The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1869-10-28

plantations, and at the DauOt po1sSs on nc
I DAYS Of alBekions 4 80 rs rise mp ~ 11e
strength Of men fighting for freedom, and
i bv united exertion send back 60 tho Ice
4 bound regfOns whence they came. the ignO-
Bile adventures who came here to enslave
US. Ifyou can individually accomplish but
little. pray you do that little. Remember
that the great ocean upon which proud
navies ride. Is but an aggregation of drops
/ of water. Even so, united individual efforts
constitutes the great volume of success in
| political contests.
TO THE CoLoRED MEN.
Fellow-citizens of the colored race, am
/ very glad To see SO many of you here. saw
that you listened TO all that said to the
white gentlemen before me; and, as l am
now about to speak to you, / beg that you
will all stay and hear ME. / shall use very
plain language, that every one of you may
| know exactly what mean; and God knows
| shall tell you nothing but the truth.
would not deceive you, il l could. l think
| shall say something that will be useful to
your race. Whether you agree with me or
| not, hear my talk, and judge fairly of what
/ / saw. MY friends, when God made this
worlds his footstool. it pleased him to make
his children quite unlike. Some he made
! with white skins, and gave them strong
minds. Some he brought into the world
with black skins. Others he made red and
/ he gave the different nations languages OF
\ their own. But, after all, we learn from the
| good book, that all of US are Gods children
descendants of Adam and Eve, and that we
1 are all going through life to the same spirit
/ land. Hence, we are brethren, and we
ought to be friends. ready to dwell together
| in peace, and help each other along. That's
the way 1 look at it, and that's the way all
/ good white men feel.
| ORIGIN OF SLAVERY.
expect every one of you knows how you
and your fathers became slaves; but | Will
! tell you about that, before | speak about the
! great election that win come next MONTH
| Now, the people of Mississippi did not
create slavery-had nothing to do with that.
! The white men of to day, and their fathers,
found slavery established; and how was it
| established? Why, great time ago, when
| this country was first found. and the white
| people came here and settled, the Northern
| men, Yankees, as we call them, ana who
| pretend to be your best friends, brought
| slavery amongst themselves. In your coun-
| try there are great many small kings or
chiefs who are always making war with
| each other. When they take prisoners the
| king that takes the prisoners calls them
'his men," and he sells them into
| slavery. These Yankees who had
many ships, sent their vessels to
your country and brought over thousands
| Of your fathers, and made slaves of them
| Every one of the Yankee States where the
| people came from who are now here, trying
| to make you believe that they are yo1r best
friends, Except the little State of Vermont)
were slave States, and history says that they
were terrible bad masters. After getting
as many slaves as they wanted in Yankee
land, they sent the ships over to Africa
again and again, and bought thousands of
your people, and crammed them down in
the hold of the vessel, loaded with chains,
and so crowded together, that many of them
died on the way over the ocean; and ran
| the vessels into Georgia and Virginia and
South Carolina and North Carolina, and
sold all that came over alive To the planters,
and put the price of human beings in their
pockets and the kindred of those Yankees
are now rich on the price they got for your
people. When we bought Mississippi and
settled here, your fathers came out as slaves.
That is the way slavery came here. Now,
in the Yankee States they found that slave
labor would not pay, because they did not
raise cotton and rice, and because they dealt
in motions and granite rock and lumber,
| and then they took all their slaves SOUTH
| sold them for cash and destroyed slavery IN
their country. They did not find out that
! slavery was wrong until they saw that it
did not pay them. If they had been in fact
against slavery and good friends to the
black race, don't you think they would have
set your fathers Free instead of selling them
as slaves? If they had done that goa who
listen to me this day would have been born
free. So YOU see that we of Mississippi
never made slavery. 1 happened to be born
free, with white skin. You were born
black, and came into life as slaves. That
is something that neither you nor l could
control.
NO CAUSE FOR ENSIITY BETWEEN Us.
Colored men! There is no cause for bad
feeling between your race and mine. IT it
had not been for these carpet baggers, who
came here after the war, to rob the PEG pie
of both colors, there never would have been
any hard feeling between us. You cannot
blame us for your slavery. Most of you
were well treated as slaves. We could not
set you free, because the law said we shouG
not; and If you had been set free, we had
no country abroad to give you for home.
| and you would then have been worse off
! than you were as slaves. As matters now
are, you may become prosperous and happy
| if you will. Certainly we have no cause to
hate you. We do not hate you. We all re-
member how you and your fathers served US
as slaves, and how faithful you were. re-
| member and so does the Dent party, that
when we voted on the Constitution last year
| we asked you TO bel us to vote 1t down. so
| that white men might have the right OF Vo~
ting, even as You had the right Thousands
| of you stood by us, and to your race belongs
| the credit of MASKING that vile Constitution !;
| for the white men could not have done that
without your aid. We thanked you then,
and we thank you now; and the Dent
| party as you call il, are now ready to fulfil
the promise we made last election, that if
you would stand by us that time. we would
! vote next time with you for a Constitution
| that would make US all, black and white,
equal before the law. None of the white
people have forgotten, that, while the war
| was going on, and nearly all the white men
and lads were in the army, you were left on
the plantations, and every thing put in your
care. You might have risen up and cut the
| Threats of the women and children, and
burnt all the houses. Bad men wanted you
to do these things and advised it; but no
throats were cut, no houses burned. 1ou
trod the burrows of the field in the hot sun,
with streaming faces, and made cotton and
corn, to feed the ''Reb army" and to feed
| ''old mistress and the children; and when
ever the master" came home, he found ev-
erything gong on right l have never
heard of so much good faith and honesty
elsewhere; and there is nothing like it in
| history. Colored men! in behalf of my
party, / thank you this day for your con-
your race? None In the world. You accep-
| ted your freedom when it came. What man
I would not take such rich Jewel when it
was thrown at his feet? We don't blame
you for that.
WHO GAVE FREEDOM TO THE SLAVES.
Iexpect that some of you think that the
carpet-baggers set you free. They say they
did, but there is no truth in it, In the first
place, you ought to thank God for your lib
erty. Every good gift comes from him -
He works his great designs through men
but after all this is Gods doinRs. Not long
ago, eolored speaker from Memphis named
Harris, a lawyer, but as black as any of you,
and man of eloquenee, respected by the
whites, made speech in Jackson, where |
live. and he said that the secession party
gave you freedom. He proved it thus: "If
there had been no secession, there would
have been no war; if there had been no war
there would have been freedom" 1t is a fact
that the war was not commenced for the pur-
pose of freeing men of color; for after the
war had gone on for a long time, President
Lincoln was willing to close the war; on
certain terms which he put down in writing
and which terms proposed to leave you in
slavery. But the scalawags are always tell