New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-06-13
COiOrcd Orators ut Philadelphia

! Had any enthusiastic friend of human
! progress prophecied sixteen years ago, at the
first Convention Of the Republican party, that
on the fifth National Convention of this great
organization colored orators would address
the assembly, representing not merely four
millions of freedmen, but four millions of
American citizens aud voters, he would have
been listened to as we listen to the prophe-
cies of the millennium.
| And yet, at the recent imposing National
| Convention, the speakers who made the most
impression, and were listened to with the
most eager attention--both for their good
sense, their native eloquence, and for the
| solid reason that they carried in their hands
the balancing vote for President--were blacks
| from the late slave States. Their appearance
and their influence on this grand occasion
were a kind of landmark set before the whole
world, of the point which the great tide of
progress and emancipation has reached in
| this country. The representatives of the
lately despised and downtrodden race, but
recently classed with the brutes, looked upon
by the most humane as unworthy of sitting in
the same room with the members of the SUI
peror race, stamped in the view of the bigoted
with providential mark of inferiorty, and in
the judgment of many of the wisest at the
North unfit for the lowest of our privileges as
freemen and citizens-were here recognized
selected talent Of the nation, and listened to
as the leaders of powerful political party,
who would have the same share in the ap-
preaching Presidential election as any other
equal number of voters.
1t is not too much to say that the speeches
Of these cOlored delegates--some of whom,
we believe, had been slaves--werea iustifica-
ton of the bold and humane policy of the Re-
publican party. They showed, naturally,
some of the eloquence and wit of the race,
but, what was of much more consequence,
they manifested strong and sound political
sense. There was not a sentiment of rancOr
or bitterness expressed in them toward the
late masters of the negroes, who are still per-
scouting and annoying them. The speakers,
of course, felt the Importance of the Anti
Ku-Klux and Civil Rights legislation, as no
| Northerners can do; but, while urging the
necessity of this, they never INDUCED in any
revengeful or embittered language toward
their opponents. Above all, though natu-
rally deeply grateful to Mr.. Sumner for his
long advocacy of the rights of their race, and
knowing something of Mr.. Greeley's ftful de-
Tense of them, neither they nor their constitu-
ents were in the least beguiled by their senti-
ment toward these two men. They saw
clearly where the true protectors of their race
were they knew what great party had urged
their claims first to freedom and then to suf-
frage, during the past sixteen years they
understood who gave them emancipation, and
at what bitter cost; who bestowed education
and suffrage, and who now seek to protect
them against outrage and wrong. Whatever
their favorite defenders at the North might
do or say, whatever errors they might COM
nit, their only guides were to be the party,
not the individuals They appreciated that
their hopes for the future rested on the great
Republican organization of the United States,
and ON that alone.
And these orators evidently felt with en-
thlsasm the services of Gen. Grant toward
their race and toward their country. "He
had led them out through long and bloody
war to the promised land of freedom" They
recalled how, when we had tried one General
after another against the skillful rebel General
and his brave and desperate men, and the
national cause was ut its lowest ebb, General
Grant, by his succession of brilliant victories,
| and by his persistent and skilflll campaign on
the Potomac, first brought hope to the peo-
| pie, and the certainty of emancipation to the
blacks, and finally broke the yoke both of
slavery and the rebellion. They know that
the iron will of the great General was the
hammer of emancipation in the hands fProvi-
dence, to strike off their letters. When Mr..
Greeley would have negotiated with rebel
agents to leave their people but half emanci-
pated, General Grant was breaking their yoke
with his tremendous strokes.
These colOred orators and their black con-
sttuency-ignorant though the latter may
be-apprecate the difference between the
two candidates. The bailing, too, of .Jetfer-
son Davis, has made an indelible impression
upon the negroes minds. 1t is evident that
the great unknown factor in our political
problem-the black population-cannOt be
counted on the side of the Cincinnati boilers.
The emancipated slaves, their native leaders
and orators, will all go solidly with the ranks
of the Republican party. And if this party
be in any degree wise and careful in its legis-
lation, they may count on the powerful aid
of the blacks for years to come, just as the
Democrats have ON that of the Irish, with so
much less ground or reason. The negro will
follow his first friends.--Ne,c York Times.