Year: 1874

Instead of allowing their influence t.
keep the loathsome thing above ground
, they should be at work to bury it
Moreover, the good men in the Demo
cratic party are needed in other parties
They are needed in the Republican party
which is still far sho:t of what it shoulc
be. Called into being to play a conspic
uous part in the lifting up of humanity


and with every providential advantage tC
that end, this party has not yet fully


learned that "a mans a man" Alas thai
, this lesson, which should ever be the frs


to be learned by every party both II


church and state, should so seldom be


learned, either early or late, by any


party! We go blundering through life


because ignorant that every man Is oul


brother. 1t is from such ignorance thai


the Republican party failed to pass the


civil rights bill. AS matter of course


the bill had to encounter every Demo


cratic vote in Congress. Nevertheless


the Republican party was responsible tol


its failure. 1t is from such Ignorance


that Congress and courts pry into consti


tutions and statutes for excuses to deny


equal rights to the black man. No laws
are to be studied to learn human rights.


They are written on the brow and in the


heart OF every man, as he comes from the


hand OF his Maker. l did hope that the


Republican party would signalze itself
Tabove all political parties by boldly taking g
the ground that we are to accept as OF
equal rights all men whom God presents
to us, and to scout as trash and atheism
all acts of legislatures and all judgments
of courts, that are contrary to such equal
| ity. Every man is an atheist, who, what
ever his pleas of human laws for it, and
whether he be legislator Eor Judge,
goes into the Remembering work OF
distinguishing the rights of one race of
men from the ri ghts of another He is a
traitor to humanity and Heaven, who
does not insist on the same terms of citi-
zenship for all; on the same laws for all !;
and on the same respect for all the rights
of all.


l notice that the chief objection to the
civil rights bill is that it provides for
| bringing into the same school black and
white children. The bill, though it pro-
vides for this intermingling, does not re-
quire it. 1t does not require the State
to establish a common school. 1t only
requires that where it does establish one
none shall be shut out from it. Now, in
this state of things there is an admirable
opportunity for the play of the principle
OF yoluntarlness-a principle which, in
my judgment, is infinitely preferable to
| State authority in the matter of educa-
| ton. Hence, in the States in question,
let these whites, who are ashamed of
God, (for to be ashamed of his children
is to be ashamed of HimselD be left to
educate their children and the blacks be
left to do likewise. The blacks, aided by
! the benevolence of the North and by the
| henevolence of not few noble white
men at the South, and above all by the
| impartial God, would not fall behind the
whites in this race of education On the
contrary, but a few years would pass away,
ere the whites, ashamed of their mean
| and wicked exclusiveness, and made SEN
| sible that th e blacks are their EQUALS,
would open the way for mixed schools


Let this satanic castespirit be left to die
out in this way; but let not the coming
and more enlightened generations be
mortified at finding it in the laws. Let
not the laws of Georgia nor any other
State be such as shall tell posterity that
! their ancestors were the poor, pitiful vic
Tins of prejudice and race-hatred


At another point scarcely less vital
than the one l have referred to the Re
publican party is still far short of what
it should be. The sole office of civil gov
ernment is to protect person and prop
erty. But these are not protected where
there is the dramshop. The sum of all
other perils to person and property is less
| than those incurred from the dramshop.
| Nevertheless, Government is so unfaith-
full to its office, to suffer the existence
and endless multiplications of these man
| ufactorles of madmen, incendiaries and
murderers. 1T was not to be expected
that the Democratic party would make
war upon these manufactures That
party is itself on the low moral plane of
the dramshop, and looks there, more than
| in all othar HiraotiopS for
we had the right to expect that party
! beginning its existence on ground so
| high as that from which the Republican
| party started, and with all the inspira-
! tions of its professed justice and humani-
! ty would have availed itself of its large
maiorities and control of the sentiment
to put an end to this infamous and infer
nal retailing of liquors to be drank on
the premises" We ask nothing at the
hands of Government in the name of
| temperance-for we admit that Govern
ment is simply brute force, which owes
nothing to any moral reform. But in the
name of protection we demand from it
| the suppression of the dramshop. Nor
even this would we demand were not the
evils of dram-selling too great to be en-
dured and too mighty to be removed by
moral influence. 1t is only the protec-
| ton that is indispensable and that we
| cannot have otherwise, which we call on
| Government for. Whatever else than
dram-selling is connected with and pro-
| motive of intemperance we will be able
to get along without calling for help on
the Hercules of Government.


Why is it that duty so PLAIN as the
shutting up of the dramshop has not
been discharged by the Republican
party2 In the first place, it has feared
that it would thereby reduce its popular
ity and its votes. 1t has lacked faith in
its power to convert men to the right by
its own example of the right. The hand
full of the abolitionists by their persist
ency in the mighty right, succeeded in
converting tle nation. Truth fails of
success only when its advocates fail to
trust it. In the second place the Repub-
lican party has been confused and en-
barrassed by the extravagant claims
which the great body of the temperance
men make upon the Government shall
take the cause of temperance in hand


remove all hindrances from its way, and
crown it with success. The lines, which
so distinctly separate the coercion of Gov
ernment from the liberties of the indi-
and, instead of contenting themselves
with the merely incidental but neverlhe-
less all sufficient aid ofa faithfully-protec-
tive Government, they would so far with
draw their cause from the realm of moral
influences as to leave it to be the direct
interest and work of Government AS
vain, however, as illegitimate would be
all the working of Government for the
of Government, and with all due acknowl-
cd duamant Of that ipdiyiduol freedom