Year: 1867

stain upon its record of leaving you after
two centuries of slavery without houses,
without lands and without opportunity. l
firmly believe that in the near future it will
be demanded of the American. Congress to
provide means by which you may make con-
tracts for cheap lands, and purchase them
with your labor. This will be just but ex-
pect no more. Nothing is so worthless to q
man as that which he gets for nothing
Confiscation and gift to you would, in my
opinion, be the greatest injury which could
be done you. That which you henceforth
earn by the sweat of your brow will be sloue
of service to you. You have lost too much
by slavery ever to regain it all in the short
remainder of your lives. You have seen the
promised land only from afar. Your children
will walk in the midst of it, and enjoy the
full measure of its abundance. You must
console yourselves with hope for your pos
terity. There is no more doubt than that
the sun shone to-day in heaven that those
children of yours, now in the humble Freed
mans Schools of North Carolina, will one
day sit in the Legislative halls of North
Carolina, and the nation. When that comes
to pass Republicanism will be a success the
black man will be success.


To the citizens at large, of North Carolina,
I desire to say, that secession and treason in
this nation is dead; dead forever; dead be-
yond the hope and shadow of resurrection.


Loyalty to the Republic, and loyalty to
the Union, must henceforth be the glory of
American citizenship.


1t is useless to kick against the goads.
Civilization wills it. The sublime principles
OF the equal rights of all men are becoming,
throughout the civilized world, the control
ling influence in human governments. These
principles do not pertain more to the North
than to the South. They are creeping alike
over the frozen plains of Russia and down
the sunny slopes of Italy. They do not be-
long to any country, race or order Of men.
They belong to the world and all men,
They are as universal as the desire for light
and freedom.


In Germany and France three millions are
demanding these rights. Long ago, amid
the seething terrors of that revolution for
French liberty; that revolution which sprung
backward upon the ages of tyranny, which
had oppressed S0,000,000 of people, it was
proposed in the Convention of the people
that all men being equal before the law, titles
of nobility should be abolished. A Conser-
vative arose and asked what then must be
said of man of whom it has been said he
was created Count for serving the State 2"
The great Lafayette arose and replied:
would omit the words he was created o
Count, and say only that he had served the
State"


This is becoming the doctrine of honorable
citizenship for the world-that 1t does not
consist OF wealth and titles, and should there
fore exist by manhood, by worth, and work,
put upon the stage, in which there is repre-
sented, in the person and history of a single
man, the successive stages of crime. You
follow him from one scene to another as he
descends all the winding steps of infamy
on the last you see him ragged and torn,
emaciated with dissipation, his eyes starting
from their sockets from some horror that
pursues him. Far away in the distance you
hear the hum and awful clamor of thousand
voices. They come nearer and nearer. The
voice grows louder, hoarser and more terri
BILE, until there leaps upon the stage the out


ragged populace pursuing their victim, the
murderer They are headed and led by the
public executioner, who does his work ol
death. ~


Such is The clamor that England hears to


day, down in midst of the nation. It is the
cry of the oppressed and unrepresented mill


ions, who for thousand years have yielded


vainly their rights and have been ruined


They will wait no longer. To avoid disso


luton at the hands of the people, the Englisl


nation must confer upon them the rights o


men.


| Such was the awful clamor which, sever


years ago, sprung up under the feet of thi


nation, driving us into irrepressible conflict


into the blood and horrors of revolution


That revolution was from an aristocrisy to


democracy.


Here in the South, your system of educa


ton, society and government has been aris


tocratic and not democratic-has been 70


the few, and not for the many. A syster


which has made the poor man poorel


and the rich man richer-the poor ma


ignorant, and the rich man educated. Her


YOU have had The notion that learning wa


not only for one color, but for one class. Th


rich man owned land, despised labor an
carried pistols to defend what he called hi


honor. The black men were slaves, the poe


white men were serfs, more degraded tha


slaves, because they were under the delusio


that they were free. What was the result q


all this Injustice Simply, that in countr


three times as large as the North, as rich j


soil, more beautiful in climate, with unlin


tied resources of wealth, you had only on


third the population, and one twentieth th


wealth.


Why, fellow-citizcns, coming among 20


from the North, your country appears to m
| 4 - ton,
; the merest hamlets by Northern road sid'
You called our laborers mudsills, but the


mudsills were better than your houses.
. In single Northern State we have thir
|, of your population, and almost halt of you
wealth, and more schools than in the whol
South. For we have notion there that
, is not wealth, but brains and character ths
, make the gentleman. We have q MOTTO
there that that which you have called bloc


and high tone down here, can be manufa
, tured, SO we have put every boy and girl
school and manufactured men and wOme
who need no inheritance Of slaves and re
, estate to make them high-toned Ccmpa
{ and see what must be the prosperity Of eyel
] kind in country like that, contrasted vii
D | one like this. There cities, towns, village
. farm houses and public Improvements COW
| every part of the country. There almo
. every man gives his time to steady and no
orable employment, which enables him
have comfortable home and respectful
. DRESS Here you have in the richest count
3 under Heaven, woods and wildernesses. hu
and insignificant by-places, and men wi
f ragged dress and torn hats sitting upon Il
, fences with shot guns, looking like sssassir
e Fellow-citizens, do not draw this col
| parison between the two sections invidious
. not because as Northern man I desire
: boast of the North and disparage the Soui
4 Being an American, / trust that my heart