VOLUME 2.
The Safeguards of Personal Liberty
BY HON. WM. D. KELLE.Y.
Ladies AND GKNTLEMKN :
The presence of W<ri» an audience ns
this in this heated term is unmistakable
proof of the interest the people of Phil
adelphia take in the subject pioposed to
be discussed this eveqiog—"The Safe
guards of Personal Liberty." Certainly
110 voice familiar as mine is to tlie people
of Philadelphia could, under ordinary cir
•cumstances, have attiacted such an audi
ence ill such ii season It is well that the
jicople are awake to the importance of this
subject, for our generation stands con
fronting the great problem of the just or-,
of Government for a million
of ityuarc miles of territory aud lor count
less hundreds of millions of happy or
miserable people.
'1 he Emperor of the French opens his
biography of Caesar with t+tut brief sen
touce from Montesquieu, which every
American should read and ponder, atid
accept as a governing maxim iu tlicse
times :- U lu the bivth of societies it is
the chiefs of thu republio# who form the
institution, and iu the sequel it is the iu, ,
stitution which forms the chiefs ot the
republic." It is for us, the existing gen
eration; it is for us, perhaps, before the
next bills ol mortality shall be footed up,
lo determine what shall be the character
,of tho political institutions of the broad
territory I have indicated. We arc to
.determine whether they shall be malevo
lent or beueficcnt, —we, the people ot the
rotates of the Union, whose Governments
have not been disorganized or overthrown,
and whose presence has ever been to It 'in
<thc councils of tho nation. Ours is a
Government of co-ordinate departments,
and the people are the direct source of the
legislative department.
JVe have just closed a great war, —a
war, the magnitude of which has chang
ed the phraseology of history. When, aa
Americans, you read the phrase "'flic
Revolutionary War," you at onee recur to
the war of 177<». When, previously to
the recent fearful contest, you read tho
phrase "The Great Rebellion," you tho't
of the English Rebellion, and Clarondon
,and his chronicles; but when men shall
hereafter read of tho Great Rebellion,
tliey will forget that there was such an
-rtdaud us England, and think only of-that
.Rebellion which opened graves to nearly
a million of American soldiers, and which,
.cemented by the blood of the slain the
grandest fabric of Government ever giv
to man. lApphluso.) ,
Wo have closed this war gloriously.—
The graves of nearly half a million of
o*r brave soldiers attest the valor, patri
otism and endurance of tho unassuming
people {of tho North. The graves of
nearly as many Rebels certify in
tisgrec to the valor of the American peo
ple. Our position as a military power is
established. Throw together a statement
of the resources exhibited by tho North
and South, and lay it upon the table of a
.council of kings and emperors, and ask
them wliether with all tho power ai-d
wealth of Europe they can propose to put
upon the shores of America like results,
Mitul they will answer "No." have
demonstrate 1 to tho nations that the world
combined against us may not, by war, dis
turb essentially the currents of our life
(Applause.) Henceforth internal discord
is the sole cause of dread to tho Ameri
can statesman and people ; and we may
goon through centuries realizing tho Uto
pian drpams of More, if we will but be
true to the great principles that underlie
,our institutions and should regulate the
administration of opr Government.
liaving closed thin war thus satisfacto
rily, we are entering upon the threshold
of another —a war of ideas—which in
.volves all the consequences for which so
muchjblood and treasure beeu ex
pended. It is for us Jto say, peacefully,
•quietly, iu the balls of legislation, iuthc
Executive Chamber, from the
bench, and when tho people assemble in'
their majesty, to express fcy fho silent bal
ilot their opinions, whether we shall have
.tho full results of our sacrifices and
achievements; whether we, in our own
proper persous, shall enjoy them, or
whether they shall possibly never.be re
alized, or bo attained only by distaat gen
erations after long periods of strife and
agithtion, and, perhaps, of war. The con-
in which we are now engaged is more
difficult than that, frojj which we have
( thus come with banners streaming in glo- :
ry. Ourenefciy in that contest was knowu;
his uniform was of a different color from
that worn by. the national soldier; the
standard under wliich ho fought did not
bear the .Stars and which our
lathers knew aud which wecherish.—
We «aw that was armed with deadly
weapons, aud using -them for our destruc
tion. When he stealthily upon our
,£oil, it was to burn our Tillages. Some
AMERICAN CITIZEN.
doubted, but more believed, that his hand
was engaged in endeavors to fire our cit
ies, to disseminate pestilential disease, to
poison the fountain from which drinking
water flowed to the babe, the aged, the
sick. We knew that we were grappling
with a deadly enemy in strife,
and that it was a contest in which ov,e or
the other must conquer,—in which we
must vindicate our right to live aud gov
ern ourselves, or, with tho black rnau,
submit to Le governed by au oligarchy
that knew no law but his own will and
lusts.(Applause.)
The e r 'iomy with whom we now contend
is more subtle. Ilis purpose and weap
ons are concealed ; his strong fortre.-.ies
are in our own midst; his weapons are al
ready piercing oui hearts, a#d his chains
binding our limbs. enowy that we
are grappling with is pri'le of rgee, un
christian and anti-republican prejudice
(Hjaiiist all races of men sate our orn.
(Applause.) lie sits enthroned in our
Northern hearts. lie controls our action
every hour of the day in every street of
Philadelphia; and if we cannot couquer
him, we cannot maintain our own free
doto, or transmit the real safeguards of
personal liberty to our immediate poster
ity (Appliwse.) Tho struggle will be
fearful, if it ba true that ho that ftjileth
his spirit is better than he that taketh a
city.
"But," you ask, "what aro the safe
guards of personal liberty ?" Let me tell
you first what they are not, and, in doing
so, shock your settled convictions. I
know what worshipers of the comprom
ises of tho Constitution wo hav.c teen.—
I know how. in order to save tho Consti
tution and the Union, we have gone on
from 1820 to 1860, a period of forty years
abandoning etery principle we held dear,
abandoningour manhood, abandoning the
of our owja personal liberty.—
I know how cherished tho letter of th'c
Constitution is, and I do not mean to dis
parage its value as a frame of govern
ment when I say, broadly and with em
pnthis, that the safeguards of personal
liberty aro not found in laws and consti
tutions, —are not found ki legislative or
constitutional provisions. These in them
selves, as safeguards to personal liberty,
arc idle as the summer breeze or the fan
tasy of the fevered brain. Do you ask
me whether I mean to say that statesmen
and philosophers have been wrong in
claiming that it is important that consti
tutions should guarantee liberty, and that
laws should be wise, humane and preserv
ative of the rights of individuals ? No;
I mean to say that those givo expression
mcre.ly -to prevailing sentiment; that they
are the means by which you may occa
sionally enforco an invaded right, but
that they do' not guarantee tho .enjoyment
of >rights. Let mo, in the most familiar
way, illustrate the truth of these propo
sitions.
In eery State and every county of the
United States, there is a law against riot,
—a law enforced by peculiar penalties ;
for it punishes not only tho convicted ri
oter, but ulso the tax-paying people of a
city or county iu which a destructive riot
is permittee to occur. It not only requires
every citizen to abstain from acts of riot,
but if they seo a riot threatening, and
fail to rally to the assistance of the au
thorities, and prevent or suppress it, autl
blocks of stores be burned and millions
of dollars worth of property destroyed, it
taxes each and every one to reimburse the
sufferer. One might suppose, therefore,
(hat in no community would there be any
destruction of property by riot.
Hut constitutions are more sacred than
laws, and I turn to the Constitution of
the ,Unitpd States and those of every
State in the Union. willxemcmber
that they cherish and gaard as precious
abovo all things, savo human life, the
fraedom of speech and of the press, and
the right of tha people peaceably to as
semble, to discuss their grievances and
petition for redreas. "JUiis is not peculiar
to any State; it stands out prominent,
pre-eminent, in the Constitution of every
State. Again, wo find that the Constitu
tion of the i'nited States provides speci
fically that -'the citizens of each State
shall be entitled to nil the pryrilcges and
immunities of citizens iu the several
States." Lot me illustrate the import
ance of this proviso, And show how large
a personal interest ,every citizen of the
country has in the -republican character
of each State Government. We are all
ucw Pennsyluanians. We may have been
born in any other State of the Union 9r
in a foreign land; but if, having been bar.n
or naturalized in another, we have lived
in this State oue year with the intention
of making rt our residence, or if, having
been born in a foreign land, we have, af
ter five gears' residence, been Naturalized
here, we are tPennsylvanians. Yet. un
der the clause tf the Constitution of the
United States referred to, wo be, at
'' Let us have Faith that Right makes Might; and in that Faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it"— A - Lincoln
BUTLER, BUTLER COUNTY, PA., WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER \ 1865.
the end of ono or two yean, as may be
provided by tlie Constitutions of the re
spective States, each one a citizen of
some other State; that is, by virtue of ottr
citizenship here we have a right to emi
grate to any other ijtate, and, by the lapse
of the time (one or two years at most)
fixed by the Constitution of that State,
will be invested, not by specific act, but
by the mere lapse of tiuie, with citizen
ship in that State. And in the iuterim
we are constitutionally entitled to the ful
lost protection of its laws.
Now; let mo challenge your memories.
I nUaJI not attempt to startle you jrith any
new factj. I have not been exploring
classic or uociejot history for illustrations
of my views. lam going to appeal to
the recollections of this generation, and
to events that have happened within ge«-
eral notoriety and our own observation.—
I begin first with the city of Has ton. I
was there in that oeriod of transition
when passing from youth to mauhood.—-
A nativp of Philadelphia, I had gone
counter to the general current of Ameri
can emigration, and sought employment
in New England, instead of upop the
broad fields of the West.
I remember to have seen, while in that
city, a large assemblage of the wealthy,
intelligent un<l enterprising business men
of Bostqn, 1n front of a small printing of
fice. I saw them take down "by violence
the sign fron the frout of it, and direct
ly afterwards from the office a pale,
calm locking man ; and when they were
about to perpetrate violence upon him,
two rough men, in their shirt sleeves,
pressed through the throng of merchants
and other well-dressed gentlemen, and
carried hiin safely away. To wha; place?
To one of the public buildings near by,
—the ol ! State House. Some time af
terwards I saw a carriage drive up, the
police gather arousd, anil Thoodore Lay
man, the Mayor of tho city, with his bat
on of office, put that pale, thoughtful man,
William Lloyd Garrison—f(,ritwa« he—
into the carriage; and hurry to Leverett
Street jail, that its thick walls and iron
bars might protect hint Proiu a riotous
mob of intelligent ontcrprisiug, weal
thy people of Boston.
And what crime did they alleg<J against
him ? "Why, this man," said they, "will
think, and. still worse, will, in itCcord
-tincc with the Constitution of tho State
of Massachusetts and that of the United
States, say and print what he thinks,—
tho vile rascal.;" I witnessed the sight.
His only crime was that he stood by the
cardinal text and the underlying princi
ple uf tho Constitution of Massachusetts
and that of tho United States, an<J exer
cised a freeman's right to
and for thet ho went to prison; while tho
flagiant and well-known violaters of the
law wont peaceably home to dine.
But again. In that yoar, the sover
eign State of Georgia, by the deliberate
and unanimous action of both branches
of its Legislature, passed a bill, which
met tho approval ot the Governor of the
State; and i« printed in its statutes, offer
ing a reward of SSOOO to the man who
would bring the body ol that same Wil
liam Lloyd Garrison, dead or aliv,c, into
the State of Georgia. For what ? Be
cause he had ever violated a law of Geor
gia ? Not at all. lie had never been
there; ho hud .never been south of Balti
more. It was because in tho distant—
and, aceording to Southern doctrine, sov
ereign—State of Massachusetts, ho would
stand by the seminal principle of tho Con
stitution of tho States of Georgia and
Massachusetts apd the United States ol
America; in other words, he would viudi
cate the right of the citizen to think and
speak ireely. and the right of the people
to assemble peaceably and petition tor
redress of grievance. I dy not think
that William Lloyd Garrison,or the rights
he vindicated, found adequatesafeguards
in legal or constitutional provisions.
Let us come now to a period a little
later. In 1838, haviug met with an ac
cident which disabled me from the pursuit
of my business, I returned to Philadel
phia, to the land of William Peun, the
City of Brotherly Love. Let me remark,
my friends, in passing that as Americans
owing supreme allegiance to the Consti
tution of the United States, our highest
pride should be that we are Americans ;
but we are for the time being Pennsylva
nia's, uud as "one star differcth from
another in glory, and a citizen may feel
his cheek glow with pride or blanch with
shame as he reviews tho history of his
native State or that of his adoption. I,
as a Peuusylvanian, exult with all the
pridp of proudest manhood over some
chapters of Pennsylvania's history, while
there are others which I would, if it were
possible, wash out with tears of blood.
I came -back to Pennsylvauia, which
was tho first Stft«, kiagdom or empire
since time began that voluntarily, with
out remuneration and by deliberate legis-
lative jot, abolished human slavery,which
was then prosperous in its inidst. (Ap
plause.) Yes, to dear old Pennsylvania
belobgs the glory of having set tho world
at large the example of voluntary eman
cipation. Our revolutionary ancestors,
in 1780, whilo thero were yet, as it
proved, threo yearn of war before them,
aud whilo, so far as they knew, there
might be ten, provided for the abolition
of sla]«iy; and it was as President of the
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery, and on behalf of
tho people of our State, that Franklin, iu
1700,-~but a few months beforo his death,
—appearod at the bar «jf the first Cong
ress and presented a petition which em
bodied these earnest wortlo: —
"Your memorialists, particularly en
gaged iu attending to the distresses aris
ing from slavery, believe it to bo their
indispensable duty to p.esent this subjeet
to your notice. They have observed with
real satisfaction that many important and
salutary powers are vested in you for pro
moting the welfare and securing the bless
ings of liberty to the people of the United
States; and as they conceive that these
blessings ouji,lit rightfully to'fcc adminis
tered, without distinction of color, to ull
descriptions of people, so they indulge
themselves in the pleasing expectation,
that nothing which can bo done for the
relief of the unhappy objects of their care
witl be cither omit.t&J or delayed. From
a persuasion thot equul liberty teas oru/i
--nally the portion, and is still the birthright
of all men. and influenced by the strong
ties of humauity and the principles of
their institutions, your jnemorialists con-
O.ssj'e themselves bound to use all justi
fiable endeavors to loosen the bonds of
slavery and promote a general enjoyment
of the blessings of freedom. Under these
impressions, they earnestly entreat your
serious attention te the subjectof slavery;
that you will be pleased to countenance
the restoration of liberty to tnOse unhappy
men, who alone, in this land of freedom,
are degraded in perpetual bondage, and
who, amidst the genoral joy of surround
ing freemen, are groaning in sorvile sub
jection ; tft at you will promote mercy and
justice towards this distressed race, and,
that yon will stej) to the verge of the pow
er vetted in you for discouraging every
species of traffic in the .persons of o;jr
fellow men."
Ftoni these primitive dates till IS2O,
when, over her unanimous vote in both
(louses of Congress, the Missouri Com
promise waj; adopted, Pennsylvania stood
the foremost, or the foremost,
States of the country iu defence of all
the safeguards of persoual liberty.—
Though there be a sad intervening chap
ter iu her history, and though Pennsyl
vanians will always blush to remember
that James Buchanan was bom on the
soil of our State, she has not failed at
intervals since 1820 to assert, from time
to time, her right to her leading position.
It was David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania,
who, : n 1840, by reviving the Jefferson
proviso, reasserted her light; and I may
be permitted to say that it was an hum
ble sou of Pennsylvania who, in the last
Congress, claimed for her her just preco
deuce in recognizing the oquality of all
men before the law.
Rut to return from this digression In
1838, reuicmbaring the early and proud
rocord of Pennsylvania, I said, as I left
my friends in Boston, "I am going to a
State where constitutions are regarded
and laws obeyed, and where the people
may freely think aud speak. lam going
to my native city, where the people have
erected, aud are about to dedicate,to free
dom a glorious temple, in which the bold
est thiukers of tho laud may meet, and
in which the humblest people will be
instructed." I arrived duriug the week
iu whjch I'euu.sylvauia Hall was dedica
ted. I visited it. Anxious, perhaps, to
boast, vhen I went back, that I bad spo
kenjn such a hall, I raised my young
voice in what was doubtless a very feeble
attempt at eloquence. I also visited, iu
the building next to that hall, an humble"
looking building in the shadow of its
high walls, one whom I had loved from
my infancy, oue whom I had never known
to be in physical health, but wJbo had lain
for years a sainted woman, passing slowly
away, and showing how lovely age could
be as it glided calmly towards the grave,
—the solo surviving sister of my mother.
But one evening Rooking in that direction
I saw the heavens lurid, and heard, long
squares away from tho place, the howling
of men. I sought to reach the
spot, but iu vain. As I approached it, I
thought that the infernal region had
yielded its demons to earth, and that they
were showing how hideously they could
act The blaze sqesaed to reach the very
heavens; the stout walls seeotydto totter;
and around the raging conflagration the
Constitution-loving and law-abiding peo
ple of Philadelphia shouted discordant
songs of triumph, the key of the hall
having been handed over to the Mayor of
the pity, that tho act might appear to
receive the stamp of municipal authority.
How painfully was I thus taught that
.Constitutional provisions were not more
efficient in Philadelphia than in Boston
in guarding the personal rights of the
citizen.
Put lot us consider the other clause of
tho Constitution of the United States re
ferral to. A million of square miles of
fertile territory seems to mo to be a very*
goodly inheritance for a people; and the
territory lying south of the Potomac and
the Ohio, and west of the Mississippi,
claimed by the lata insurrectionary chiefs
embraces more t&an a million of square
nliles, and is tho most fertile region of our
country. The Constitution guarantees,
to each and all of you, and tQ all other
American men and women, the right to
citizenship on every foot of it.
It also guarantees iQ a]l the right to
communicate freely, by letter or other
wise, witi any friend or acquaintance re
siding anywhere on that million of square
miles of territory. Yet, my friends,have
I been able to travel in the Southern Staes
lately ? Let me aak you whether the
climate of Florida or of Texas or of South
Carolina would not liavo been fatally in
salubrious to me any day since 1856, had
I ventured there. (Laughter.) Now, 1
will not talk about Williajn Lloyd Uar
rison, because l#e was a "pestilent fellow;"
who was always insisting on Constitution
al rights, while I only did it occasionally,
wheu an election was coming oJT! (Laugh
tor.)
Was it not, for years before this Re
bellion broke out, dangerous for any Nor
thoru man to express, anywhero in the
South, the opiniou that it was a Christian
duty to do unto others as you would
have them do unto you? Did any cler
gyman, politician, statesman, or private
oitizeu, dare to say .on Southern steam
boat, in railroad car, or stage, thot he
disapproved of human slavery, because
under it you could not do unto others as
you would liavo them do unto you?—
Would not the political atmosphcro in
which he uttered such a sentiment havo
beeu dangerous to him ? In other words
no one of you coulij safely go ther.o car?
rying your mauhood with you. You had
toieave that behind whan you travelled
South. You might have your trunk and
clothing, and your bones, and the coating
of flesh that covers them, but you must
leave your manhood at home with your
wife and children, if you wished to re
turn. (Laughter and applause.) You
might have a copy of the Constitution of
the United States in every pocket of your
garments, and hold out that instrument
as you safeguard ; but you all know that
you wo«4d not have found it a very effi
cient protection.
Remember how it was in the case of
poor I'owers,the Irish-Philadelphia stone
mason. Having voted for Buchanan
and Florence in the First Congressional
District, lie was seeking employment,
and was recommended for work on the
State House at Columbia, South Caroli
na. He jjvent there, and had worked
three weeks he happened to drop
the remark that '"Slavery cut down the
wages of the white man and degraded
him, and that the white working man in
the South was regarded as little better
than a nigger!'' For this offenqo.he was
stripped to the belt, as a boxer would say,
and tied by the wrists ; a slave was put
on each side of him with a cowhide, and
he jj'xs flaggelatod till the blood streamed
to his slippers. He was then dressed
with tar aud sand, and -brought, by slow
stages, on an open truck, for nearly a
hundred miles, being detained in each
town for the gaze o> the multitude as a
"Northern Abolitionist." Rarely esca
ping with his life, he came back to .Phila
delphia. When thus treated, he pleaded
in his defenco the Constitution, —at least
he told me that he bad done so ; but Jie
found it no proteetion. His crime was
that he had assorted that a system of un
paid labor, applied to foar millions of
,pen, degraded every other laboring man
in the section of the country in which it
prevailed! You have read of gentle
girls decoyed from their New Kngland
homes into Southern families to act as
teachers, and erf their mails being scru
tanized, until finally some injudicious
friend sent them a copy of the New York
Tribune, or the Independent , with a
mon by Beeohcr, or, bolder still, and
more indiscreet, the Anti-Slavery Stan
dard, or the Liberator; and you havo
read how the girl in such a case was
turned away without wages and without
guidance, but not always without stripes;
for in one instance a fair and gentle mai
den was treated just as poor Power had
been. I have seen a daugucrreotype .of
the beautiful face of daughter of old
New England.
No, fellow citizens; Constitutions and
laws are, in themselves, no possible guar
antee or safeguard for personal liberty.—
Nor are they an efficient restraint on the
cupidity or higher impulses of the iudi-
vi dual. For instanco, it has been felony
in each of the Southern States to tench
a colored person to read the Lord's Pray
er or the Ten Commandments. Ido not
mean to say that the statutes declare it
in express language a felony to teach col
ored persons to read these particular pas
sages ; but tho law did pronouneo it fe'.
ony to teach colored persons to read, and
this prohibition embraced the Lord's
Prayer, tho Ten Commandments, and tho
Old and New Testaments. Yet we find
among the slaves, anil more largely
among the free pooplo of eoW in the
South, a very large number who can read
and a eoosidornbls number who can write.
This circnmstance testifies to different
classes of facts. It shows, in the first
instance, that there were living under the
influence of that infernal system some
humano people who occasionally, rogard
less of barbarous laws, taught a colored
child. Secondly, it shows that these
'tbrutal" colored people, who have "no
intellect" "will pot work" and "cannot
tako care of themselves," did, in spite of
law, and while taking care of their was
ters and their lmtsters' families, find time
and facilities to learn to read.
I>uring my reeout visit to Charleston,
I was startled by what sounded like an
echo of my own voice, and, turning to
the speaker, I found a thick-set black man
with hair knotted closo to his head, —
"an image of tho Almighty in ebony,"
if ever one was cut out of that uiiierial.
lieforo him, jSamuel Dickerson, stood two
little girls in plad silk dresses, with broad
rimmed bonnets, and plaid ribbons cor
responding with the dresses which they
wore. Kach held a boquet, and tho mau
a wreath. As I heard his voice, I looked
over the whole <place, to myself,
and saw by his gestures and moving lips
that it was this negro of the purest Af
rican blood who was saying to William
Lloyd Garrison, who had just ascended
the stand beside me, "The emotions with
which 1 beheld you, honored sir, are in
expressible •" and, having begun thus, he
wont on with a speech in flowing senten
ces thai .would stamp him as an ooator in
any assemblage. In the course of his
address, ho said :—For now more than
ten years, sir, it has been my privilege,
at distant iutervals, to bo encouraged by
reaAug your good words in behalf of my
oppressed race. To you and the good
people of the North, under tho Constitu
tion of tho Unite! States, aDd the gui
dance of Abraham Lincoln, I owe these
dear children. First, the*. mother was
taken ; then the elder one w.ir snatched
away; and on my knees I pleadod that
this little ono might bo left to me as a
souvenir of the past. What was the re
ply that I received? "Urge mo no far
ther, or I will your children to
different State?."
Somehow that man bad learned 10
read, he had stolen that knowledge ; and
among many others I heard the same sto
ry. Ono would say. "Why, my young
mistress taught me." Another would
tell me, "I was on a plantation on Uio
island, and master had rnc taught so that
I might keep tho lit'lo accounts." Thus
here and there, benevolence or selfishness
had prompted some of the people of the
South to violate tho law which made it
felony to teach a nogro "to read. There
fore, while I urge that constitutions and
laws are not the «ol« safeguards, or, in
themselves, safeguards of liberty and
rights, I also urge that they cannot be
made the means of repressing the geni
us, the iutcllect, tho aspirations of a mass
ot human beings. (Loud applause.)
What, then, my friends, are the safe
guards of which I have promised to speak?
Arc they possible ? Oh, yep ! they are
Uic simplest Afcing in the world. They
aVe popular sentiment and daily u*age.
Where popular sentiment is right, the
laws will be just and equal, and wilj he
maintained and enforced ;and where pop
ular usages are consistent with humanity
and justice, there will be small business
for the lawyer, for usage will c,nfo:ec t}y)
law.
I I hear some one say, ' Oh, you
have nigger on the irai.u, and now you
are beginning to plead for nigger!" God
forbid that I should forget the ejifvtance
of nearly five millions of human beings,
beings who know every sorrow that I
kuop (ind every joy that I may feel, and
who look through tbo same narrow way
to enduring happiness. Thank God I
do not forget their existence, and I do
not fail to plead for them. But, my white
brethren, allow me to assure you it
is you for whop I am pleading now. be
cause you are more numerous than they.
The people of America number
about five milliooa; the white people
over twenty-£TC millions; and as five is
worth more than one, I plead for the five
and embrace the sixth, and plead for him
too. It is not the negro alone I have
NUMBER 46
"on the brain;" it is him and the white
man ; it is mankind, and not any Bingle
raco or class of uif-n. (Applanso.)
Our fathers, when they gave the world
a new political system, disputed ail the
old foundations of government, and pro
claimed new principles. They declared,
first, the equal rights of all men. They
said, "We hold these {ruths to bo self
evident, —that all men are created equal.''
Did they mean equal in stature, in com
pkxion, in intellect, in morals?" I an
swer the quej-ion by saying they were not
fools, nor wero they blind ; they knew
that men differ in all these respects.
They were speaking cn political subjocts;
they were announcing tho foundation
principles of politioal institntions, and
they proclaimed that, in respect to right
all men are equal, and aro alike entitled
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-
II CSS.
Again, they denied tho legitimacy of
e*Wy Government thea existing o* the
face of tho globe, and laid the axe at tho
foundation of every throne, by affirming
that the object of governments is tho pro
tection of humap rights, and that Aey
"derived their just powers from the con
sent of the governed j" and, further, tha k
if any form of government violates the
rights of the people, it is not only their
right but their duty to reform, Or, if ne
cossary, overturn it. Upon these propo
sitions they rested not only their defence
of tho Revolution they inauguratod, but
the theory upon which they deteriyi&ed
to establish their Government.
Pennsylvania, to bring her Govern
ment into harmony with these principles,
in March, 1780, less than four years pi
ter that Declaration, proclaimed tho
emancipation of thy Haves, having pre
viously secured by constitutional provis
ion tho right of suff/age to eycry free
man without regard to color.
Ilad all the States of tho Union been
organirod on theso principles, thero nev
er vvould have been a day when you
could not have written a letter announ
cing the general doctrines of (ho GospeJ
iuto any State without bringing i.u 're
cipient into bodily danger, because those
doctrines would ha-va prevailed in the
South as well as in the North, If tfet
equality of man had been rccognixed alt
over tho country, thero would have been
no war during the last i'oyr years, bocausc
no man, not even the pardoned ItebeJ,
denios that tho jyar wns made to perpetu
ate Slavery and secure tho depredation
of tho laboring masses.
No man will tell you that our newspa
pers wero excluded from Southern mails
for any other reason than that it was
they would endanger the system
of inequality that prevailed and was
cherished in South. It was this that
made it dangerous for us to travel there;
it was that fired Pennsylvania Hall;
it was this that mobbed William Lloyd
Garrison, and disgraced Huston by diaclo
aing tho fact that Leirerett Street jail
was the only place in that city stong
enough for his protection. It was th-w
doctrine of human inequality, this viola
tion of the principles that underlio ouf
Goveenment, this want of harmony be
tween our usage and prejudices on tho
one hand, and tho theories which animate
our Government, and which we all profess
to believe, on tho other, that disgraced
teforo the world, and converted what
should have been our peaceful life into a
restless sea of agitation, in which Con
stitutional safeguards were abandoned or
disregarded.
Let tae show you how thoroughly w?,
in Philadelphia, are governed to-day by
a concession we made to the South years
ago, ID the vain hope of securing peace
and prosperity by promoting injustice and
inequality; let me show you how com
pletely we allow our prejudices, ncpt nat
ural, but thus engendered, to override
the law of Pennsylvania; how some of us
who are in this hall join in dem&nding
that the btate shall accept our prejudices
aa its supreme Jaw. There is not, within
the wide limits of Pennsylvania. a jurist
ot standing who will risk his professional
character by ( denying that, according to
the jaw of Pennsylvania, every man and
woman who is well behaved, and can pny
the fare, has a right to ride in our street
cars. That i# the la.w of tho Common
wealth, as expounded by our courts; no
professional man of reputation will dis
pute it.
We are a liberal people; as I have
shown, our most cherished traditions in
dicate our love of .hurnau freedom and
equality. We are a patriotic people; we
have sent our sons and brothers, and have
gone ourselver, to the wax. We are a
benevolent people; we have fed the sol
diers of every State as they passed thru'
cur city, going to or returning from the
field, and our hospitals have been attend
ed faithfully by women (God bless thetn!)
apd by men, doing ell they could fojr the