Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-08-31


incident to their use of political power,
but the path of safety is in making the
colored people feel their responsibility and
in educating them to discharge properly
political duties We must be true to the
end. The remarks OF Senator Freling-
huysen upon this subject are so eloquent
and forcible that we copy them:
The nation that boasts that tw o pillars of its
Government are liberty and equality would
have cut sorry picture in history if we had
conferred political rights upon those who
fought against, and refused those who helped
to save the country. Applause. The gift
of freedom would have been a worthless boon
without the rights of freeman Take from
them suffrage and citizenship you make them
defenseless victims of those who are no longer
interes ted in their welfare. These great meas
ures of giving full and equal rights to the col
ored people of the South are not yet accom-
plished. They are not yet established secure
" in these rights The common rights which
are readily accorded to the white man are in
many places withheld from them. They are
denied proper accommodation in public con-
veyances, they are denied reasonable accom-
modations at inns, and where they are in the
msjjority 10 many parts of the South their ed
ucational facilities are mere mockery. A
white man 3 party has been formed, the object
of which is to ostracise them and every man
who has the courage to sustain them. They
are in some parts of the country to be crushed
under the false cry of race-that they are a
different race from US. Mr.. President, God
grant that they may not go on in their mad
career. Applause. There is wrath of
man that works the purposes of the Most
High. The mills of the gods grind slowly,
but they grind exceedingly small. The peo-
pie of this country are quiet; l hope there
will be no occasion for them being reused !;
but if the rights of these men who are true to
us are not respected, the present quiet is but
the lull that precedes the storm. Prolonged
cheers. The people OF this country have
their eyes upon the proceedings that are there
taking place, and if results turn out adverse
ly to those who have been true to US, then the
people of this country will, in spirit at least,
walk the long miles of Arlington, Antietam,
and ettysburg-a father will see there the
humble tomb on which is the name of his son,
and hard by, the grave of the colored soldier,
and he will remember that the same blanket
covered them in the dreary morass; that they
shared together their waning canteen that
shoulder to shoulder they fought for this
country; that the one bore for the other the
last message of love, and then
"On flames eternal camping ground
Their silent tents they spread,
While glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead" fCheers.I
From these signs the true people of this
country will come, and by all the early po-
litcal history of our nation, and by all the
patriot blood that has been shed, it shall be
declared that the escutcheon of social equal
ty is beyond and outside the province Of
Government, and civil equality shall be ev-
erywhere in this land forever. During the
administration of this party five millions of
slaves have been made free, American cit
izenship is acknowledged the world over,
perilous complications with England have
been bridged over, and peaceful arbitration
preferred to that of the sword, postal commu-
nication is improved, the public debt is being
paid off, reputation is repudiated, the num-
Der of miles of railroad have been doubled,
and the country has prospered as never be-
fere.