The Washington bee., 1898-12-10
REV. GRIMKE'S SERMON.

ED THE HEARTS OF TME PEOPLE
sELF-APPoINTED WHITE MASTERS.
THROUGH THE DARKEST CLOUD.
THERE is A SILVER LINING-FRED-
ERIcK DOUGLASS MEMORY APPLAUD
ED.
| And | want to tell you this morn
ing what the ground of this hope is.
Before doing so however, may be per-
mitted to say in passing. do not think
there is much ground for hope through
national interposition. Whether the
general government has power or not
| the simple fact is, it lacks the
disposition. Irefer to no particular ad-
ministration, but to the general gov
ernment as such. 1t doesn't seem to
make any difference who is at the
head of affairs, the same indisposition
is found, the SAM timidity is manifest
ed, the same let-alone policy is pur-
sued. | do not at this point raise the
question as to whether that is right
or wrong policy. | am simply noting
the fact, and saying that through
that source, is little or no ground of
hope so far as can see, and yet,
have sometimes felt that if we could
have had in the presidential chair
succession of men like Thaddeus
Stevens of Pennsylvania, that that
stern old commoner, that man of iron
will, and of deep heartfelt sympathy
for the oppressed, the spirit of law
lessness in the South would long since
have been stamped out. He would
have found a way, lust as President
| Cleveland found way to suppress
the labor riots in Chicago. Where
there is will, there is way.
We have civil service law, but it
doesn't stand in the way, when there
are personal or partisan ends to be
subserved.
The old pro-slavery power never
found any difficulty in finding in the
constitution and laws of the land
warrant for whatever it wanted to do;
why should we find any difficulty In
| finding a warrant in the constitution
and laws of the land for suppressing
mob violence and revolution, roofing
out the band of murderers and trail
tors that infeSt the Southern
section of our country? If the enc
mics of freedom found way to
do what they wanted, why should We
| find any difficulty in protecting inno
cent and loyal black citizens OF the
Republic, who have been true to the
nation in every crisis of its history,
and who are today as true and as pa
trIotic as any other class of citizens
Why, | ask, should there be any diff
| fculty? | IMPLY raise the question;
| shall not attempt to answer it. So
| far, as | am concerned, | see no
ground of hope through national
interposition.
Nor do see any hope through the
action of either of the great political
parties. We have nothing to hope for
from the democratic party, neither
have we anything to hope for from the
republican party. Neither party is
going TO concern itself about the
rights of the negro, except so far as it
can use him. Neither party
feels any interest in him; both would
be glad to get rid of him. In the
South the democratic party would
eliminate him entirely, and in the
| North, it is only where he holds the
balance of power, that any attention is
ever paid to him. | am not speaking
for or against either party, am simp-
ly stating a fact, which you know, and
which know, and which every man
white or black knows to be true. The
democratic party has always stood in
the way of the negro'S advancement,
that Is its record. And the republi-
can party, at least, the time was when
it stood s1uarely on the platform of hu-
man rights, when lis great strong arm
| f,I,~
negro, when it felt as Lowell has so
nobly expressed it:
eve owe allegiance.to the State; but
| deeper, truer, more,
To the sympathies that God has set
within or spirits core;
Our country claims our fealty, we
grant it so, but then
Before men made us citizens, great
Nature made US men,
"He's true 10 God who's true to
man; wherever wrong is done,
To the humbleSt and the weakest,
meath the ali-beholding sun,
That wrong IS also done to US; and
they are slaves most base,
Whose love of right is for them
selves and not for all their race"
That is where the repu blican party
once stood, when it was dominated by
the influence of such men as Summer
and Wilson, Chase and Giddings,
Morgan Stevens and host of other
champions of freedom; but it is not so
low. 1t is SO absorbed with matters of
the tariff and the currency that it does
not seem to hear any longer the cries
of the oppressed millions of negroes
for protection against lawlessness
and brutality. | DO say this, with a
view of including single representa-
tive of our race ID abandon the grand
old party; we owe 1t much; all that We
have, freedom; citizenship, the ballot,
came to us through it. We never can
forget it. We never will forget it. |
No and it is, because of the
love bear it, and of what it has
been, that it grieves me to find it SO
lukewarm and Indifferent now to the
interests which once stirred it so pro- |
foundly.
Nor is there, so far as can see.
much ground of hope from an appeal |
10 force. The odds are against us. !
Even IN the South, the whites out
number US, are superior to us in intel /
llgence and IN resources. 1t is also 1
morally certain that if there should be
en uprising of the blacks, there would
not only be a united South, but also
united North to crush it out: and the
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