Year: 1866

Senator Wilson thus elueidates the chief
Copperhead bugaboo


''0ur country, said that illustrious
statesman, John Quincy Adams, began its
existence by the universal emancipation of
man from the thraldom Of man.. Amid
the darkling storms of revolution, America
proclaimed as Its living faith the sublime
creed of human equality. From out the
rolling clouds of battle, the new republic, as
it took its place in the family of nations,
proclaimed in the ear Of all Humanity that
the poor, the humble, the sons of toll,
whose hands were hardened by honest labor,
were the equals, the peers, before the law
OF kings and princes and mobiles This dec
laration Of the rising Republic In the New
World was an inspiration to the champions
of popular rights in the Old World, and a
hope to the people in whose hearts still lin
gered the dimly-remembered accents of lib
erty. To men crushed in struggling for the
rights of humanity, the proclamation of the
sslf-evldent truth that all men are created
equal and have an inalienable right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, has
been for two generations living faith, that
would illume their darkened pathway to
liberty protected by law. Eighty-nine years
after the proclamation of the sublime creed
of human equality, which has been an in
spiration to humanity the wide world over
our ears are panied and our souls made sick
here in our own America with the brutal
and vulgar outcry of ''nigger equality.
Here in Christian and Republican America,
every effort of patriotism, liberty, justice
and humanity to lift the burdens imposed
upon poor race by centuries of Slavery
every effort to instruct the intelligent dark
ened by years of oppression-is stigmatized
BY the brutal and vulgar demagogueism of
America as ''Nigger Equality" Niger
Equality!" Whenever / hear man, born
in this land, educated in these free schools,
taught in these Christian churches, instrHc-
ted in these varied industries, prate about
niger equality, | accept it as a confes-
sion that he instinctively feels that the ne
gro is his superior and demands legislation
to make him his inferior. Niger equali-
tyi 1t is the language of brutality and
vulgarity. No gentleman in America prates
about 'nigger equality. The creature so
base as to do so must be, and is, vulgar
fellow. He may live in fine house he
may dress In the garb of gentleman; but
a noble or manly sentiment never dwelt in
his bosom. | remember ON one occasion
when Senator was addressing the Senate
and indulging in calling a negro a niger,
that Mr.. Seward turned to me and said,
that man will never be President; the
people always mean to elect gentleman for
President and the man who spells negro
with two g's can never be President, He
is vulgar fellow who raises an outcry about
''nigger equality, and he is a poor, pitiable
creature who fears it. Under Just, humane
and equal laws, no maRshould look up to
any one as his superior, and down to any
one as his inferior. The poorest man In the
land is entitled to equality before the law
with the wealthiest citizen of his country.
His cabin may be humble; but it is as sa-
cred as the palace of the rich man. His
wife may be clothed in rags but she is
shielded by the same equal law that protects
the jeWeled bride of the richest man in all
the land. His child may be little barefoot
boy, but he is the peer of the son of wealth
and pride. Away with the brutal, vulgar,
wicked outcry about "nigger equality. 1t
was born of the pit Send it back to its
native depths. Remember those other
words that come to us from the heavens
'Inasmuch as We did it unto the least of
these, ye did it unto me-, Walk the earth
with your forehead to the skies in tie con-
scious dignity of the equality of humanity
that you are men whom God made and
for whom Christ died-and that it degrades
not, but ennobles him who lifts up the sons
and daughters Of toll misfortune and sorrow,
of all the races and kindred of men.