The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-08

$4,000 slaves and $50, 900 freemen. In Cuba
there are 100000 freemen and 800, 900 slaves.
The negro race will be thankful for freedom
and, far from raising the banner of insurrec-
ton, it will cover you with benedictions.
And what l say of the population 1 repeat as
to labor. 1t is not possible that labor should
fall into disrepute where there are so many
free laborers. In Cuba 800, 900 negroes are
forced to labor by the side of 800, 900 volun-
tary laborers. Were this not SO, the public
wealth would disprove it. sta
tistician of Puerto Principe demon
strates that slavery has been in the
descending and wealth has been in the
ascending scale. For the year 1860 her 'mer-
camille transactions reached the amount of
! S13,O0O,0 600, whereas years before they we're
not larger than 81, 100000 per annum. The
lesser fruits, which require but little labor or
land, make up nine-tenths of the riches of
the whole island. In reactng times, commits
sioners from Cuba and Porto Rico come here.
The commissioners of Cuba asked for aboi-
ton in twelve years, but those from Porto
Rico asked that it should be granted at once,
with or without indemnity. These men de-
served to be placed upon an equality with
those who, in 1863, renamed their privileges
and proclaimed the rights of all. Go with me
over contemporaryshi history, and you will find
nowhere gradual abolition, 1t was in the
second year of the French Republic. A
negro, slave, thad come up from the
bottom of his slave den to the Convention
to perception of the height of the human
conscience. He asked liberty for his race,
and the Assembly vacillated, as all those DO
litical organizations which pass the dividing
lines of great social hemispheres. But many
great orators spoke, and among them Danton,
who was the thought and energy of the revo-
luton. The Assembly, moved at last by
great thoughts, voted unanimously the aboli-
ton of servitude. A cry of Joy arose from all
parts, as if the human race would palptate
with pleasure at freeing the conscience from
such gloomy weight of anxious thought.
The negroes who were at Paris entered the
building, scattered along the benches, and
with tears in their eyes, embraced their re-
deemers. These tears shed by the liberated
serfs were sufficient to efface from the human
memory all the blood split by the convention
IN It's delirium, and in the sottishness of its
ideas.
To estimate properly gradual reforms, no
race has greater aptitude than the Saxon.
In England seldom does one man initiate and
achieve reform. Some begin the work,
others propagate the idea, and others put it
in practice. Electoral reform, Catholic
Emancipation, the corn laws-all this was
effected gradually in England but not so the
abolition of slavery. The effort was made,
but it required thirty years of Titanic labor
to abolish the slave trade. In 1882 the pro-
ject for immediate abolition was presented to
and adopted by the two houses. England
had spent $4OO, 900, 600 to redeem her negroes.
Never will the human conscience sufficiently
thank her, nor will history applaud her as
much as it ought.
But there is another example which shows
how impossible is gradual abolition. This
example serves as veritable humanitarian
and religious ep0pee America had been born
in order that it should be the Paradise of
man free, of man regenerate; yet it was there
that slavery budded. The evil was so great
that it touched the United States of North
America, and so intense was it that it pro-
famed even the bosom of the republic. Not
all of it, however, fell into the accursed
den. Jefferson traced the line
where the black line of slavery should
be broken. But the slave party had SO
grown that they were on the eve of passing
that line. Then a navigator of the Mississippi
and the Ohio, a Senator from the Great
West, went up to the Capitol at Washington,
and when the slave-owners gave utterance
to their loudest defiance, he broke the chains
of 100000 of men, and that nothing might
be wanting to his glory, not even martrydom
itself, he died, as did Socrates, as Christ, as
all Redeemers at the foot of his work. over
which forever humanity will shed it's tears
and God His blessings. (Applause.)
know that many in this chamber believe
that such grand things are exclusively the
property of the Saxon race; but our own,
likewise has performed them. Look at the
examples of the American republics. Bolivia
abolished slavery in 1926; Peru, Guatemala,
Montevideo in 1928; Mexico in 1929; New
Granada in 1910; Venezuela in 1853. The
President of that republic, Monagas, began
by supporting gradual abolition, but ended
by declaring immediate abolition. The new
French republic triumphed on the 24th of
February, 1913. On the 7th of March it
called together the commission charged with
the abolition of slavery The greater part of
French mercantile cities protested; the
owners of the slaves protested; but the reform
was brought about with an energy and gran
| deur of spiritwhich are so much to be,the more
admired as the poverty of our spirit is made
palmer During all the reign of Louis
Philippe the owners were opposed to reform.
They did not desire it under operation of law,
but they found it under the revol ltion. They
asked for preparation, and did not find it;
for time, and could not get it; previous in
demnity, but it was later coming; they dis
dained to receive $500 each for their slaves,
and had to content themselves with 300.
One day they arose doubling whether slave
was human being, and before the sun had
set saw him elevated to the dignity of a
citizen. What glory for the French revolu-
tionists of February What shame for the
Spanish revolutionists of September! The
French colonies, emancipated, are free, rich,
and happy.
1t is said:-But how much richer is our
island of Cuba All! but what crimes follow
in the wake of slavery With this infamy
existing there can be no justice. When the
Regent of the Kingdom ceased to be Captain
General, the free negroes-not SO much by
that fact but by the law-were again reduced