National interest and national duty, if elsewhere separated, are firmly united here. Look across the sea. For better or for worse, (as in some of the old marriage ceremonies,) the negroes are evidently a permanent part of the American population. A nation might well hesitate before the temptation to betray its allies. Loyalty is hardly safe with traitors. For better or for worse, (as in some of the old marriage ceremonies,) the negroes are evidently a permanent part of the American population. National interest and national duty, if elsewhere separated, are firmly united here. It is nothing against this reasoning that all men who vote are not good men or good citizens. An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage "Statesmen, beware what you do. The fundamental and unanswerable argument in favor of the enfranchisement of the negro is found in the undisputed fact of his manhood. 5 0 obj Disfranchise them, and the mark of Cain is set upon them less mercifully than upon the first murderer, for no man was to hurt him. It is true that they fought side by side in the loyal cause with our gallant and patriotic white soldiers, and that, but for their help, divided as the loyal States were, the Rebels might have succeeded in breaking up the Union, thereby entailing border wars and troubles of unknown duration and incalculable calamity. The destiny of unborn and unnumbered generations is in your hands. Exclude the negroes as a class from political rightsteach them that the high and manly privilege of suffrage is to be enjoyed by white citizens only, that they may bear the burdens of the state, but that they are to have no part in its direction or its honors, and you at once deprive them of one of the main incentives to manly character and patriotic devotion to the interests of the government; in a word, you stamp them as a degraded caste, you teach them to despise themselves, and all others to despise them. As a nation, we cannot afford to have amongst us either this indifference and stupidity, or that burning sense of wrong. Women's rights, - Nations, not less than individuals, reap as they sow. Frederick Douglass Papers: Speech, Article, and Book File, -1894; Speeches, Articles, and Other Writings Attributed to Frederick or Helen Pitts Douglass, 1881 to 1887; "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage," 1881. Nor can we afford to endure the moral blight which the existence of a degraded and hated class must necessarily inflict upon any people among whom such a class may exist. Weve gathered dozens of the most important pieces from our archives on race and racism in America. Foreign countries abound with his agents. We asked the negroes to espouse our cause, to be our friends, to fight for us and against their masters; and now, after they have done all that we asked them to do, helped us to conquer their masters, and thereby directed toward themselves the furious hate of the vanquished, it is proposed in some quarters to turn them over to the political control of the common enemy of the government and of the negro. It is true that, notwithstanding their alleged ignorance, they were wiser than their masters, and knew enough to be loyal, while those masters only knew enough to be rebels and traitors. Caption title. SURVEY. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . Something, too, might be said of national gratitude. The result is a war of races, and the annihilation of all proper human relations. It must cease to recognize the old slave-masters as the only competent persons to rule the South. Write an essay in which you argue which claims represent the strongest support for ensuring African Americans' right to vote. We asked the negroes to espouse our cause, to be our friends, to fight for us, and against their masters; and now, after they have done all that we asked them to do,helped us to conquer their masters, and thereby directed toward themselves the furious hate of the vanquished,it is proposed in some quarters to turn them over to the political control of the common enemy of the government and of the negro. Nations, not less than individuals, reap as they sow. An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage - The Atlantic It is true that, in many of the rebellious States, they were almost the only reliable friends the nation had throughout the whole tremendous war. an appeal to congress for impartial suffrage .docx - Course Hero It is nothing against this reasoning that all men who vote are not good men or good citizens. endobj They now stand before Congress and the country, not complaining of the past, but simply asking for a better future. High School US History Reading - Slavery's Last Gasp What, then, is the work before Congress? (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906--Correspondence, - The principle of slavery, which they tolerated under the erroneous impression that it would soon die out, became at last the dominant principle and power at the South. the king of England. 20072023 Blackpast.org.
o " It is enough that the possession and exercise of the elective franchise is in itself an appeal to the nobler elements of manhood, and imposes education as essential to the safety of society. The South does not now ask for slavery. The answers to these questions are too obvious to require statement. It is nothing against this reasoning that all men who vote are not good men or good citizens. There is but one safe and constitutional way to banish that mischievous hope from the South, and that is by lifting the laborer beyond the unfriendly political designs of his former master. It may be "traced like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood." Enfranchise them, and they become self-respecting and country-loving citizens. And does not the Emperor of Russia act wisely, as well as generously, when he not only breaks up the bondage of the serf, but extends him all the advantages of Russian citizenship? African Americans--Washington (D.C.), - It was a war of the rich against the poor. Though the battle is for the present lost, the hope of gaining this object still exists, and pervades the whole South with a feverish excitement. For better or for worse, (as in some of the old marriage ceremonies,) the negroes are evidently a permanent part of the American population. As you members of the Thirty-ninth Congress decide, will the country be peaceful, united, and happy, or troubled, divided, and miserable. Foreign countries abound with his agents. The spectacle of these dusky millions thus imploring, not demanding, is touching; and if American statesmen could be moved by a simple appeal to the nobler elements of human nature, if they had not fallen, seemingly, into the incurable habit of weighing and measuring every proposition of reform by some standard of profit and loss, doing wrong from choice, and right only from necessity or some urgent demand of human selfishness, it would be enough to plead for the negroes on the score of past services and sufferings. Though the battle is for the present lost, the hope of gaining this object still exists, and pervades the whole South with a feverish excitement. Sprague, Rosetta Douglass--Correspondence, - An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage by Frederick Douglass An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage was published in the Atlantic Monthly, Issue 19, January 1867, pp. An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage - American Literature But upon none of these things is reliance placed. To make peace with our enemies is all well enough; but to prefer our enemies and sacrifice our friends, to exalt our enemies and cast down our friends, to clothe our enemies, who sought the destruction of the government, with all political power, and leave our friends powerless in their hands, is an act which need not be characterized here. Is the present movement in England in favor of manhood suffragefor the purpose of bringing four millions of British subjects into full sympathy and co-operation with the British governmenta wise and humane movement, or otherwise? Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 1841-1898--Correspondence, - It will swallow all the unconstitutional test oaths, repeal all the ordinances of Secession, repudiate the Rebel debt, promise to pay the debt incurred in conquering its people, pass all the constitutional amendments, if only it can have the negro left under its political control. But this mark of inferiority--all the more palpable because of a difference of color--not only dooms the negro to be a vagabond, but makes him the prey of insult and outrage everywhere. He is a man, and by every fact and argument by which any man can sustain his right to vote, the negro can sustain his right equally. They fought the government, not because they hated the government as such, but because they found it, as they thought, in the way between them and their one grand purpose of rendering permanent and indestructible their authority and power over the Southern laborer. Freedom of speech and of the press it slowly but successfully banished from the South, dictated its own code of honor and manners to the nation, brandished the bludgeon and the bowie-knife over Congressional debate, sapped the foundations of loyalty, dried up the springs of patriotism, blotted out the testimonies of the fathers against oppression, padlocked the pulpit, expelled liberty from its literature, invented nonsensical theories about master-races and slave-races of men, and in due season produced a Rebellion fierce, foul, and bloody. But of this let nothing be said in this place. Page includes two illustrations showing African Americans celebrating the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C. and portrait of Henry A. Smythe, newly appointed Collector of Customs of New York; also includes articles http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/ms000009.mss11879.00602, View Frederick Douglass Papers Finding Aid, Frederick Douglass Papers: Speech, Article, and Book File, 1846 to 1894; Speeches, Articles, and Other Writings Attributed to Frederick or Helen Pitts Douglass, 1881 to 1887, Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress. endobj Peace to the country has literally meant war to the loyal men of the South, white and black; and negro suffrage is the measure to arrest and put an end to that dreadful strife. the members of congress. National interest and national duty, if elsewhere separated, are firmly united here. It comes now in shape of a denial of political rights to four million loyal colored people. The new wine must be put into new bottles. It will tell how they forded and swam rivers, with what consummate address they evaded the sharp-eyed Rebel pickets, how they toiled in the darkness of night through the tangled marshes of briers and thorns, barefooted and weary, running the risk of losing their lives, to warn our generals of Rebel schemes to surprise and destroy our loyal army. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. To appreciate the full force of this argument, it must be observed, that disfranchisement in a republican government based upon the idea of human equality and universal suffrage, is a very different thing from disfranchisement in governments based upon the idea of the divine right of kings, or the entire subjugation of the masses. Masses of men can take care of themselves. These sable millions are too powerful to be allowed to remain either indifferent or discontented. %PDF-1.4 It is to save the people of the South from themselves, and the nation from detriment on their account.
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