Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1870-04-29
The Fifteenth Amendment.

Rev. w. Fl. DANIELS, of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church of Chicago.
on the 18th of April preached a sermon
on the Fifteenth Amendment, from which
we take the following extracts
In the year 1920 the first negro slaves
were brought to this country by Dutch
ship-of-war, anu landed in Virginia in
this year, 1870, the last restrictions of the
rights of the negro as citizen are re-
moved, and he stands forth q free man
and voter.
In order that we may better realize this
mighty work which God has wrought for
the negro race, we shall do well to note
the leading parts Of their history. The
poet Virgil tells US of a poor fellow, who,
having offended some OF the gods, was
placed in prison under the earth, and a
mountain piled on top of him to keep him
down. But the negro has had whole
range of mountains to keep him down.
First, his own ignorance. He had his
home IN the darkest corner of the
earth, and so dense was his stupidity that
he would have starved to death for want
Of knowing how to make his living if
nature had not been prodigal of her gifts
in that sultry land. When the people
were wanted for slaves they were hunted
in the jungle like wolves, herded in the
slave-pen like cattle, packed in the slave
ship like herrings in a barrel. and then
sold like donkeys, to cultivate the fields
Of American planters They could not
help learning something in their new life,
and lest they should be able to escape from
their prison the courts of legislation were
set to work piling on laws to make the
mountain higher and heavier, laws which
forbade them the school, the spelling book,
and the Bible.
Second, There was the mountain of
poverty; mountain exceeding great and
heavy, as those who have lain under it
know too we'll 1t is terrible thing to
have no money, noproperty and no credit,
but the poverty of the negro was more.
He did not even own himself; his eyes
were not his own; his hands with which
he toiled were the property of another
man, and so were his wife and his chill
dren. This mountain, too, grew in height
with the growing sense of misery which
the black man endured as he saw other
households grow rich by his toll, and other
men grow proud because he saved theEa
from soiling their hands with work. And
it is no wonder that he writhed and
groaned under this mountain, as the tabled
prisoner did under his mountain. But
there were no earthquakes in consequence.
The third mountain was his color and
the pride of race on the part of his op-
pressors. We are all of us to blame, [
fear, in this respect. We have helped to
pile up this mountain; we possess some
of the old spirit of caste-at least am
ashamed to confess I do, though hope
God may use the Fifteenth Amendment
as means of grace to me aud my people,
that we may willingly believe God "hath
made of one blood all nations of men for
to dwell on all the face of the earth."-
Acts xvii, &c.
The fourth mountain was the Demo
cratic party. The men at the North and
at the South, who held the slaves and
governed the nation, put this doctrine
into their political creeds that slavery was
| right; that it was a divine institution.
We all know how tenaciously man holds
to his religion, especially if his religion
| helps his prejudice and his profits, and
this doctrine being preached from one end
of the land to the other, the mountain
grew exceeding great and high.
But "God hath delivered him; p" hath
| tumbled the mountains off him and lifted
the poor fellow up, and now he stands up
right, man and voter, a citizen of the
greatest nation of the world "This is the
Lords doings, and it is marvellous in our
eyes," a4-
We had strange procession in Chicago
the other day-a procession the like of
which ten years ago we hardly hoped to
see in our day, a procession the like of
which no man in this land will ever see
again, for, thank God, there is no other
| race of slaves to be set free-it was the
negro race celebrating the Fifteenth
Amendment.
do not know who planned that pro-
cession, but it was work of genius, ..
poem iull of tears and laughter, of mem
cries of horror and omens of glory. Many
an Old-Line Abolitionist felt his hair RS
ing and blood .tingling, and wanted to
shout, and did shout, as that line of dark
faces, men, and women, and children,
with many of the marks Of their poverty,
as well as of their joy, about them, wound
its quiet way through our streets. He
had sometimes hoped that his grandsons
or perhaps his sons might live to- see it,
but he expected to be looking down from
Heaven when the notes of it's music
should be heard. But there it was, right
before his eyes, nation come to life, and,
what is more, come to libertyi 'd
1t was good day, my brethren, day
for songs and rejoicing, and lit was Joy
to us, what shink you, was it to them |?
The good time coming, and so bitterly
long In coming, had burst upon them, and
they did well to celebrate with music and
banners to turn out en- nasse, old and
young, rich and poor, in coaches and on
horseback, in carts and wagons, with bells
ringing and the old flag flying, and yet
with strange silence of voices as if they
were too happy to sing, or as if their new
honors were dream which shout might
brighten away.
That procession was historic and it was
prophetic ~ -
First in order came q platoon of police
-signifying law-government. It was
right that law should walk at the head of
their procession, for law had made slaves
of them, and government had helped to
hold them in bondage. Yet these people
always respected law: they have not
been rebellious. John Brown raised a
little instruction, but, as a mutiny, it was
a failure. They waited patiently for law
to deliver them, and for government to
adopt them, and it would have been well
if the man who gave the famous bred
Scott decision could have had place
among the policemen. Law once crush
ed this people; now il lifts them; they.
have ebeyed law while it was poverty
and bonds to obey. How gladly will they
obey it when it commands them to be
prosperous and free.
The procession was in part composed
of various Representatives of the trades.
Toll has been one of the rights of the
L - y