New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-12-04

| oiaSe' StepDnS Forward on the stand senate
Pinchback proceeded to state that, owing t,
the importance Of the occasion, and thi.
being an opportunity which seldom present.
itself for free and candid expression, he has
thought it proper, quite contrariiy to hi.
habits, to have for the occasion a prepare,
address, in which he had reviewed the mos
vital points concerning the obligations that
this convention was called upon to fulfill
After few words Of apology, pronounced
with that placid and selfpossessed manner
characteristic of the gentleman, Senator
Pinchback spoke as follows:
SPEECH OF SENATOR PINcmBACK.
Mr.. President and Gentlemen of the Con.
vention The forcbleness of our utterances
depend, among other considerations, largely
upon the propriety Of the same. He who
speaks in harmony with the occasion cannot
speak without force.
Governed by this maxim, 1 would in nv
remarks make only such suggestions as ere
pertinent to the purposes for which this con-
vention has assembled.
You are here, gentlemen, specifically to
strengthen the existing State government of
Louisiana, and thereby more eilactually guard
your political rights.
A-speech, therefore, somewhat political in
its tone is allowable; but there are other
matters, not political, which may be furthered
and should be furthered by your assembling.
POLITICAL.
a retrospect of our political affairs is en-
cOuraging.
State, at the polls, indicated the officers who
should constitute the government of the State
for the current term, and who, under the CON
stitution, should be, in the interest of the
whole people, charged with the enactment
and administration of the laws. /, with
others among you, took part in the initial
organization of the present State govern
ment.
1t was born in storm, and has lived and
grown strong, though surrounded BY turbu-
lence, because possessed of the innate
strength that right always gives, and further,
supported by the strong arms and patriotic
impulses of the Republicans of Louisiana
Twelve months ago it was q babe in swad-
ding clothes to-day its healthy infancy has
developed into vigorous manhood, and sup
ported by the majority of the masses and in
harmony with the national authority, the
present State administration of Louisiana
bids fair to be an eminent success.
Positively assured Of large majority of
registered Republican voters ia the State,
and knowing that our republicanism was too
real and intelligent to permit votes to be
either idle or diverted frsm Republican ends,
we claimed in the beginning of the contest
Republican victory in the elections of No
vember last. This assured fact, though
clouded to some extent by the illegal with
holding of the official returns in many cases,
has since been made clear and unquestion-
able by the developments made by the State
registrar of votes and his associates. 1t
now appears, from irrefutable evidence, that
there was actually cast majority for the
Republican candidates of not less than
$4,000.
The temper developed in our present con-
test reminds me of the bitterness Of the op-
position met by us as people on the occa-
sion of our Acknowledgement.
Liberated from bondage terrible in its
eXactions and strong in its age and prejudices
BY the great American people, who were pre-
pared for this browning act of their greatness
by the exigencies of a great war, the ruptured
political and social relations of 1900, 900
people placed for solution before the nation
problem hitherto unsolved Four millions
of former slaves, without property, without
experience and in their infancy. were sud
denly forced to assume the full responsibility
Of full manhood.
The Republican party, sustained by the
nation, declared that this people, charged
with the burdens of manhood, should have
its prerogatives they should not only be
constitutional amendments and reconstruc-
ton acts were adopted to render this citizen
ship possible and operative.
Our progress has indicated the wisdom of
this course. But we know, nevertheless,
that the proposition to enfranchise the col
ored people of America met with an opposi-
ton little less bitter than the act of their
liberation itself. If the necessity Of the con-
stitutional amendments and the acts to
enforce the same needed vindication addi-
tional to that already given, it would be
party of this State in November last, IN which
those who have heretofore opposed freedom
to the enslaved and then opposed suffrage to
the liberated, determined that the suffrage
which had been conferred should not be
exercised by us freely and without intimida-
ton.
We owe our successes, gentlemen, under
God, first to ourselves. Without abatement
to the need or dues of the true men that
helped us in our distress, l affirm we pos
sessed the elements in ourselves that needed
the occasion only of great revolution to de-
velOp them.
The colored race of America, in their in
dividual manhood, furnished an aggregate OF
political and commercial forces that, in con-
tact with and under the quickening influence
of a Christian civilization, like seeds in the
field of the husbandman, maturing and ready
to terminate, needed but the summer of lib
crty to spring into life and fruitfulness, and
the wisdom of the American people, even
more than their mercy, was demonstrated
when they took us up.
| Still, while truth and manhood requires
this statement, we have had generous and
powerful friends, and it is meet and our
bounden duty to thank them for what they
have done.
| We cannot name them all !; we owe much
| to every Senator, Congressman and citizen
who has spoken the truth in our behalf to
every paper that has published it, TO every
man, woman, and child that has prayed that
the truth might prevail, but, after each has
received his need of praise, we owe most for
our present success to President Grant, who,
aided by his noble Cabinet, when our condi-
ton was chaotic and underlined and our peril
most imminent, with the clear head of an
honest man grasped the true philosophy OF
our case, promptly accepted the response
bility that devolved upon him, and, despite
the hesitating and uncertain action of Con.
gress and in the face of utilization and abuse
has stood in the breach, and, like 1.-THE beaten
anvil to the stroke" has been true to his
dulles ma embraced in the constitution and