Year: 1867

| A BLACK MINIS PARTY ~ TIE SOUTH
1t is the destiny Of the Republican party to
abolish in our laws all distinctions on account
of color. 1t is the first great political party IN
| this country that has maintained tie truth that
manhood is absolute, and that the rights OF n
man are not to be measured 10y race or COM
plexion. AS a party cannot be created by
the mere resolutions OF "A Convention, but must
| grow out of the convictions of the people 1t
| has formed It's creed slowly, article by article
| 1t abolished Slavery; that was not enough. Ii
! made Union soldiers OF the slaves il had libcr-
ated; that was not enough 1t gave the ballot
to the negroes of the South that was not
enough 1t clothed them with fun citizenship,
the right TO sit on jurics, to hold office and
yet this is not enough. 1t remains for the
Republican party to place the colored men of
the North upon the same level, so thd in
every election, every Court in the United
States, there shall be no question of black or
white, no rule for the one race that IS not also
the rule for the other. Either by the action
of States or of Congress it will certainly effect
this in year or two at the most all discrm-
ination on account of color will be banished
from our laws.


These men in the South who arc working to
establish black mans party are the enemies
of this principle of equality, and il they carry
out their plans they will strike Republicanism
a blow far heavier than the Democracy can
deal. They will go far to undo the grand re-
form of which the war was the instrument. In
Virginia it is feared that the State Republican
Convention, August I, will be the occasion Of
a division in the Republican ranks, and the
creation of rival parties, black and white. In
Missouri, also, there are adyenturers who urge
the cOlored to demand representation on the
Presidential ticket, and in case it is refused,
TO form q separate organization. We do not
believe these efforts will be sustained by the
colored men, for they surely know the fatal re-
suits of such an unprincipled policy.


| 1t is unprincipled because it denies every
moral principle of the great movement which
gave the colored race their rights. The Rcpub-
| lican party abolished the distinction of color
in politics and law; these agitators would re-
store it. Republcanism broke down the bar
riers that separated the races these men would
rebuild them. Repubcanism seeks to reconcile
on the broad plains of the continent the dis
cOrdant peoples of Africa and Europe here it
would solve the problem of races, and prove
how much greater and deeper are the unities
of humanity than its divisions, and that under
! equal laws all races may exist in one peaceful
confederation. The far-reaching results of
this experiment. the tremendous effect of its
success, we need not intimate, though
| few men may have reflected that American
Republicanism is the leading reform of the
world, and that God has given it continent
to work out the enigma Of human happiness.
With what disgust, then, must all true re-
formers look upon this ignorant or malignant
attempt to ruin an experiment so noble The
men who would establish Black party in the
South would create for us new Africa. They
would place a gulf between race and race.
Nothing can be more anti-Amcrican than a
party which denies the unity Of American
citizenship such party could not long exist.
Who has forgotten when, in 1864, & German
party was foolishly projected, the Indignation
which that suggestion causeda America desired
to reconcile all natiOnalties in her own, and
would inevitably have crushed any attempt
to set up France or Germany or Italy as an
alien and independent power upon American
ground. Equally certain will be the overthrow
Of any effort to gather the millions of colored
men in the United States into distinct polit-
ical organization.


We desire the time TO come speedily when
it shall no longer be matter of surprise TO sec