[chairs moving, people settling, babies crying]
>> THE HONORABLE FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Fellow
citizens, charged with the responsibility
and duty of doing what we may to advance the
interest and promote the general welfare of
a people lately enslaved,
And who, though now free, still suffer many
of the disadvantages and evils derived from
their former condition,
not the least among which is the low and unjust
estimate entertained of their abilities and
possibilities, and their value as citizens
of the republic.
Allowing the existence of a magnanimous disposition
on your part to listen candidly to an honest
appeal for fair play, coming from any class
of your fellow-citizens . . .
who may have, or may think they have, rights
to assert or wrongs to redress, the members
of this National Convention,
chosen from all parts of the United States,
representing the thoughts, feelings and purposes
of colored men generally,
would most respectfully and earnestly ask
your attention and favorable consideration
to the matters contained in the present paper.
Born on American soil in common with yourselves,
deriving our bodies and our minds from its
dust,
centuries having passed away since our ancestors
were torn from the shores of Africa,
we, like yourselves, hold ourselves to be
in every sense Americans,
and that we may, therefore, venture to speak
to you in a tone not lower than that which
becomes earnest men and American citizens.
Having watered your soil with our tears, enriched
it with our blood,
performed its roughest labor in time of peace,
defended it against enemies in time of war,
and at all times been loyal and true to its
best interests,
we deem it no arrogance or presumption to
manifest now a common concern with you for
its welfare, prosperity, honor and glory...
If the claim thus set up by us be admitted,
as we think it ought to be,
it may be asked what propriety or necessity
can there be for the Convention, of which
we are members?
And why are we now addressing you . . . asking
for justice and fair play?
These questions are not new to us.
From the day the call for this Convention
went forth this seeming incongruity and contradiction
has been brought to our attention.
From one quarter to another, sometimes with
argument and sometimes without argument, sometimes
with seeming pity for our ignorance [irony],
and at other times with fierce censure for
our depravity [irony], these questions have
met us.
With apparent surprise, astonishment and impatience
we have been asked:
"What more can the colored people of this
country want than they now have, and what
more is possible to them?"
It is said they were once slaves, they are
now free; they were once subjects, they are
now sovereigns;
they were once outside of all American institutions,
they are now inside of all and are a recognized
part of the whole American people.
Why, then, do they hold Colored National Conventions
and thus insist upon keeping up the color
line between themselves and their white fellow
countrymen?
Happily, for us and for the honor of the republic,
the United States Constitution is just, liberal
and friendly.
The amendments to that instrument, adopted
in the trying times of reconstruction of the
Southern States, are a credit to the courage
and statesmanship of the leading men of that
crisis.
These amendments establish freedom, and abolish
all unfair and invidious discrimination against
citizens on account of race and color, so
far as law can do so.
In their view, citizens are neither black
nor white, and all are equals.
With this admission and this merited reproof
to trimmers and traitors, we again come to
the question, Why are we here in this National
Convention?
To this we answer, first, because there is
a power in numbers and in union; because the
many are more than the few;
because the voice of a whole people, oppressed
by a common injustice, is far more likely
to command attention and exert an influence
on the public mind than the voice of single
individuals and isolated organizations;
because coming together from all parts of
the country, the members of a National convention
have the means of a more comprehensive knowledge
of the general situation, and may, therefore,
fairly be presumed to conceive more clearly
and express more fully and wisely the policy
it may be necessary for them to pursue in
the premises.
Because conventions of the people are in themselves
harmless.
And when made the means of setting forth grievances,
whether real or fancied, they are the safety-valves
of the Republic, a wise and safe substitute
for violence, dynamite and all sorts of revolutionary
action against the peace and good order of
society.
If they are held without sufficient reason,
that fact will be made manifest in their proceedings,
and people will only smile at their weakness
and pass on to their usual business without
troubling themselves about the empty noise
they are able to make.
But if held with good cause and by wise, sober
and earnest men, that fact will be made apparent
and the result will be salutary.
That good old maxim, which has come down to
us from revolutionary times, that error may
be safely tolerated, while truth is left free
to combat it, applies here.
A bad law is all the sooner repealed by being
executed, and error is sooner dispelled by
exposure than by silence.
So much we have deemed it fit to say of conventions
generally, because our resort to this measure
has been treated by many as if there were
something radically wrong in the very idea
of a convention.
It has been treated as if it were some ghastly,
secret conclave, sitting in darkness to devise
strife and mischief.
The fact is, the only serious feature in the
argument against us is the one which respects
color.
We are asked not only why hold a convention,
but, with emphasis, why hold a colored convention?
Why keep up this odious distinction between
citizens of a common country and thus give
countenance to the color line?
It is argued that, if colored men hold conventions,
based on color, white men may hold white conventions
based upon color, and thus keep open the chasm
between one and the other class of citizens,
and keep alive a prejudice which we profess
to deplore.
We state the argument against us fairly and
forcibly, and will answer it candidly and
we hope conclusively.
By that answer it will be seen that the force
of the objection is, after all, more in sound
than in substance.
No reasonable man will ever object to white
men holding conventions in their own interests,
when they are once in our condition and we
in theirs, when they are the oppressees and
we the oppressors [biting irony].
In point of fact, however, white men are already
in convention against us in various ways and
at many important points.
The practical construction of American life
is a convention against us. Human law may
know no distinction among men in respect of
rights, but human practice may.
Examples are painfully abundant. . . .
It is our lot to live among a people whose
laws, traditions and prejudices have been
against us for centuries, and from these they
are not yet free.
To assume that they are free from these evils
simply because they have changed their laws
is to assume what is utterly unreasonable
and contrary to facts. Large bodies move slowly.
Individuals may be converted on the instant
and change their whole course of life. Nations
never.
ime and events are required for the conversion
of nations. Not even the character of a great
political organization can be changed by a
new platform.
It will be the same old snake though in a
new skin. Though we have war, reconstruction
and abolition as a nation, we still linger
in the shadow and blight of an extinct institution.
Though the colored man is no longer subject
to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded
by an adverse sentiment which fetters all
his movements. . . .
In his downward course he meets with no resistance,
but his course upward is resented and resisted
at every step of his progress.
If he comes in ignorance . . .  he conforms
to the popular belief of his character, and
in that character he is welcome.
But if he shall come as . . . a scholar and
a statesman he is hailed as a contradiction
to the National faith concerning his race,
and his coming is resented as impudence.
In the one case he may provoke contempt and
derision, but in the other he is an affront
to pride and provokes malice. . .
In spite of all your religion and laws he
is a rejected man.
He is rejected by trade unions, of every trade,
and refused work while he lives and burial
when he dies, and yet he is asked to forget
his color and forget that which everybody
else remembers . . .
Not even our churches, whose members profess
to follow the despised Nazarene, whose home
when on earth was among the lowly and despised,
have yet conquered this feeling of colored
madness, and what is true of our churches
is also true of our courts of law.
Neither is free from this all-prevailing atmosphere
of color hate.
The one prescribes the Deity as impartial,
no respecter of persons, and the other the
Goddess of Justice as blindfolded, with sword
by her side and scales in her hand held evenly
between high and low, rich and poor, white
and black, but both are the images of American
imagination, rather than American practices
. . .
This condition of things is too flagrant and
notorious to require specifications or proof.
Thus in all the relations of life and death
we are met by the color line.
We cannot ignore it if we would, and ought
not if we could. It hunts us at midnight,
it denies us justice in the courts; excludes
our children from schools, refuses our sons
the chance to learn trades and compels us
to pursue only such labor as will bring the
least reward.
While we recognize the color line as a hurtful
force, a mountain barrier to our progress.
. . we do not despair.
We are a hopeful people.
This convention is a proof of our faith in
reason, in truth and justice--our belief that
prejudice, with all it malign accompaniments,
may yet be removed by peaceful means. . . .
When this shall come it will then only be
used, as it should be, to distinguish one
variety of the human family from another.
It will cease to have any civil, political
or moral significance, and colored conventions
will then be dispensed with as anachronisms,
wholly out of place, but not till then. Do
not marvel that we are not discouraged . . .
When we consider how deep-seated this feeling
against us is;
the long centuries it has been forming;
the forces of avarice, which have been marshaled
to sustain it;
how the language and literature of the country
have been pervaded with it;
how the church, the press, the play-house,
and other influences of the country have been
arrayed in its support, the progress toward
its extinction must be considered vast and
wonderful.
If liberty, with us, is yet but a name, our
citizenship is but a sham, and our suffrage
thus far only a cruel mockery, we may yet
congratulate ourselves upon the fact, that
the laws and institutions of the country are
sound, just and liberal.
There is hope for a people when their laws
are righteous, whether for the moment they
conform to their requirements or not…
But until this nation shall make its practice
accord with its Constitution and its righteous
laws, it will not do to reproach the colored
people of this country with keeping up the
color line
. . .
For that people would prove themselves scarcely
worthy of even theoretical freedom, to say
nothing of practical freedom, if they settled
down in silent, servile and cowardly submission
to their wrongs.
They are bound to hold conventions, in their
own name, and on their own behalf, to keep
their grievances before the people and make
every organized protest against the wrongs
inflicted upon them within their power.
Who would be free, themselves must strike
the blow.
We do not believe, as we are often told, that
the negro is the ugly child of the National
family, and the more he is kept out of sight
the better it will be for him.
You know that liberty given is never so precious
as liberty sought for and fought for.
The man outraged is the man to make the outcry.
Depend upon it, men will not care much for
a people who do not care for themselves…
[shouts of praise, applause]
[applause and cheers]
[babies laughing]
