Year: 1867

mongst the colored people, have ex
pressed desire to hear my views on
public affairs. am here to-day to
comply with their request, and am
glad to see both races represented in
my audience, for J have no arguments
for the one that cannot he properly ad.
dressed to the other. Your rights and
duties are mutual, and the sooner YOU
understand them the better for both.


This is novel scene in Rockingham.
You who were lately slaves, and you
who were lately owned them, are here
to day, equals before the law, inquiring
as to the best policy for governing your
common country. How has all this
happened?


1t is the result of certain causes,
which were intended to produce an en-
tirely different state of things.


The politicians of the cotton States
had for long time contended that cot
ton was king, and that if they could
divide the Union and separate the South
ern from the Nouthern States, they
could build up the richest and must
powerful government on earth, upon
the foundation of slavery.


In 1860, and 81 they had succeeded
in firing the Southern heart, to an ex-
tent that enabled them to precipitate a
rebellion, which has worked out results
a little different from their programme.


In the first place we did not exactly
get out of the Union, though I confess
it is soHtewhat difficult to define pre-
cisely where we are. Of one thing
am sure, some of us are trying to get
back. In the next place, instead of
perpetuating and extending slavery, it
is dead forever, and you are here to-day.
with more powers and privileges than
your most zealous and sanguine friends
ever expected to be able to confer upon
you.


At first the contest on the part of the
North was for the Union, and if Jeffer-
son Davis had surrendered at any time
during the first two years of the war,
you would in all probability have re-
manned slaves.-You are under no obi
cations to the secessionists for your
freedom, although they were instru-
ments in accomplishing it, for they in
tended just the reverse. And although
the Republican party, who conducted
the government during and since the
war, have proved themselves to be your
best friends. still at the outset they had
no idea of being able to set you free.


True, a party at the North have for
many years, through much tribulation,
opposed the princip pie of slavery, and
have fought hard to keep it out of the
territories, and to abolish it in the Dis
trict of Columbia, and generally to al
leviate its rigors and hardships, but
even this gallant band of pioneers, in
the army Of freedom, never proposed to
invade it in the States where it existed,
and no party in this country ever grasp
ed and comprehended the grand idea of
universal freedom until the necessities
of the war prompted President Lincoln
to issue a proclamation, which will Sc
cure for his name a place in history Sc
cond to none.


So it seems that the nation was led
up to this point without having set out
TO attain it.


To whom then are you indebted for
freedom -? To him Gin whose hands is
power and might" cit is not in man
that walketh to direct his steps,
''Man's goings are of the Lord"


You are freemen and citizens of the
greatest government on earth, clothed
with power to protect that freedom,
and if you use it Alright and not abuse
it, the government is on higher road
of prosperity to-day than any she has
ever vet travelled. For whatever may
have been said in other days, it will
hardly be pretended in the light of
present events, that freemen, animated
by all the hopes of life, and knowing
that their wives and children will enjoy
the proceeds of their labor, will not
develop the resources of a country
faster than slaves, who have no objects
or aims in life, and no incentive to Ia
Dor, save fear.


If any portion of my audience have
not surrendered old prejudices on this
subject, let me inquire of them, why
have the Northern States, with poor
er soil and colder climate, so far sur
passed their Southern sisters Why do
the bleak and naturally barren hills of
New England bloom like gardens,
while your fertile and sunny slopes are
covered with broom sedge, and are
commonly and properly described as
cold field''? Why do churches, school
houses, railroads, canals, steam boats,
factories, work shops, cities, towns,
beautiful villages and neat farm houses
exist and flourish there, while poverty
and pride surround us here? The one
is the result of free labor, the other of
slavery, which has been blight and
mildew upon every land it ever touched.


Educated labor and machinary are
what we now need, to make this coun-
try what it should be. Heretofore we
have not used the most improved i'm
plements of farming, but have content
ed ourselves to drudge along with the
rudest and must awkward tools. Those
who have experimental with reapers,
and other labor saving machines, have
thrown the ruder tools aside, alleging
various objections, but the truth is they
did not know how to operate with
them, and when the least part was bro
ken or out of order it could not be re-
paired this side of Yankee land. To
remedy this we must at once educate