfully unto the
end. Then let us not he found wanting H.
this crisis Of our fate, but let us firmly and
n"finchingly address ourselves to the duties
of the hour.
lu our present condition We are an uniustly
degraded people for we are stripped, more
or less, in every State in this Union of priv
ileges and franchises which are fully enjoyed
hv every class of our white fellow-citizens.
This ostracsm of us, without any crime up
on our part, urgently demands redress. And
for this redress, and In order to secure our
immunity against any future encroachmeui
on our interests, the current of all political
experience points 10 but one measure, and
that is to render the right of suffrage and
If eligibility to office as universal as citizen
ship itself. We all understand fully the i'm
portance of this right Of suffrage we know
that 1t is the dearest treasure i1 the gift of
any government, the strongest weapon in
possession of the subject, repelling the ap-
proaches of despotism and guaranteeing the
the possession of all other franchises
weapon that, in the expressive languages of
Whittier.
Execute, irennau'- will.
As lightning doeih tho will orc d.
Now, to deny s,icii right 10 one class Of
citizens while II is accorded 50 another,
without good reason for such discrimna-
iion, is manifestly unjust and anti-repubi-
can. Let u.s. then, in the premises appeal
to Congress, reminding 1t that the federal
constitution, In article four section four pro-
vides that 1.-THE United States shall guaran-
tee to every State in this Union republican
form of government Let us urge upob
that body and upon the great mass of the
American people whom 1t represents, that in
settling the definition of this epithct 'repub-
lican, we are not estopped, eithe- by an
cient or modern assumptions Of IL for the
purpose of describing manifest tyrrannies
from interpreting it in the light derived
from the declaration of independence--tha
magma chartd of our liberiies--that, set
ting aside Grecian Roman prccedents, as
well as those OF medieval Europe and Of The
fathers Of our own government. blinded, as
the latter were. by spirit ofcompromise, or
hampered by evils which they confidently
believed to be ephemeral, we should deter
mine and insist upon 1t that Republican
form of government" is one deriving its just
powers from the consent of the governed
one in which taxation is correlative of the
right to be represented therein.
Let us appeal to them to consider that
most of our State governments are mere
aristocracies, the most intolerable, because
by them the insignia of (so-called) republic
can nobility are conferred upon the many
while they are withheld from the few. And,
in making This appeal, let us insist, as we
rightfully can do, unon our citizenship and
upon the proofs of determined manhood and
loyalty manifested by colored men at differ