New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-04-12
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sffIcIAl JOURNAL OF THE UNITED STATES
neeJcvAI JOURNAL OF new ORLEANS
From the National Era, Washington, D. c.
What the Republican Party has Done fol
the COlOred Race.
BY HENRY WILSON.


the duty of the nation to prohibit and
abolish slavery wherever it had the power
they petitioned Congress to perform tina,
work in the District of Columbia and In the
Territories. -, =,
They maintained, when assailed, the
sacred right of petition and the freedom OF
speech.
They opposed the annexation of Texas
nv which it was sought to prevent the abO
Ition Of slavery there, and to strengthen il
at home
They struggled to prohibit slavery in free
territory won from Mexico by war.
They resisted with all their power, the
opening of the free Territories OF Utah and
New Mexico to slavery, and the surrender
of thousands of square miles of free soil to
slaveholding Texas.
They opposed the enactment of the fugi
tive slave bill and the unholy compromises
of 1850.
They sternly resisted the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise which had secured
hundreds Of thousands of square miles to
free labor, and for free labOring men.
They denounced the border rutfian invad-
ers of Kansas, their unholy legislation, es-
Enlistment of slavery, and their inhuman
slave code.
They pronounced the Lecompton con-
stitution 1.-The product of fraud and vio-
lence."
They denounced the bred Scott dicta, by
which it was proclaimed that "black men
had no rights white men were bound to
respect"
They exposed the delusOns of squatter
sovereignty, and denied the right of slave
masters to take their slaves into national
territory and be protected by national au-
thority.
They steadily and sternly rejected, when
menaced by rebellion and civil war, the
NJ w a
ton, by irrepealable constitutional amend.
ments, was to recognize slavery south of
the Missouri compromise line, allow slave
masters to take their fettered bOndsmen
into and through the free States, deprive
men Of African descent of citizenship and
suffrage, and deny to Congress the right to
abolish slavery in the capital of the nation.
When the Republican party came into
power in 1861 it intexibly adhered, at the
risk of civil war, to the principles it had
enunciated tor impartial liberty, and
against the aggressive and dominating in
fnerces of the slave masters.
1t made free slaves used by the rebels for
military purposes.
1t forbade officers to return to their mas
tiers f1gitives coming within the lines of the
army to seek the protection of the national
flag.
1t abolished slavery in the District of
Columbia, and made the national capital
free.
1t annulled the inhuman. cruel, and de-
grading black code of the District, and pro-
vided that cOlored men should be tried and
punished in the same manner the white
man was tried and punished.
IL gave its cOlored people the right to tes-
tify in the courts of law, to ride in the pub.
lie cOnveyances, to educate their children,
to vote, and to be voted for.
1t prohibited slavery in the vast terri
49, -. IL. ~
from its chains and whips, its auction
blocks, and its bloodhounds.
1t made free, slaves captured by its ar
mics, or who came within their advancing
lines.
1t repealed the cruel and humiliating
fugitive slave act, and brought to close
its inhuman and dastardly slave hunts.
It recognized the nationality of Hayti and
Liberia, which had been SO long and so
wickedly withheld by the slave power.
1t enrolled black men, and weaponed
their hands to fight the battles of their
country.
1t gave freedom to the slaves who joined
the armies Of the Union.
1t made free the wife and children of the
black soldier.
1t struck the word white from the military
laws, and made black men a portion OF the |
national militia.
1t prohibited the barbarous and barbara |
ing practice of Furnishing otfenses by whip |
ping in the reconstructed States
1t abolished and forever prohibited the |
system of peOnage in New Mexico.
1t entered into treaty stipulations with the
British government TOR the final eXtlrpatlOn
Of the African slave trade
1t made the coastwise slave traffic illegal.
1t gave the black men the right to testify
in the courts of the United States.
1t gave suffrage to black men ia all the
Territories of the republic.
1t sustained Abraham Lincoln's prOclama-
ton of emancipation that gave freedom to
three and half millions of men, women
and children.
1t forever abolished slavery throughout
the land, by the adoption of the thirteenth
amendment.
1t created the Freedmen's Bureau for the
protection and education of emancipated
bOndmen.
l, secured to black men the full and equal
benefit of all laws for the protection of life
and property by the civil rights act.
1t made colored men citizens of the United
States.
1t secured, by the adoption OF the four.
teenth amendment. equal protection to citi-
zens IN all the States.
1t steadily opposed and defeated the
.'poiicy" OF President johnson, which would
have left cOlored men completely HELPLESS
a degraded caste of serfs-at the mercy of
their old masters.
1t removed unjust restrictions and gave
to cO!ored men a common right in the pub |
Lie domain, until then withheld
1t gave suffrage to three-quarters of a
million Of black men by its measures of re-
construction.
1t gave, by the adoption Of the fifteenth
amendment and the laws to enforce it, suf-
frage to black men throughout the United
States.
1t has given, by the law to enforce the
fourteenth amendment and it's execution,
some measure Of protection to the colored
race against the lawless and murderous
Ku-Kluy klans.
Each and all of these acts secure, or tend
to secure and guard, the personal liberty,
the equal rights and the equal privileges Of
the African race.
BY this grand series of acts the Republi-
can party has given personal freedom and
equality to all the colored race, and is seek
ing to secure law, order, peace, education
and general development. Can Republi.
can'forget this record of brilliant deeds and
OF glorious achievements, which have won
the approval OF conscience and reason and
the admiration Of liberal, progressive and
generous men the wide world over!
WIN not the men of the African race espe- |
c!aily cling with deathiess tenacity to the |
organization which has achieved for them
results so comprehensive, far.reaching and
enduring!
Can colored citizens ever hesitate in their
choice betw cen the Republican party, with
such a record of beneticent deeds, and the |
Democratic party, that has, for forty years
with sneeIing and hostile contempt, opposed
every generous, humane and ennoblinr |
measure designed for. their freedom, i'm,
and elevation
For the North Pole.