New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-05-02

as to vouchsafe to those people all the liber'
ties contained in the Declaration of Independ'
ence. [Great Applause.1 The history Of
! their liberties was not so old already that
thew had forgotten how they were achieved
| or did not remember what slavery was. Ap.
plause.1 There was time when colored
men did not hold conventions in Louisiana.
| [Applause.l He related the anecdote of the
colored man who was once brought before a
recorder in New Orleans on charge of lar
ceny. The recorder advised him never to
come there again. 81 did not come, Mr..
Recorder. the constable Touch me-" laugh
ter.) So it was with the colored delegates
who formerly came to Louisiana, the cOnsta-
BILE "fouch'' them with handouts upon their
wrists. But that day, thank Heaven, was
gone, never to return! Never! never! never
! prolonged enthusiasm.) Every man now
comes with his own consent and leaves when
he desires. (ApplauseD The change was
vast and wonderful! This country did not
seem to be the same United States it was OF
old. The sun does not rise and set as it did
in those dark and gloomy days. The very air
now seems more pleasant; somehow we
breathe freer than then.
But colored men, like all others, are apt to
be forgetful. Do they often and fully con-
slider the tedious, weary, and bloody pro-
cesses by which the revolution was accom-
plshed? They can well recur to the history
of the rise and progress OF all great revOlu-
tons and gather instruction for the future.
Revolutions do not spring from the ground.
They are not the creatures of day. The
cause of humanity has never made step, not
moved an inch in advance that was not pur-
chased with agony and tears. Thirty years
ago there was no equality for all men, even in
Massachusetts. Under the very shadow of
Faneuil Hall the slave hunter pursued and
seized his victim. AS broad as was this great
land with its vast plains, its green fields, and
its classic spots, so grand in history, there
was no single nook where the fleeing man of
his complexion was not hunted down and
brought back to bondage. There was no
valley so deep, no mountain so high that it
was free from the slave hunters. The slave
was started up on the shores of Lake Erie
and bounded over mountain, hill, swamp, and
plain to the Gulf of Mexico. Everywhere he
clamored for protection, but in vain. But
by the power of truth the logic of events
and the blood of patriots have made him free,
and there is no place where, by virtue of his
manhood, he cannot stand up and be absO-
lutely protected. But no step in advance, as
he had said, had ever been achieved without
agony and blood. He referred to the cost of
religious liberty. Before men were allowed
to think for themselves about the infinite,
Europe drank the blood of free hearts for
eighty years. Superstition stood in the way,
but men fought for the freedom of religious
thought and attained it. When he looked
back over the history of the anti-slavery
struggle he marveled that so much blood and
so much treasure had been lost in resisting a
principle so self-evident and 80 simple. When
you come to the essence of that great strug-
gle which had rent the nation asunder and
mOstened the land with tears, it was merely
question of individual right of ownership;
it was whether every man shall be allowed to
be his self; whether he is born for himself,
breathes for himself, dies for himself, and
shall answer to God for himself. And that
great question of ages is now settled forever.
Nothing must. done that will kindle into
flames the passions and prejudices that are
smoulderalg and dying. Let the dead past
bury its dead, and let nothing be raked up
from the grave of sad "reminiscences unless it
be to point lesson to the future.
But colored men cannot be reminded too
frequently of the men who strOve for them in
the early days. The names of such men as
VIM. Lloyd Garrison (applause) and Wendell
Phillips cannot be forgotten. They kindled
the first sparks of the black mans liberty.
Abolitionism was first sentiment, then an
idea, then principle, and then great pO-
litical struggle, and at each stage of its pro-
gress it seemed to be in charge of different
class of men. The first time it appealed to
repentant STAKEHOLDER, Jas. G.. Birney, of
Kentucky, for President. (Applause.) 1t
next gave sixty thousand votes for Hale;
next it gave more than million for Fremont,
the pathfinder to the Pacific and to human
liberty. (Applause.) Next it carried the
country for Abraham Lincoln. Applause
And from here on its history is familiar to
every child Out of his election comes this
colored convention. [Applatlse.]
The war began on both sides against the
negro, and ended on both sides for the negro.
Applause 1t will be remembered that in
the last lingering days of the Confederacy,
when despair seized it, it imploringly turned
towards the black man and exclaimed, "Help
me Pompey. ere 1 sink!" Tremendous APP
plause.] When the war began it was a white
mans fight. No negro should be allowed to
sully the cause of either side. The South
secuted the idea of his help. The North did
not want him. COlored men are called upon
to be grateful to the Republican party for
their freedom. He was grateful, but his
gratitude was qualified by facts. The colored
man can also be allowed to put in his claim
to share in that glorious result. Applause
He is deserving of some consideration. He
has been admitted to number of important
boxes. First to the cartridge box, Applause, j
then to the ballot-box, Applause, ] then to the
jury box, applause and now, he hopes, is
to be admitted to the knowledge box. Pro-
longed applause What the Republican
party has given has not all been given wholly
disinterestedly. Even Mr.. Lincoln, great,
good, and beloved as he was, did not see the
end from the beginning. At first Mr.. Lin
coin was only opposed to secession and was
willing for the South to hunt down fugitive
slaves if she would remain in the Union. His
second inaugural was an improvement over
his first. In the first he favored the en-
forcement of the fugitive slave law. In the
second he prayed for the scourge OF war to
pass away, but said that if all the wealth OF
nation must be wasted and each drop of blood
drawn by the lash must be paid for by
gallon drawn by the sword, it must be done.
Applause.
When the very earth was crumbling
| under the cause of the Union and the
armies of the nation were meeting disaster
| after disaster; when the recruiting SER
geant was beating his drum through every
hamlet in the land, and received no longer
response to his cry 'more men! more
men," when the StafSpangled Banner was
trailed in the dust on every battle field,
then 1t was that the North was brought up
to the point where it unclaimed the black
l hi hos A