WHAT THE BLACK MAN WANTS
I came here, as I come always to the meetings in New England, as a
listener, and not as a speaker; and one of the reasons why I have not been
more frequently to the meetings of this society, has been because of the
disposition on the part of some of my friends to call me out upon the
platform, even when they knew that there was some difference of opinion
and of feeling between those who rightfully belong to this platform and
myself; and for fear of being misconstrued, as desiring to interrupt or
disturb the proceedings of these meetings, I have usually kept away, and
have thus been deprived of that educating influence, which I am always
free to confess is of the highest order, descending from this platform. I
have felt, since I have lived out West [Douglass means west of Boston, in
Rochester, NY], that in going there I parted from a great deal that was
valuable; and I feel, every time I come to these meetings, that I have
lost a great deal by making my home west of Boston, west of Massachusetts;
for, if anywhere in the country there is to be found the highest sense of
justice, or the truest demands for my race, I look for it in the East, I
look for it here. The ablest discussions of the whole question of our
rights occur here, and to be deprived of the privilege of listening to
those discussions is a great deprivation.
I do not know, from what has
been said, that there is any difference of opinion as to the duty of
abolitionists, at the present moment. How can we get up any difference at
this point, or any point, where we are so united, so agreed? I went
especially, however, with that word of Mr. Phillips, which is the
criticism of Gen. Banks and Gen. Banks' policy. [Gen. Banks instituted a
labor policy in Louisiana that was discriminatory of blacks, claiming that
it was to help prepare them to better handle freedom. Wendell Phillips
countered by saying, "If there is anything patent in the whole
history of our thirty years' struggle, it is that the Negro no more needs
to be prepared for liberty than the white man."] I hold that that
policy is our chief danger at the present moment; that it practically
enslaves the Negro, and makes the Proclamation [the Emancipation
Proclamation] of 1863 a mockery and delusion. What is freedom? It is the
right to choose one's own employment. Certainly it means that, if it means
anything; and when any individual or combination of individuals undertakes
to decide for any man when he shall work, where he shall work, at what he
shall work, and for what he shall work, he or they practically reduce him
to slavery. [Applause.] He is a slave. That I understand Gen. Banks to
do--to determine for the so-called freedman, when, and where, and at what,
and for how much he shall work, when he shall be punished, and by whom
punished. It is absolute slavery. It defeats the beneficent intention of
the Government, if it has beneficent intentions, in regards to the freedom
of our people.
I have had but one idea for the
last three years to present to the American people, and the phraseology in
which I clothe it is the old abolition phraseology. I am for the
"immediate, unconditional, and universal" enfranchisement of the
black man, in every State in the Union. [Loud applause.] Without this, his
liberty is a mockery; without this, you might as well almost retain the
old name of slavery for his condition; for in fact, if he is not the slave
of the individual master, he is the slave of society, and holds his
liberty as a privilege, not as a right. He is at the mercy of the mob, and
has no means of protecting himself.
It may be objected, however,
that this pressing of the Negro's right to suffrage is premature. Let us
have slavery abolished, it may be said, let us have labor organized, and
then, in the natural course of events, the right of suffrage will be
extended to the Negro. I do not agree with this. The constitution of the
human mind is such, that if it once disregards the conviction forced upon
it by a revelation of truth, it requires the exercise of a higher power to
produce the same conviction afterwards. The American people are now in
tears. The Shenandoah has run blood--the best blood of the North. All
around Richmond, the blood of New England and of the North has been
shed--of your sons, your brothers and your fathers. We all feel, in the
existence of this Rebellion, that judgments terrible, wide-spread,
far-reaching, overwhelming, are abroad in the land; and we feel, in view
of these judgments, just now, a disposition to learn righteousness. This
is the hour. Our streets are in mourning, tears are falling at every
fireside, and under the chastisement of this Rebellion we have almost come
up to the point of conceding this great, this all-important right of
suffrage. I fear that if we fail to do it now, if abolitionists fail to
press it now, we may not see, for centuries to come, the same disposition
that exists at this moment. [Applause.] Hence, I say, now is the time to
press this right.
It may be asked, "Why do
you want it? Some men have got along very well without it. Women have not
this right." Shall we justify one wrong by another? This is the
sufficient answer. Shall we at this moment justify the deprivation of the
Negro of the right to vote, because some one else is deprived of that
privilege? I hold that women, as well as men, have the right to vote
[applause], and my heart and voice go with the movement to extend suffrage
to woman; but that question rests upon another basis than which our right
rests. We may be asked, I say, why we want it. I will tell you why we want
it. We want it because it is our right, first of all. No class of men can,
without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of
their rights. We want it again, as a means for educating our race. Men are
so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own
possibilities largely by the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing
is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict
that expectation. By depriving us of suffrage, you affirm our incapacity
to form an intelligent judgment respecting public men and public measures;
you declare before the world that we are unfit to exercise the elective
franchise, and by this means lead us to undervalue ourselves, to put a low
estimate upon ourselves, and to feel that we have no possibilities like
other men. Again, I want the elective franchise, for one, as a colored
man, because ours is a peculiar government, based upon a peculiar idea,
and that idea is universal suffrage. If I were in a monarchial government,
or an autocratic or aristocratic government, where the few bore rule and
the many were subject, there would be no special stigma resting upon me,
because I did not exercise the elective franchise. It would do me no great
violence. Mingling with the mass I should partake of the strength of the
mass; I should be supported by the mass, and I should have the same
incentives to endeavor with the mass of my fellow-men; it would be no
particular burden, no particular deprivation; but here where universal
suffrage is the rule, where that is the fundamental idea of the
Government, to rule us out is to make us an exception, to brand us with
the stigma of inferiority, and to invite to our heads the missiles of
those about us; therefore, I want the franchise for the black man.
There are, however, other
reasons, not derived from any consideration merely of our rights, but
arising out of the conditions of the South, and of the
country--considerations which have already been referred to by Mr.
Phillips--considerations which must arrest the attention of statesmen. I
believe that when the tall heads of this Rebellion shall have been swept
down, as they will be swept down, when the Davises and Toombses and
Stephenses, and others who are leading this Rebellion shall have been
blotted out, there will be this rank undergrowth of treason, to which
reference has been made, growing up there, and interfering with, and
thwarting the quiet operation of the Federal Government in those states.
You will se those traitors, handing down, from sire to son, the same
malignant spirit which they have manifested and which they are now
exhibiting, with malicious hearts, broad blades, and bloody hands in the
field, against our sons and brothers. That spirit will still remain; and
whoever sees the Federal Government extended over those Southern States
will see that Government in a strange land, and not only in a strange
land, but in an enemy's land. A post-master of the United States in the
South will find himself surrounded by a hostile spirit; a collector in a
Southern port will find himself surrounded by a hostile spirit; a United
States marshal or United States judge will be surrounded there by a
hostile element. That enmity will not die out in a year, will not die out
in an age. The Federal Government will be looked upon in those States
precisely as the Governments of Austria and France are looked upon in
Italy at the present moment. They will endeavor to circumvent, they will
endeavor to destroy, the peaceful operation of this Government. Now, where
will you find the strength to counterbalance this spirit, if you do not
find it in the Negroes of the South? They are your friends, and have
always been your friends. They were your friends even when the Government
did not regard them as such. They comprehended the genius of this war
before you did. It is a significant fact, it is a marvellous fact, it
seems almost to imply a direct interposition of Providence, that this war,
which began in the interest of slavery on both sides, bids fair to end in
the interest of liberty on both sides. [Applause.] It was begun, I say, in
the interest of slavery on both sides. The South was fighting to take
slavery out of the Union, and the North was fighting to keep it in the
Union; the South fighting to get it beyond the limits of the United States
Constitution, and the North fighting to retain it within those limits; the
South fighting for new guarantees, and the North fighting for the old
guarantees;--both despising the Negro, both insulting the Negro. Yet, the
Negro, apparently endowed with wisdom from on high, saw more clearly the
end from the beginning than we did. When Seward said the status of no man
in the country would be changed by the war, the Negro did not believe him.
[Applause.] When our generals sent their underlings in shoulder-straps to
hunt the flying Negro back from our lines into the jaws of slavery, from
which he had escaped, the Negroes thought that a mistake had been made,
and that the intentions of the Government had not been rightly understood
by our officers in shoulder-straps, and they continued to come into our
lines, threading their way through bogs and fens, over briers and thorns,
fording streams, swimming rivers, bringing us tidings as to the safe path
to march, and pointing out the dangers that threatened us. They are our
only friends in the South, and we should be true to them in this their
trial hour, and see to it that they have the elective franchise.
I know that we are inferior to
you in some things--virtually inferior. We walk about you like dwarfs
among giants. Our heads are scarcely seen above the great sea of humanity.
The Germans are superior to us; the Irish are superior to us; the Yankees
are superior to us [Laughter]; they can do what we cannot, that is, what
we have not hitherto been allowed to do. But while I make this admission,
I utterly deny, that we are originally, or naturally, or practically, or
in any way, or in any important sense, inferior to anybody on this globe.
[Loud applause.] This charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been
made available for oppression on many occasions. It is only about six
centuries since the blue-eyed and fair-haired Anglo-Saxons were considered
inferior by the haughty Normans, who once trampled upon them. If you read
the history of the Norman Conquest, you will find that this proud
Anglo-Saxon was once looked upon as of coarser clay than his Norman
master, and might be found in the highways and byways of Old England
laboring with a brass collar on his neck, and the name of his master
marked upon it. You were down then! [Laughter and applause.] You are up
now. I am glad you are up, and I want you to be glad to help us up also.
[Applause.]
The story of our inferiority is
an old dodge, as I have said; for wherever men oppress their fellows,
wherever they enslave them, they will endeavor to find the needed apology
for such enslavement and oppression in the character of the people
oppressed and enslaved. When we wanted, a few years ago, a slice of
Mexico, it was hinted that the Mexicans were an inferior race, that the
old Castilian blood had become so weak that it would scarcely run down
hill, and that Mexico needed the long, strong and beneficent arm of the
Anglo-Saxon care extended over it. We said that it was necessary to its
salvation, and a part of the "manifest destiny" of this
Republic, to extend our arm over that dilapidated government. So, too,
when Russia wanted to take possession of a part of the Ottoman Empire, the
Turks were an "inferior race." So, too, when England wants to
set the heel of her power more firmly in the quivering heart of old
Ireland, the Celts are an "inferior race." So, too, the Negro,
when he is to be robbed of any right which is justly his, is an
"inferior man." It is said that we are ignorant; I admit it. But
if we know enough to be hung, we know enough to vote. If the Negro knows
enough to pay taxes to support the government, he knows enough to vote;
taxation and representation should go together. If he knows enough to
shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, fight for the government, he
knows enough to vote. If he knows as much when he is sober as an Irishman
knows when drunk, he knows enough to vote, on good American principles.
[Laughter and applause.]
But I was saying that you
needed a counterpoise in the persons of the slaves to the enmity that
would exist at the South after the Rebellion is put down. I hold that the
American people are bound, not only in self-defence, to extend this right
to the freedmen of the South, but they are bound by their love of country,
and by all their regard for the future safety of those Southern States, to
do this--to do it as a measure essential to the preservation of peace
there. But I will not dwell upon this. I put it to the American sense of
honor. The honor of a nation is an important thing. It is said in the
Scriptures, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?" It may be said, also, What doth it profit a
nation if it gain the whole world, but lose its honor? I hold that the
American government has taken upon itself a solemn obligation of honor, to
see that this war--let it be long or short, let it cost much or let it
cost little--that this war shall not cease until every freedman at the
South has the right to vote. [Applause.] It has bound itself to it. What
have you asked the black men of the South, the black men of the whole
country to do? Why, you have asked them to incure the enmity of their
masters, in order to befriend you and to befriend this Government. You
have asked us to call down, not only upon ourselves, but upon our
children's children, the deadly hate of the entire Southern people. You
have called upon us to turn our backs upon our masters, to abandon their
cause and espouse yours; to turn against the South and in favor of the
North; to shoot down the Confederacy and uphold the flag-- the American
flag. You have called upon us to expose ourselves to all the subtle
machinations of their malignity for all time. And now, what do you propose
to do when you come to make peace? To reward your enemies, and trample in
the dust your friends? Do you intend to sacrifice the very men who have
come to the rescue of your banner in the South, and incurred the lasting
displeasure of their masters thereby? Do you intend to sacrifice them and
reward your enemies? Do you mean to give your enemies the right to vote,
and take it away from your friends? Is that wise policy? Is that
honorable? Could American honor withstand such a blow? I do not believe
you will do it. I think you will see to it that we have the right to vote.
There is something too mean in looking upon the Negro, when you are in
trouble, as a citizen, and when you are free from trouble, as an alien.
When this nation was in trouble, in its early struggles, it looked upon
the Negro as a citizen. In 1776 he was a citizen. At the time of the
formation of the Consitution the Negro had the right to vote in eleven
States out of the old thirteen. In your trouble you have made us citizens.
In 1812 Gen. Jackson addressed us as
citizens--"fellow-citizens." He wanted us to fight. We were
citizens then! And now, when you come to frame a conscription bill, the
Negro is a citizen again. He has been a citizen just three times in the
history of this government, and it has always been in time of trouble. In
time of trouble we are citizens. Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens
in peace? Would that be just?
I ask my friends who are
apologizing for not insisting upon this right, where can the black man
look, in this country, for the assertion of his right, if he may not look
to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society? Where under the whole heavens
can he look for sympathy, in asserting this right, if he may not look to
this platform? Have you lifted us up to a certain height to see that we
are men, and then are any disposed to leave us there, without seeing that
we are put in possession of all our rights? We look naturally to this
platform for the assertion of all our rights, and for this one especially.
I understand the anti-slavery societies of this country to be based on two
principles,--first, the freedom of the blacks of this country; and,
second, the elevation of them. Let me not be misunderstood here. I am not
asking for sympathy at the hands of abolitionists, sympathy at the hands
of any. I think the American people are disposed often to be generous
rather than just. I look over this country at the present time, and I see
Educational Societies, Sanitary Commissions, Freedmen's Associations, and
the like,--all very good: but in regard to the colored people there is
always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards
us. What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy,
but simply justice. [Applause.] The American people have always been
anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with
solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the
question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists,
"What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer
from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already
played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not
remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the
core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not
for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's
plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro
cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a
chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way
to school, let him alone, don't disturb him! If you see him going to the
dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot-
box, let him alone, don't disturb him! [Applause.] If you see him going
into a work-shop, just let him alone,--your interference is doing him a
positive injury. Gen. Banks' "preparation" is of a piece with
this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone!
If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully
pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will
not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line
for his government. [Applause.] Let him live or die by that. If you will
only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live. He will
work as readily for himself as the white man. A great many delusions have
been swept away by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he
has proved his ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not
fight; that he possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity;
was a perfect lamb, or an "Uncle Tom;" disposed to take off his
coat whenever required, fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who
wanted to whip him. But the war has proved that there is a great deal of
human nature in the Negro, and that "he will fight," as Mr.
Quincy, our President, said, in earlier days than these, "when there
is reasonable probability of his whipping anybody." [Laughter and
applause.]
(Foner, Volume Four, pages 157- 165)
