New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-11-21
Civil Rights.

We take the following from the speech of
General w. w. Dedrick, of Mississippi, de-
livered in Vicksburg on the Odd ult.:
| Now so far as the civil rights are con-
cerned the Republican party proposes to do
just this. 1t proposes to give the colored
man the same privileges and opportunities
that are given to other men. We all know
| that as things now are, there are many col
ored men who occupy proud positions in the
country, and yet right among the people
where they hold these positions the prejudice
against their race is such that the common
civilites of citizen are withheld from them.
OF what value is it to q colored man to be
respected? Ofwhat value is it to him to hold
prominent positions of trust and confidence ?
OF what value is it to him to be q Represent
ative, a Senator, or even President of the
United States, if he is to be put out of rail-
road car, or thrust into the freedman s bureau
of a steamboat, for no other reason than that
he happens to be black? OF what value is
society to him if he is to be excluded from
public theatres and churches and treated as
an Outcast, for no other reason than that
society has prejudices against the negro?
Now acknowledge the delicacy of this ques-
ton and weigh my words in discussing it. L
say That mans man for a that" 1
say that the only proper standard of judging
a man is to weigh him according to his worth,
his standing, his responsibility, and his intel
lect. have seen respectable colored man,
an educated, refined, and christian gentleman,
set upon by ruf1ians with bowie knives and
pistols, and elected from theatre because he
ventured to take his seat in the pit of a place
of public amusement among the ordinary rab-
BILE, and claim the right to witness q public
entertainment. l have seen respectable
colored man, and able and eloquent orator,
while advocating the cause Of Republicanism
on the stump in Mississippi, compelled to
walk the sidewalk all night in front of a
hotel, where there were fifty vacant rooms,
simply because the institution was closed
against his race. / have seen an honored
citizen of Mississippi holding the proud po-
sition of her representative in the United
States Senate, compelled to take his wife and
daughters into smoking cars and ask the poor
privilege of being permitted to occupy appro-
pirate apartments on our steamboats,, which
privilege was denied him. And only the
other day the Honorable James Lynch, Secre-
tary of State of Mississippi, was denied the
right to ride in the omnibus at Macon station,
and forced to walk a mile and-a-half to the
city. On the other hand l have seen the
savage Indians from the plains half dressed,
half civilized and whose chief employment
had been in scalping innocent women and
children, lodged at first-class hotels in the
city of Washington, feted and banqueted, and
/ have here seen balls and parties given in
their honor, where the first ladies of the land
graced the occasion with their presence. So
have seen the idolatrous Chinese and Japan
csc hailing from heather land with their
vile habits, customs, and morals, made the
recipients of a nations hospitality and intro
duced to all the best society of America.
Turning from spectacle like this, ask
what justice, what sense of propriety or de-
~,
lass, as was done in Mississippi, into a second
class car, and compelling him while travelling
on public railroad, to eat in the kitchen of
a third-class boarding house? Surely Fred
erick Douglass is as respectable as the average
Indian. Surely he is as decent and as moral
as the heather Chinee. Surely the country
owes him as much as it owes the stranger at
our doors and the wild Indian from his war
path ON our plains. No wonder that the
sense of justice of our colOred men rebels
against this degradation. Nowonder that in
his humiliation he cries aloud to the Repub-
lican party for relief. No wonder that he in
sists that this unjust and debasing discrimi-
nation shall be removed. Shall his cry be
needed? The Republican party in its plat
form at Philadelphia has answered the ques-
ton. 1t stands committed to the enforce
ment of complete liberty and exact equality
in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and
public rights, and says that neither the law
nor its administration should admit of any
discrimination of respect of citizens by reason
of race, color, or previous condition of servi-
tude.
To that doctrine the Republican party of
Mississippi says amen; because it is right,
not merely tolerated. We feel no humila-
ton in recognizing the rights of man and in
extending to men, as men, the ordinary civ
ilites of life and we claim that prejudice has
no right to be consulted when it, comes in
conflict with the rights and privileges of
others, save within the sacred domain of a
mans own private Jurisdiction. On that ter
territory nobody has any right to infringe;
within that limit public law claims no juris-
diction.
1t is no time for Republicans to stand back,
when Democrats, by endorsing Greeley and
Sumner, have moved forward to an advanced
position on this question.