The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1875-02-26
PHILLIPS ON ClYlE.
RIGHTS

In the House of Representatives,
on the 4lh inst, the Civil Rights
bill being under consideration, Mr..
Phillips said:
/ have been surprised at the posi-
tiOn taken by the gentlemen on the
other side of this Chamber. / have
not been surprised at the opposition
10 their own platform or st the OBJ
lection they raised the other night
to the reading of q part of their
platform by the gentleman from
Indiana, Mr.. Shanks, that part of
the platform having been intended
to catch negro votes. That part of
their platform they did not believe
in; we did not believe in it nobody
believed in it.
But there was one thing which
surprised me. / have been taught
for forty years that the democratic
party, or that part of it which
styles itself the chivalry, had a high
sense of honor and always met its
obligations that hey held to the
idea that when truth was banished
from the bosoms of all men it should
still be found in the bosoms of prih-
ees. Now, when the war closed
there was an obligation left as
binding as if it had been enforced
at Appomattox. What was it?
When the war closed, q war I'M
paralleled in atrocity; war in
which several hundred thousand
men gave their lives-When that
Wer beginning in treachery, sus-
tanned by robbery of the United
Staf06 Vrninfa and ,.I,Al
by the atrocities of AndersonVille,
of the President of the United
States-when the war closed by an
act of magnanimity unparalleled in
history, we rendered to those men
free forgiveness at the hands of the
Government. And for what? That
these degraded people, these enslsY-
ed people should come back as an
enfranchised people, with all the
powers of government, with every
right of citizenship of the United
States, with all their civil rights
equal in this great Republic. And
those men, Mr.. Speaker, come back
upon this floor with the power
gained by such understanding, come
back here to deny those rights for
which they gained their own, and
to deny their part of the agreement,
and seek to make degraded class
in our country.
This is the great question Wheth-
er we can afford in these Southern
States to have a degraded. people.
That is the question, whether we
can have, not slavery, but degrad-
ed class of poor, unprotected, ignor-
ant people.
Why, sir, these gentlemen forget
the position in which we now find
ourselves, that we have been elevat-
ing four millions of people from a
condition of slavery, and there is no
one who is interested in the eleva-
ton of that race but must feel that
we should stand by them to elevate
them and to help them. So far,
with their opportunities, they have
done nobly and we'll. And I ap-
peal to those gentlemen who come
here in consequence of the forgive
ness extended to them at the close
of the great war which was a great
crime, and asked them to help us
and 80 help them in the work of
raising these people to the dignity
of American citizenship, instead of
denying them the rights to which
they owe their own privileges.
AS regards the matter of schools,
there is this practical question: In
many schools districts there are
three or four or ten colored people.
If you close the public schools
against them, you say in effect that
their childred shall have no edu.
cation. say the Republican party
cannot afford to have them kept in
that condition. I say you must di-
vest yourself of prejudice and rise
to the dignity of the occasion, feel
ing that the Republican party has
been especially honored by one
thing in its past history, that it has
been honored in being the hand
maiden of God Almighty in pro-
ducing the fruits of this great revo.
luton and this elevation of the col
ored race. And if those gentlemen
will persist in endeavoring to SOW
discussions between the races, if
they succeed in producing dissen-
sions which must briug b!oodshed
and commotion and ruin, warn
them as they were warned before
that while they appeal to the basest
and lowest passions of the human
heart to make a party, they are in
the future as in the past doomed to
learn that the. Lord God Omnipo-
tent refgneth.