Part 5

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: For many years prior to 1861 the friends of freedom, seeing the prominence slavery had acquired because of its existence at the capital of the nation, and the evil influence which it necessarily exerted upon legislation, sought in vain by petitions and other measures for its abolition in the District of Columbia. It was not, however, till the national conscience began to be quickened by the reverses of our armies, and legislators to realize the dangers which threatened the life of the nation, that the cause could muster sufficient strength to gain a hearing in Congress.

On the 16th of December, 1861, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced into the Senate a bill providing for the immediate emancipation of slaves in the District upon the payment to the owners of $300 for each slave. As was to be expected the bill was antagonized by pro-slavery men in the Senate and House. They feared that the measure proposed was the entering wedge for the final overthrow of their pet institution in the South. As subsequent events proved their fears were not without foundation. Notwithstanding the bitter opposition which the bill encountered, it passed both houses of Congress in less than four months from its first introduction in the Senate, and was approved by the President on the 16th of April, just twenty-four years ago to-day.

The debates on this and kindred questions makes memorable the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and they are of special interest because they indicated a new departure in the line of argument pursued by Northern statesmen. They based their arguments for emancipation, not upon grounds of expediency, but the great principles of right and justice.

The importance of this act must not be overlooked. It struck the shackles from the limbs of 3,000 human beings and placed them in the ranks of freemen. It took away the shame which slavery had brought upon the National Capital. But this was not all. It elevated the nation in its own eyes and in the eyes of the civilized world, and roused a feeling of patriotism and pride. It called forth an expression from the National Legislature, and a majority of the members by solemn vote arrayed themselves on the side of emancipation and liberty, in opposition to slavery and oppression. It was the forerunner of the great emancipation proclamation--that proclamation which more than all his other acts makes the name of Abraham Lincoln secure to all posterity.

In our rejoicing on this occasion we should not forget to hold in grateful remembrance the men whose votes secured the passage of the bill, and especially its author, a man who by his works proved himself a friend of the oppressed, Hon. Henry Wilson, the benefactor of the District.

When the emancipation bill became a law in 1862, there were 15,000 colored people in the District of Columbia, 12,000 of whom were free and the remainder slaves. They maintained eight schools for the education of their children, and were the owners of twelve churches, which cost about $75,000. With the increase of population came the demand for more churches, so that to-day they have eighty churches and missions in the District. Many of the churches are very valuable and located on some of the principal streets and avenues, the new Metropolitan Church alone being valued at $100,000.

Under the old system the word “colored” appeared opposite the name of each colored person paying taxes on the books of the Collector of Taxes. Now, no such distinction is made, and there are no data from which the number paying taxes among colored citizens can be definitely known. From information received at the tax office, I judge that there are about 180 persons with property assessed individually at $1,000, the assessed valuation of real estate in this District being two-thirds to actual cash valuation. It will be quite in keeping with the facts to say that two of our citizens have acquired property valued at $100,000 each, two at $75,000, six at $25,000, fifteen at $20,000, twenty at $10,000, and fifty at $5,000, making in the aggregate at least a million of dollars. I am positively assured that the increase in the valuation of property owned by colored men since emancipation is 100 per cent. This, we think, is a most creditable showing for our property interests.

Of the 15,000 colored people in the District at the time of emancipation there were proportionately more skilled carpenters and masons than now in a population of 70,000. But labor has become more diversified. We are now engaged in pursuits in which we had no experience before the war. In 1861 a colored lawyer was a personage unknown to the national capital. Now half a dozen colored lawyers successfully practice their profession in the courts of the District. Then we had no physicians, regular graduates of medical schools; now a dozen or more follow the practice of medicine in the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and are recognized as men of skill and ability by the profession. One of these physicians, with his assistant, is in charge of the Freedman’s Hospital, one of the largest and most successful hospitals in the country. Government employment tends to keep out many from some business occupations in which the people in other large cities engage, but this disadvantage, if disadvantage it be considered, operates no more against us than against other citizens.

The greatest progress made, however, and that which is necessarily the first in order of time and importance, has been in matters of education. The schools have increased from 8 to 174, with an average attendance of 9,000 children, giving employment to more than 100 teachers. Twelve of the school-houses in which these schools are conducted are among the largest and most convenient school buildings in the District. Too much cannot be said in praise of the teachers, supervising principals, superintendent and trustees, for it is by their combined efforts largely that the schools have attained that degree of excellence for which they are known. Howard University and Wayland Seminary, placed on heights commanding beautiful views of Washington, are among the results of emancipation. These institutions grew out of the necessities of the times to meet the wants of colored youth for higher and professional education. It is proper that we should take pride in our schools and institutions of learning, for they are the chief instruments through which our children are to receive the training which will fit them to properly discharge the duties that will afterward devolve upon them as men and women and to elevate the race to an equality of development and enlightenment with other peoples.

We often hear the question asked, “What are we to do with the Americanized negro?” Articles have appeared in newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines giving what the author regards as a proper solution of the negro problem, so-called. But I ask why should there be a negro problem any more than a problem for any other class of the American people? We need not go far to seek the answer. It is found in the fact that in certain parts of our country the people are not willing to receive the negro into full fellowship and to grant him the civil and political rights enjoyed in common by other citizens. They take from him the means of elevation and then reproach him with inferiority. They would rejoice to rid the country of his presence by colonization, but seeing the utter hopelessness of the colonization scheme, they seek to inflame the public mind against him by constant appeals to the low and narrow prejudices entertained by certain classes of the American people. When the 300 colored citizens from Cleveland visited President-elect Garfield at Mentor, he said in reply to the address, to which he had given respectful attention, that he did not profess to be more of a friend to colored men than hundreds of others, but he was in favor of giving, and, so far as it was consistent with the duties of his office, would give them _opportunity_ to achieve success for themselves. This is all we ask to-day. This is all we can reasonably ask. Give us fair play, equal opportunity, and we will work out our own destinies.

Ten years ago, in this city, on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln, an eminent divine, after congratulating the orator of the day upon his masterly portrayal of the character of the martyr President, turned to General Grant and said: “There is but one Frederick Douglass.” This distinguished citizen, the orator who paid the eloquent tribute to the memory of Mr. Lincoln on the occasion referred to, the Hon. Frederick Douglass, will now address you.

At the conclusion of Prof. Gregory’s remarks Mr. Douglass said:

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I appear before you again, and for the third time since my residence among you, to assist in the celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. And while I highly appreciate the honor and the confidence implied in your call upon me to do so, when I consider the importance of the task it has imposed, I can say in all sincerity, as I have said before, that I wish that your choice of speaker had fallen upon one of our young men, quite as well qualified to serve you as myself. I want to see them coming to the front as I am retiring to the rear. Then the fact that I have several times addressed you upon subjects naturally suggested by the recurrence of this interesting anniversary is, of itself, somewhat embarrassing. It is not an easy task to speak many times on the same subject, before the same audience, without repeating the same views and sentiments. If, therefore, you find me committing this offence to-day, you will consider the difficulty of avoiding it, and also that the same views and sentiments are as pertinent and necessary to-day as years ago. You need not fear, however, that I shall inflict upon you any one of my former orations. I am not bound by any such necessity. The field is broad, and the material is abundant. The phases of public affairs touching the colored people of the United States are never stationary. They change with every season, and often many times in the course of a single year. There is no standing still for anybody in this world. We are either rising or falling, advancing or retreating.

Last year, at this time, we were confronted with an unusual and somewhat alarming state of facts. We stood at the gateway of a new and strange administration. After wandering about during twenty-four years, seeking rest and finding none, often hungry and sometimes thirsty, and, though not feeding swine or eating husks, yet not unfrequently found in very low places and wasting the substance of the national family, our prodigal Democratic son, with one tremendous effort of will, returned to the White House, and was received with every demonstration of parental joy and gladness. Of course this did not take place without a murmur of complaint and disapproval. There was an elder brother here as elsewhere; one who had remained at home, worked the old farm, kept the fences in repair; one who had done his duty and made things in the old house comfortable and pleasant generally. Indeed, but for his elder brother, the Republican party, the house would have been broken up, the whole family turned out of doors and scattered in poverty and destitution. It was natural, therefore, when this elder brother saw the great doings at the White House one year ago, when he heard the music and saw the dancing, and learned what it was all about, he was not over well pleased, and thought his father not only soft-hearted, but a little soft-headed, and a trifle ungrateful, if not crazy withal. But elder brothers, you know, are usually reasonable and patient, and are generally quite submissive to parental authority, and though he knew the bad character of the young truant who had now come home, he hoped he had reformed. How far this cheerful and patient hope has been justified by one year of this administration I will not now stop to say; I may, however, remark, as a prelude to what I shall hereafter say, that as far as the colored people of the country are concerned, their condition seems no better and not much worse than under previous administrations. Lynch law, violence, and murder have gone on about the same as formerly, and without the least show of Federal interference or popular rebuke. The Constitution has been openly violated with the usual impunity, and the colored vote has been as completely nullified, suppressed, and scouted as if the fifteenth amendment formed no part of the Constitution, and as if every colored citizen of the South had been struck dead by lightning or blown to atoms by dynamite. There have also been the usual number of outrages committed against the civil rights of colored citizens on highways and by-ways, by land and by water, and the courts of the country, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, have shown the same disposition to punish the innocent and shield the guilty, as during the presidency of Mr. Arthur. Perhaps colored men have fared a little worse, so far as office-holding is concerned. In some of the Departments, I am sorry to say, there have been many dismissals, but, even in this respect, colored men have not suffered much more than one-armed soldiers, and other loyal white men, whose places were wanted by deserving Democrats. Upon the whole, candor compels me to admit that this twenty-fourth year of our freedom finds us thoughtful, somewhat mystified by what is passing around us, but hopeful, strong to suffer, and yet strong to strive, with a moderate degree of faith that, under the Constitution and its amendments, we shall yet be clothed with dignity of freedom and American citizenship. But more of this in the right place.

I take it that no apology is needed for these annual celebrations, for, notwithstanding the unfriendly outlook of affairs, we have yet much over which to rejoice. Besides, such demonstrations of popular feeling in regard to large benefits received and progress made, are consistent with and creditable to human nature. They have been observed all along the line of by-gone ages, and are peculiar to no class, clime, race, or color. From the day that Moses is said to have smote the Red Sea, and the Hebrews passed safely over from Egyptian bondage, leaving Pharaoh overwhelmed and struggling with that hell of waters, down to the 4th of July, 1776, when the fathers of this Republic threw off the British yoke, declared their independence, and appealed to the god of battles, similar events to that which we now celebrate have been gratefully and joyfully commemorated.

If, for any reason, I feel like apologizing to-day, it is not for this celebration, but for an incident connected with it, and by which it is greatly marred. For the first time since the emancipation of the slaves of the District of Columbia we have two celebrations in progress at the same time. This should not be so. By this fact we have said to the world that we are not sufficiently united as a people to celebrate our freedom together. This spectacle of division among men working for a common cause is not pleasing in any case, and is especially displeasing and shocking in this instance. Without attempting to show which party is to blame in this controversy, I have no hesitation in saying that this division itself is most unfortunate, disgraceful, and mortifying. It cannot fail, I fear, to make an unfavorable impression for us upon thoughtful observers. But, standing here as your mouthpiece to-day, I beg the disgusted public to remember that colored men are but men, and that the best men will sometimes differ, and will often differ more widely and violently about trifles than about things of substance, where a difference of opinion would be at least dignified. Something must, however, be pardoned to the spirit of liberty, especially in those who have but recently acquired liberty. There is always some awkwardness in the gait of men who, for the first time, have on their Sunday clothes. When we have enjoyed the blessings of liberty longer we shall put away such childish things and shall act more wisely. We shall think more of a common cause and its requirements and less of obligation to support the claims of rival individual leaders. Depend upon it, a repetition of this spectacle will bring our celebrations into disgrace and make them despicable.

The thought is already gaining ground, that we have not heretofore received the best influence which this anniversary is capable of exerting; that tinsel show, gaudy display, and straggling processions, which empty the alleys and dark places of our city into the broad daylight of our thronged streets and avenues, thus thrusting upon the public view a vastly undue proportion of the most unfortunate, unimproved, and unprogressive class of the colored people, and thereby inviting public disgust and contempt, and repelling the more thrifty and self-respecting among us, is a positive hurt to the whole colored population of this city. These annual celebrations of ours should be so arranged as to make a favorable impression for us upon ourselves and upon our fellow-citizens. They should bring into notice the very best elements of our colored population, and in what is said and done on these occasions, we should find a deeper and broader comprehension of our relations and duties. They should kindle in us higher hopes, nobler aspirations, and stimulate us to more earnest endeavors; they should help us to shorten the distance between ourselves and the more highly advanced and highly favored people among whom we are. If they fail to produce, in some measure, such results, they had better be discontinued. I am sure that such a lecture as I have now given on this point may be distasteful to a part of this assembly. But I can say, in all truth, that nothing short of a profound desire to promote the best interests of all concerned, has emboldened me to run the risk of such displeasure, and I hope the motive will excuse my offence.

And now, fellow-citizens, I turn away from this and other merely race considerations, to those common to all our fellow citizens, yet happily those in which we, too, are included. I call attention to the proposed celebration of the centennial anniversary of our present form of government. The year 1789 will never cease to be memorable in the history and progress of the American people. It was in that year of grace that the founders of the American Republic, having tested the strength and discovered the weakness of the old articles of colonial confederation, bravely decided to lay those articles aside as no longer adequate to successful and permanent national existence, and resolved to form a new compact and adopt a new constitution, better suited, in their judgment, to their national character and to their governmental wants. In this instrument they set forth six definite and cardinal objects to be attained by this new departure. These were: First. “To form a more perfect union.” Second. “To establish justice.” Third. “To provide for the common defense.” Fourth. “To insure domestic tranquillity.” Fifth. “To promote the general welfare.” And sixth. “Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Perhaps there never was an instrument framed by men at the beginning of any national career designed to accomplish nobler objects than those set forth in the preamble of this constitution. They are objects worthy of a great nation, worthy of those who gave to the world the immortal Declaration of Independence, in which they asserted the equal rights of man, and boldly declared in the face of all the divine right governments of Europe the doctrine that governments derive their right to govern from the consent of the governed.

How far these fundamental objects, solemnly set forth in the Constitution, have been realized by the practical operation of the Government created under it, I will not stop just now to state or explain. Whether the Union has been perfectly formed, whether under the ægis of the Constitution the sacred principle of justice has been established, whether the general welfare has been promoted, or whether the blessings of liberty have been secured, are questions to which reference may be made in a subsequent part of this address. For the present I refer to this grand starting point in the nation’s history for another purpose. I wish simply to remind you of the flight of time; that we are now drawing near the close of the first century of our national existence, and the notice that should be taken of that fact. Without going into the general questions raised a moment ago, as to the fulfillment of what was promised in the Constitution, we may, in passing, affirm what must be admitted by all, that under this form of government so happily described, and so faithfully upheld by the great lamented Abraham Lincoln, as “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” this nation has become rich, great, progressive, and strong. This fact is cheerfully acknowledged by the whole sisterhood of contemporaneous nations. From thirteen comparatively weak and sparsely populated States, skirting and hovering along the line of our Atlantic coast, constituting a mere string of isolated communities, we now have thirty-eight States covering our broad continent, extending from east to west, and from sea to sea. Under our Constitution the desert and solitary places have been reclaimed and made to blossom as the rose. From a population of seven millions, we have reached the enormous number of fifty millions; and in less than half a century we shall have double that number. Such an augmentation of wealth, power, and population has no example in the experience of any nation in ancient or modern times. The mind grows dizzy in contemplation of the future of a country so great and so increasing in greatness, and to whose greatness there seems to be no limit. The question naturally arises, what is to be the effect of such accumulated wealth, such vast increase of population, such expanded domain, and such augmentation of national power? Plainly enough either one of two very opposite conditions may arise. It may either blast or bless, it may lift us to heaven or sink us to perdition.

If we shall become proud, selfish, imperious, oppressive, and rapacious; if we shall persist in trampling on the weak and exalting the strong, worshipping the rich and despising the poor, our doom as a nation is already foreshadowed.

That Almighty Power recognized in one form or another by all thoughtful men; that Almighty Power which controls every atom of the earth, and governs the universe; that Almighty Power which stood and measured the globe, which beheld and drove asunder the nations, will surely deal with us in the future as that Power has dealt in the past with other wicked nations--it will bring us to dust and ashes. The rule of life for individuals and for nations is the same. Neither can escape the consequences of transgression. As they sow, so shall they reap. There is no salvation for either outside of a life of truth and justice. Contradiction to this in theory, for either individuals or nations, is a damning heresy; and contradiction to this in practice is certain destruction.

Large and imposing plans are just now proposed, and are maturing, for the appropriate celebration of this first centennial year of our national life. If these plans should be perfected and executed, as they probably will be, and as they certainly should be, Washington will witness a demonstration in this line far transcending in grandeur and sublimity the centennial exposition in the city of Philadelphia ten years ago.