Year: 1872

| lCusbouI-Houso onlCtT. vi DdIGlHOFe, 70 T1On
Henry Stockbridge, chairman of the Baltimore
delegation to the late Republican convention.
returning thanks for the homer conferred by
placing his name on the Grant electoral ticket
for Maryland, and declining the same:


BALTIMORE. July 8, 1872


Hon. Henry Stockbridge, Chairman Balti-
more City Delegation to the Republican Con-
ventOn.


SIR: Please accept for yourself and col
leagues from the fourth congressional district
to late convention of April oath. 1872, my CRATE
full thanks for the conspicuous honor conferred
by placing my name on the Grant electoral
ticket, and the assurance of my kindly appre-
citation of this and other marks of confidence
during my participation in the politics of my
native State.


A profound sense of duty to my race and the
demands of an unselish patriOtism-superiOr
to mere partisan requirements-compel me to
decline the honor and sever my connection
with the Grant wing of the Republican party.


entertain the hope that at 20 distant day
colored men, as American citizens, will rise
superior to the apparent seltishness of their
past political action-which has too often been
characterized by adhesion to men instead of
devotion to priRciples-and that they will fully
comprehend the sacredness of the ballot and
the higher duties of citizenship.


1t is but natural that, in the past. colOred
voters should have been consolidated within
the ranks of that party through whose instru-
mentality their rights were in'part secured,
particularly when the party was itself unit,
and the rights of the colored citizen made
political issue. But now, when some of the
best men and brightest spirits of that party de-
cline to act with it and join with other citizens
in the formation of newer and better party,
with more advanced and more practical ideas;
within whose ranks the rights of all men are
assured-lt is an open question whether the
liberal Republican party is not after all, the
true Republican party of the country.
Now that all men, of whatever creed or po-
| litical opinion, "accept the situation" recog-
nlZe the rights of all men and guarantee their
maintenance, it is but fair to suppose that the
| time is really come to permit g the dead past
to bury its dead" and for all voters to "come
up to that comprehensive platform which,
while recognizing the equity of equal rights,
gives promise of perpetual peace and prosper
ity to the whole country.


| In the coming presidential campaign it is of
the last Importance that colored men cast off
the letters of political vasSalage, ignore the
tyranny of a false and vicious party discipline.
and, like all other men, exercise their political
franchise according to the dictates Of an enlight-
ened and untrammeled Judgment.


/ Even were it possible for me to remain on
your ticket, could not approve and abet the
btterand continued factl0nal warfare for which
the Grant party in Maryland is remarkable,
and which Is a dominant characteristic of that
party in every State in the Union. Neither
would l. on any consideration, lend myself to
the baselv ungrateful task of villifying and
bounding lifelong friends of human liberty and
of equal rights, who, by their labors and sacri-
fees, through a period of more than a quarter
of a century, have made it possible for men of
my race TO enjoy the privileges of American
citizenship.


have read carefully that elaborate compila-
ton Of indefinite promise of the Philadelphia
platform, and beg to suggest that if after more
than eleven years of supremacy, and nearly
four years of absolute control of every depart.
mert of the government, it is deemed wise to
be SO prolific in platform declaration, it is just
possible that four years longer lease of power
will be inadequate to the full performance off
the stupPndous task marked out for the party |
at Philadelphia.


That complete and exact equality in the en-
joyment of al civil, political and public rights,
without discrimination on account of race,
creed, color or previous condition of servitude,
of which the Philadelphia convention gives as
surance. is no doubt intended as q balm for the |
colored voters of the country, and is supposed
to have great healing influence. though Re-
publican Congress, in utter contempt of this
and other promises made at Philadelphia, ad-
lourns and makes no sign.


If this convention was the concentrated voice i
OF the Republican party, speaking authorlta-
lively for President, Congress and people, it is
incomprehensible why some of those platform
sentiments were not at once crystaZed into
federal statute provisions


/ do not question the wisdom of this eminent
ly capable and respectable body, nor do | doubt
the sincerity of these declarations; but cannot
lose sight of the fact that it is perilous in the
extreme to entrust these vital measures to 9TH |
er and future Congresses, which may not. in
the eternal fitness of things, be in consonance
with the Philadelphia convention.


[ dissent, also from the doctrine enunciated
that the enforcement of the appropriate legis-
lation made by the recent amendment to the
national constitution ''can be only trusted" to
The Grant Administration.


IF the tenure of American citizenship de-
pends upon the success of any political party,
and is necessarily jeopardized upon the period
ical return of each Yational political contest,
then that exalted right is more honorary than
honorable, and instead of being an object OF
just patriotic pride, would be boon unsought,
and often despised when secured Of course |
differ widely from these absurd premises-so
antagonistic to the genius of our Institutions
and hold that the exercise of the rights and the
enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship by
the colored people of the country depend not