Year: 1870

ton it secures. / have watched
with a full heart the thousands who
have thronged the streets to-day,
men and women most Of them J, in
whose veins the blood of that race,
accursed for near u century, is flow


ing; l have watched the play of
their features l have studied the
intonations of their voices, and ]


have tried to catch from them some


thing of the joy they feel to know
that the shadows have drifted from
about their people, and that the
clouds no more darken their habita-
ton. Applause. am powerless
to realize as they do the mighty
march Of the last decade. Think of
it. In this great city, where, ten
years ago, slavery with naughty
crest swept in and out, now free
dom, with majestic tread, walks to
and fro. see before me a vast as
sembly, who, awhile ago, were chat
tells; now they are free as I am
near me sits q man, now the second
officer Of this great commonwealth,
who, but little while ago, with
troubled look, passed up and down,
an outcast in this the city of his
birth. Go to our halls Of legisla-
ton. See black and white working
| together for the common good );
visit the nations Capitol; look in
upon the Senate, and the dusky
face Of Hiram Revels greets you.
Applause Go where you viii in
this broad land, and no { an of race
confronts you. The 18th Amend
ment. thank God, knows no North,
no South, no East, no West, no
race, no color; k ows nothing but
manhood absolute. Great APP
plause. Verify the hand Of God
worketh wonders the strong and
mighty are cast down, and the chill
dren of toll and sorrow are lifted
up in exalted places. All that
4 America can do politically for the
black race has been done In their
own hands their future lies. AS
they choose, it will be good or evil.
For one, / have no fear that they
will not come up to the highest
hopes and wishes of the great party
who have been their firm and stead
fast friends through years of fiery
trials. One act alone is necessary
upon the side of freedoms party to
hand its name down to the latest
generations of the world; to stamp
it in all coming time as the best and
wisest political party that ever con-
trolled the destiny of a great ma
ton. Now that the war is over,
now that not only what we started
out to accomplish, but much more
has been achieved, I hold it to be
the high privilege, the solemn duty
of this government, to open wide
its arms and gather every errins
child within them. Applause.
Side by side with the proclamation
of the Fifteenth Amendment I want
to see a proclamation of universal
amnesty. | want the two with
clasped hands to walk down the
centuries, living and eternal witne S.
es of the justice and mercy of Amer
lea. Applause. 1t seems to ne
the people Of this Southern lend
have had full and ample punish
ment for the wrongs they have
committed. Knowing, as 1 do, full
well, the awful woe and sorrow that
the war created in the North, l can
fully understand that grief rests in
almost every household of the
South. To the sadness of private
sorrow for the people Of the South
is added one thing tue North has
never wn-the bitterness of de


feat. The North lost well nigh half
a million of her sons, but she never
saw, as have the people of the South,
her form of government destroyed,
the banners of her armies swept
away In the whirlwind of defeat, all
the high positions of her section
filed with strangers. Some may
say the South deserved all that has
come upon her; suppose she has,
why still 60 further and press the
iron still deeper into souls already
smarting under untold SORROWS
Why say TO some two hundred
thousand men, you shall have no
rights in his Government go forth
with the mark Of Cain upon your
foreheads ? Did you ever think, my
friends, what a sad thing it is to
have no country; to look in vain
among all the banners of the nations
and find no one to call your own
to wander up and down the earth
and have no spot upon the map to
call your country; to lay your wife
and children away in ground to
which you have no title? 1t can
not be that this great nation will
long permit any of her children no
matter how much they may have
erred) to be homeless, friendless,
powerless in the land where they
first saw the light of day. When
the South stood up in conflict, when
her borders were alive with steel


and all her valleys grey with the
smoke of cannon, l believed in
striking blows quick and strong
believed in pushing to destruction
but now when no armies confront
US, when no sound of war disturbs
the air Of heaven, / do not believe
in striking angry blows upon some
few hundred thousand men power
less to return them.


THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.
| TbniIE:n1 AJue n},,noc or a n;uoy