The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-18
MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE COLORED
SENATOR.
From The n. Y. World.

MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE COLORED
SENATOR.
From the N Y. World.
The motive which caused the Senate
Chamber to be thronged with eager listeners
was mere curiosity to witness spectacle SO
odd and extraordinary as the participation of
q negro in the debates of the highest branch
of our national legislature Nobody sup
posed that anything said by a Senator so
raw, so inexperienced, so unframed in public
life and the proceedings of deliberative
bodies, and so out of place in his new asso-
ciations could have any influence on the de-
cision of the question debated. Nor could
anybody have expected to learn anything of
the capacity of the negro intellect from this
exhibition. Revels is not a full-blooded
negro, but an octoroon; or at least it was SO
stated by some of the Republican Sena-
tors when he was admitted to his
seat. Whatever ability he may possess is
probably inherited from his white progeni-
tors, as the talents of Fred. Douglass
are from his white Maryland father. 1t is
q striking illustration of the deep and in
eradicable repugnance of the white to the
negro race that no amount of dilution can
remove the taint of negro blood, and that, in
spite of seven parts in eight of white blood,
Revels is classed as a negro, and is con-
demned, even by his ardent radical friends,
which the two races are separated. If Revels
were married to a white woman and had SONS
with only one-sixteenth of negro blood in
their veins, there is no radical Senator who
would permit his daughter to degrade herself,
and forfeit her social caste, by uniting with
one of them in marriage. The curiosity to
hear Revels' speech was simple curiosity to
hear negro in the Senate, and it attests the
ban of social ostracism which attends the
oliObtoct into ixtr Of h1ooI
Reves himself is fully conscious that the
seven-eighths of white blood which flows in
his veins cannot redeem him into classifica-
| ton with the white race, and he accepts his
position as black sheep in the Senatorial
flock. He recognizes the impossible barrier,
and regards himself as a representative OF
the black race, and as identified with its in
terests The crowds that focked to hear
him merely because he is negro bore un.
whiting testimony to the ineffaceable distinc-
tion which separates the two races, and which
no legislation can obliterate. He is seven
eighths a white man, and yet is irreversibly
doomed to be classed as negro, and is uni
versally recognized by the negroes as a repre-
sentative of their race. This is a sigma
proof of the ostracising taint which inhere
in negro blood. No fraction Of it can pas
the insuperable line which divides the tw,
races.
| w are lnOIo WILLY 10 uuu r6uSOuS 10 COM
mend the negro Senator'S speech than to de
preciate it; for, though it cannot have tn
weight of feather on the legislation of Con
gress, its influence upon his own race is O
some importance. His position in the Senat
secures him the attention of all the negroes
in the country. All of them who can reaC
: will read his speech; and to those who canno
} it will either be read by others, or they vii
} get general idea of its contents by descrip
ton. 1t is of no small public consequenc
that those who are likely to be leaders of th
} negro mind should exert beneficial Unfit
ence. The weight of Revels in Congress
too despicable to be regarde'; but his powe
, to mould the ideas and train the sentiment
of the negroes is very considerable, and il
l this view his speech must be looked at
D something more than transient topic {
$ stupid Radical curiosity.
: In point of ability, it is beneath serior
t criticism. 1t is easy and fluent enough
language; but it is merely sentimental, NJ
argumentative, and is garnished with sta
quotations of poetry, as if the recitation
such scraps could have any effect on legisl
p ton. But such school-boy decorations al
Q we'll enough adapted to the negro mind c
n which the speech will operate, and may he
9 the influence of the speech in the only qua
> ter where it can be of any Consequence.
g the negroes think it fine, and esteem its tras
Is as eloquence, they will the more readily fl
% in with the sentiments it is meant to incU
70 cate. The only question in which the viii
;. public can be interested is, whether the
% sentiments are salutary.
v The particular side of the Georgia questic
l. which Revels espoused is not worth regardin
D. that being matter in which he had no choic
VI and was obliged to take his cue from his rae