New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-07-09
CivIl Rights Bill and West Point
Academy.

Civii Rights Bill and West Point
Academy.
Letter from Gerrit Smith to Frederick
Douglass.
PErERBoRo, June q, 1874.
Hon. FREDERICK DOUGLASS,
Washington, d. c.
My old and much esteemed friend:
So Congress has again adjourned without
passing the bill on which our hearts had so
long been set!
Much prejudice was wrought up against
the bill by persistently declaring it to be
bill for social rights. None of its friends re.
garded it in this light All they sought in
it was the equality of civil rights. Social
rights they left to take care of themselves
wisely judging that these do not fall within
the scope of legislation.
This prejudice, however, was not the only
nor the worst form of opposition to the bill.
AS is usual in cases where the protection of
fundamental human rights is the object, this
bill had to encounter the Constitution scare
crow. On the surface of the Constitution
simple birth in this nation makes a citizen
of the nation. But in the New Orleans
Slaughter case the Supreme Court dug down
below the surface and taxed its ingenuity to
discover two kinds of citizens-a State kind
as well as a national kind. This mischiev-
Gus discovery, though made by but five Of
the nine judges, has, in the present instance,
| furnished the enemies of equal rights with
their most effective weapon. But this dual
| citizenship is fanciful --fancful, if only be-
cause impracticable. | would argue its inn
practicableness somewhat as | argued it in
my letter to Mr.. Downing.
OF all the jnSfanHpS in which the ('ourt q
serts the paramount right of national citizen
| ship there is not one where this right could
| not be defeat ted in q State which is guilty of
discriminating between its people. One of
| these instances is the coming to the seat of
| Government to transact business with it.
| But how could cultured and self-respecting
colored gentlemen and refined colored ladies
cross such State as Georgia on their way
to transact business in Washington: Denied
its vehicles, save on terms too degrading for
them to submit to, instead of riding they
must walk; and denied its hotels, save on
similarly degrading terms, they must depend
upon the bread and cheese in their pockets,
and find what sleep they can by the road
side. Is it said that they must be supplied
with proofs that they are, at such times, in
the capacity OfnatiOndl citizens? But the eX-
pense of giving effect to such proofs they might
not be able to bear. Moreover, however con-
elusive the proofs and however humiliating
to exhibit them, there would, probably, be
but few persons to give an open eye or a
listening ear to them. In spite of these
proofs they would find themselves helpless
in an enemy's country. Alas, how many a
colored brother and cOlored sister have felt
their hearts die within them, whilst travel
ing, Or attempting to travel, through this
| still caste-cursed and still Satan-swayed
land!
My soul is sick of this running to consti-
tutiOns for authority to outrage man. That
one is man who proves that he is entitled to
all the rights of man, whatever constitutions
or aught else may say to the contrary. Our
courts and Congress have not yet risen up
out of the worlds atheism. They still war
against God by still refusing to accept and
protect man as lie presents him. Their
highest crime was in tOlerating the turning
of Gods man into mans slave; and now
they follow up this crime by still tolerating
his enslayement. We are to welcome every
man because every man comes from God,
and whatever his race or complexion, is the
child of his and our Father. Human laws
are needed to regulate many of the external
relations and interests of men but the men
themselves we are to accept as they are given
to us, and to hold their high being with all
its essential rights to be sacred and unas-
sailable. Come quickly the day when through
out our country and throughout the world
the citing of a law to justify the invasion Of
fundamental human rights shall be instantly
arrested and sternly rebuked as treason
against man and contempt of the law of his
being and the law Of his God!
| There are two concessions to our insulted
colored countrymen which admit of no delay
One Of these is the passage OF the civil
rights bill, and the other is the break
ing up OF the Academy at West Point
The great Father in Heaven-the equal
Father Of His white and cOlOred children
cannot be at peace with our guilty nation
until the denominations against which this
bill is aimed and the kindred denominations
which exist at that Academy. are biotted out;
To this end the school itself must be blotted
out. 1t cannot be reformed. The pro-
slavery spirit, which, in subservience to the
wishes and interests of the slave-power, has
for more than fifty years, been fostered ano
rampant there, will die only with the death
OF the school. Government is, always, more
E or less, complained OF for its money matters
But these, in their worst aspect, sink out o.
sight in comparison with its wrongs against
man. Money in comparison with man is O
no account. Nothing meaner nor more
. wicked has Government ever been guilty o.
than suffering the numerous white cadets tt
league themselves for insulting, at every turn
and corner and in every possible way, the
handful OF colored cadets. 1t is because the
Government stands back of this league, and
suffers it, if indeed it does not positively en-
courage it, that not one member has had the
manliness to break out from it and deal justly
with his colored brothers, Surely, school
pervaded so thoroughly by this mean anC
cruel spirit, is not the place for training W
patriots and christians. This school, which
the whole American people are compelled tt
support, wars trishtfully upon all true sense
OF justice and lair-dealing. 1t is an insult tt
the nalion-an insult to the grand old hills
which surround it and trown upon it. These