The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-07-23
CIVIL RIGHTS BILL AND WEST
POINT ACADEMY.
Letter from Gerrit Smith to Frederick
Douglass.

Hon. Frederick Douglass, Washington, d. c.
Ny OLD AND MUCH ESTEEMED FRIEND: 81
Congress has again adjourned without
passing the bill on which our hearts hao
so long been setl ..-. Is.
Much prejudice was wrought up against
the bill by persistently declaring it to be
a bill for social rights. None of its
friends regarded 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 scarecrow. On the sur
face 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 dis
cover two kinds of citizens-a State
kind as well as a national kind. This
mischievous 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
fancitul-fanciful, if only because i'm
practicable. | would argue its imprac-
ticableness somewhat as l argued it in
my letter to Mr.. Downing.
OF all the instances in which the Court
asserts the paramount right of national
citizenship there is not one where this
right could not be defeated in b State
which is guilty of discriminating be-
tween its people. One of these instances
iS ho I1n 70 hn of ont
to transact business with it. But how
could cultured and selfrespecting col
ored gentlemen and refined colored
ladies cross such a State as Georgia on
their way to transact business in Wash
ington2 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
roadside Is it said that they must be.
supplied with proofs that they are, at
such times, in the capacity of national
citizens? But the expense of giving
effect to such proofs they might not be-
able to bear. Moreover, however conclu-
sive 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 travelling, or attempting to-
travel, through this still caste cursed
and still Satan-swayed land
My soul is sick of this running to con-
stitutions for authority to outrage man.
hot Ica ,r,, L
entitled to all the rights of man, what
ever 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 He 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 tolerat-
ing his enslaVement We are to welcome
every man because every man comes
from God, and whatever his race or COM
plexion, is the child of his and our
Father. Human laws are needed to reg
ulate many OF the external relations and
interests of men; but the men them
selves 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
unassailable. Come quickly the day
when throughout our country and
throughout the world the citing of 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 in
suited colored countrymen which admit
of no delay. One of these is the passage
of the Civil Rights Bill and the
other is the breaking up of the Acad-
emy at West Point. The great Father
in heaven-the equal Father of His
white and colored children-cannot be
atpeace with our guilty nation, until the
denominations against which this bill is
aimed and the kindred denominations,
which exist at that Academy, are blotted
out. 10 this end the school itself must
be blotted out. 1t cannot be reformed
The pro-slavery spirit, which, in subser-
Vience to the wishes and interests of the
slave-power, has, for more than fifty
years, been fostered and rampant there,
will die only with the death of the
| school. Government is, always, more
or less, complained of for its money mat
ters But these, in their worst aspect
| sink out of sight in comparison with its
wrongs against man. Money in compar-
ison with man is of no account Moth
| ing meaner nor more wicked has Govern
ment ever been guilty of than suffering
the numerous white cadets to league
themselves for insulting, at every turn
and corner and in every possible way,
the handful of colored cadets. 1t is be-
cause the Government stands back of
this league, and suffers it, if indeed it
does not positively encourage 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
and cruel spirit is not the place for
training up patriots and Christians This
school, which the whole American peo-
pie are compelled to support, wars fright
fully upon all true sense of justice and
fair-dealing. 1t is an insult to the
nation-an insult to the grand old hills
which surround it and frown upon it.
These sublime highlands, which rank so
high amongst the glories of nature, can
have no affinity for thing so violative
of nature and so stepped in meanness as
the Academy at West Point.
My complaint of the state of things at
West Point may, to some minds, appear