The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1913-01-03

desired until he prayed with his lips.
That he had asked the Lord for free
dom-for the day when he could see
his people, like other people, enjoy
the boon of liberty: But he felt
that he must do something himself to
get 1t. So he put his feet in the road
and started. On two continents,
when the agitation in this country
was going on from side to side, from
Legislature to Congress, and from Con-
gress back to the Legislatures, Fred
Douglass, along with William Lloyd
Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher and
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and that class
of persons who put their lives on the
altar for the redemption Of the race,
Fred Douglass, in America, across
the sea, stood 1at-footed and advo-
Gated liberty unt1l two continents
heard him, and two continents cheered
him. Liberty finally came.
The thought of emancipation pos
sibly was not SO strong on the mind
Of Abraham Lincoln as the saving OF
the Union, which, of course, was per-
fectly natural, the whole country hav-
ing its eyes conferred upon him, and
the breaking of the Union into pieces
would have been the breaking of a
heart nobler than which throbbed in
a human breast. For, as he said.
If | can save the Union by freeing
slaves left as they are l will do it, or
if l can ave the Union by freeing the
all of them / will do that, or If / can
save the Union by freeing part Of
them and leaving a part in slavery
l shall do that, for the preservation
of the Union is paramount"
We know what followed; we know
how it ended. Behind It all as a
great power. History's pages re-
cord n death grapple in the dark
ness betwixt old systems of the
world. Right on the scaffold,
wrong forever on the throne; but that
scaffold sways the future and within
the dim unknown stands God, within
the shadow, keeping watch over his
own. And when God vas ready,
whether Lincoln, the South or others
were ready or not, when God was
ready He said: Let my people co.
and ordered the hand or the great
Lincoln to write, and that hand could
not help but write, and Che chains
and iibes fell and the crushed PEG,
pie Strengthened up and began to re-
joice over their freedom.
We have done a great many strange
things since freedom. We have been
charged with 1aziness; running to the
cities, etc. Now, let us see about
it. Say a man has been bowed
down in slavery for two hundred
and fifty years, undergoing ALI sorts
of hardships, all sorts of cruelty, wor
ry, discomfort and oppression; in
that condition two hundred and fifty
years, sold as chattel to whomsoevel
bought him. And them come alons
and turn that fellow loose. Dom
you know he win not know what K
do? We did not know what to d.
when emanclpated, we thought free
dom meant freedom indeed. Man!
OF us were reared by artistocrati,
people. We drove their carriages
carried the umbrellas over them
when they inclined to nave us do SO
and did everything they asked III
to do, and saw the aristocratic sid
of life, and decided when we go
: free we were going to be aristocrat
} too. We did not see the things tina
: would come to defeat that though
and oppose it, we only thought o
/ what we saw at the big house, an,
hence we did a great many thing
that were foolish. We had no
, learned that liberty proclaimet
throughout the earth meant libert.
to work. For after alY liberty mean
to work. The mar is not free tina
does not work; he is a prisoner. Fo
every Industrious man wants some
thing to do, and the soul is cage
until something is given to do. Whel
we learned that, we learned that lib
erty meant work.
I had a friend some years age
who had a mammoth brain and
mammoth heart VINO had no educa
ton, had had no opportunity what
ever to study, but there neve
throbbed in O. human breast a noble
heart. Somebody was making spor
of him about his freedom once an
J his getting a mule and forty acres O
: land. He "a telling me about !
and said he looked that man in tn
face and said to him: Gin me my lii
erty, take desc chains off me and lie
my ankles loose and l will git tn
/ forty acres of lam and the mule.
And the old man said that with sue
, force that / felt the tears runnin
; hot down my cheek.
f The opportunity has come, but nc
v all we want or deserve, What mai
J. however, has all the opportunity h
t wants? Very few Negroes have tn
n opportunity they deserve. This
e a world in which we must struggl
and wrestle until we conquer.
r read somewhere not long ago tn;
y since the Emancipation Proclamatio
It twenty-five hundred, I'd rather sa
& twenty-five thousand, of our poop
have been destroyed here and theI
# for the most frivolous and ridiculor
things. Does it not seem that ever
d n who has the least strength ougl
20 to set his hands to work, his hea.
h. to work, his brain to work to he
1T build up the race. In the midst
ID the strongest race, in the midst
Ie the highest civilization that ma.
j. kind has known we are called upC
1t to work out our existence, and we
10 may we say, with fear and tremblin