Year: 1872

their and our misfortune. They are misled,


and we are illuminated in their ears.


| have been repeatedly asked to contradict


assertions that have been a negro trader


Even on my way to this place, one quadroon
| girl on hearing me speak, said: ST would like
| to stick knife into his heart. He sold my


mother. in Richmond, Virginia" Laugh
ter.1 l can imagine no reason why lies like
that should be told. | can imagine no reason
why good men and women should not every
where discountenance and refute them.
1t is, say, the misfortune of the colored
people-a misfortune of our people-that they
as class are steeled against Us. They will not


hear u.s.. they do not believe us. They are told
that this movement is a contrivance to get
them enslaved again, virtually, if not absolute


y, and that all the pretensions of the Cincin-
natl platform and the Baltimore endorsement
in favor OF equal rights are frauds, are lies
IF this party succeeds" says Mr.. Wendell
Phillips, you must conceal your property and
take care OF your wives"


Now, tellow-citizens, / state these facts here,
not that would have you think any worse of
these misguided people. / state them because
Iwant you kentuckians to realize that igno-
rance is public peril-that you cannot we'll af-
ford to have part of your people growing up in
that dense unacquaintance with public men and
public affairs that they can be deceived and
misled as this people are. You must take care
that they shall be educated so that they shall
be too wise, two we'll informed to be thus mis-
informed and misguided.


{ Fellow-citizens, if our movement should pre-
vail, as trust it will prevail, we will sweep
away all this refuse of lies in three MONTHS
We will say to the colored men, we proferyou
nothing except the protection of the laws, the
same for you as for us. You have your living
to earn as well as we. You will have to use
faculties, and make the most of them you can.
The laws do not favor you, but they will thor
oughly protect you, and In three months, if we
succeed, the colored people will be so disa-
bused that the same men can never deceive
them again, never again.


But suppose we fail, aud we may fail. IF
the colored men did not believe that the power
was against US, that money was against us; if
they did not realize that the treasury, the ar
my, the 10000 Office holders were all banded
against US, la force which they believe We can
not overcome, they certainly would not be so
universally hostile to us. Why, they think we
winning side. That is part Of it, but they are
also deluded in regard to our purposes


We say We are not your enemies, we will not
be your oppressors, we will not, though you
have done us an injustice; we will try as well
as we can to have your children educated and
enlightened, so as that the mistakes you have
made cannot be made over and over again.
That is where we stand


1t is not for the sake of the prescribed alone
that speak. Every community has the right
to the best services of all its citizens. Men
say to me, "Why, yeu don't want to elect
Toombs, or somebody else, do you?'' No, I
don't want to elect auy Of these men, but sup
pose the people do. But are you and am /
to say whether they shall or not2 1t is not
question for me, but whether American citi-
zens, whom you say have the same rights to
vote and hold Office for you shall be at liberty
to vote for men they prefer, or shall be COM
pelled to vote for men you prefer.


80 long as you have prescribed class in the
country, men all around them, honorable, gen.
erous men, will feel l ought to be prescribed
the same as that man. The difference wason-
ly by accident. He happened to take an oath
or I'LL an office before the struggle that did
not. Ills guilt was no more than mine. Ac-
cldent only makes him prescribed and leaves
me free. So that so long as there shall be a
prescribed class in this country, prescription
will rankle in the hearts of millions of Ameri-
cans who feel that they themselves are con-
demned and banned in the act which doomed
their leaders


Now, tellow-citizens why do we condemn
proscription2 They are mistaken who say
there are only two or three hundred left now,
forbidden to exercise the common rights of
American citizens. 1t is not so There are
thousands. There are 5000 disfranchised in
the State of, Arkansas alone and the men who
hold them disfranohised expect to carry that
State against us by virtue of that disfranchise-
ment But it is not the number of prescribed
men who, as not under this ban, feel them
selves prescribed because others are for an Of
Tense which was their offense as well.


The question reaches not several hundreds
but several millions of our people. Well, they
say, what do the people care about this. The
banks are making money, the people are pros
pering, manufacturers are thrifty, who cares
that few hundred or thousand men are dis
tranchlsed? / care. | say war which ended
nearly eight years ago ought to have had near
ly all its bloody traces wiped out before this
time. Applause


I say that while we have often been amused
with promises of general amnesty, the govern
ment of the country has practically been con-
trolled by men like Senators Morton and Chan
dler, and General Butler, one of which Sena-
tors is saying: "Well then all may forgive
rebels if they will, but | never can" Now
that spirit is not one which should rule a re-
publican country. A republican should be
generous and faithful, generous to errors where
of the very last evil consequences have long
since faded away.


Grant that it was wrong, indefensibly wrong
grant that the whole Confederate movement
was as heinous as you please, still it was utter
ly defeated. 1t became lost cause and there
is no more probability, and [ may say no more
possibility of another serious attempt to divide
the American Union than there is Of an at
tempt to disrupt and destroy the solar system.
Never before did the Union stand so strong as
to-day. Never was Its future so assured as to-
day and never did any movement result in
more complete and utter discontinue than the
Confederate movement. Then | say, seven
and half years after the last shot was fired in
behalf of that movement, it is time for amnes-
ty complete and perfect; it is time for oblivion
of ofenses that SO long since passed away.


Fellow-cltlzens, we stand on the principle
embodied in our platform. Those principles
our adyersaries do not assail They confess
judgment, but they insinuate that purpose is
therein declared which is not our real purpose,
and that we mean something utterly different,
and therefore proceed to attribute to us pur-
poses which we never cherished, which we DOS
itively disavow and which they ought to know
arc utterly absurd. The most important of
them are utterly forbidden by the constitution
and they know it. No man can 20 to Congress
or be chosen President without taking solemn
oath to sustain the constitution, which abso-
lutely forbids the payment of rebel debts or
payment for emancipated slaves.


I commend my case to the sober judgment
of the American people. l ask them to judge
us without prejudice, without passion and with
spirit uninfamed by wrath and vengeance