Robert H. Terrell

“ The denial of rights guaranteed the Negro by the Constitution and the refusal to grant him the ordinary privileges of a freeman have created what is called the “Negro Problem”—the most prominent, the gravest and the most important question in American affairs. Ten millions of people with African blood in their veins—“an undifferentiated part of the Nation”—are made the objects of the meanest discrimination and the most unjust treatment by a so-called superior race seven times their number. ”

“ The condition that faced the country at the close of the Civil War was a sad and serious illustration of the proverb that it is easier to destroy than to create, easier to pull down than to build up. To weld again the states into an harmonious union was a great task, made more difficult by the injection of a problem that was new, grave and without precedent. No nation had ever before been called upon to meet such a situation. Here were four millions of Negroes, recently emancipated, to be in some way absorbed in the body politic. ”

“ When the Colonial soldier returned to his fireside and laid down his implements of battle he found awaiting him a political system so moulded and vitalized that it secured to him his liberty and those rights which tend to dignify man. The ultimate results of the Revolutionary War were all that the patriots of 1776 had fought for, all that they had hoped for. They are today a blessed inheritance to their descendants. The American Republic is now in the front ranks of great nations, and her white population the first in freedom of all people on earth. ”

“ The prophesy of Jefferson that slavery would be the rock on which the country would eventually split was fulfilled and the states were in the throes of a Civil War.
There are evils so vast and radical that nothing short of a bloody revolution can be found sufficient to extirpate them. So the eradication of the monstrous system that held four millions of human beings in bondage—a vast property estimated in value at from twelve to fifteen hundred million dollars—was accomplished only by a terrible, devastating war—the court of last resort. ”

“ For, from the opening to the closing of the Revolutionary War, on many fields of strife and triumph, Negroes had fought the battles of the American Nation with a valor no less distinguished than that of their white brothers with whom they passed through that desperate struggle shoulder to shoulder. ”

“ If this one delegate had been present when that all important vote was taken on what is now known as the ordinance of 1784, this country would have been spared the bloody drama of the Civil War and the Negro race a half century of a cruel, degrading slavery.
A wonderful lesson there is for us all in the failure of this one man to do his duty. In this hour, I may say, of our peril, when the whole Christian world has its eyes upon him, when all of his faults are magnified and all his virtues depreciated, it becomes necessary for the humblest one among us to do his duty ”

“ The charge that Congress intended to establish Negro political supremacy in the southern states is false. For, if it had been the purpose of Congress to do this, the suggestion of Charles Sumner would have been adopted and all men who had been concerned in the rebellion would have been excluded from the suffrage. “Negro domination” has always been a false alarm and a myth. It has never existed. Even when the black man’s vote was honestly counted it was cast so as to make the white man the dominating influence in the political life of the state. ”

“ Where Negroes are concerned mob law too often has displaced judges and juries and terrorized sheriffs and done away with prison walls. Its ravages are confined to no section of the country. Occasionally white men are the victims of its awful fury—but only for the most terrible crimes; but let the Negro’s offence be great or small, he is not secure from its vengeance. Our enemies succeeded for a long time in making the country believe that the black man was lynched only for the unspeakable crime. ”

“ And shall we with forty years of freedom behind us and forty years of opportunity to strengthen and develop us be less courageous than they were? It may be well for us to pause a moment and take a cursory glance at the history of the black man in America and see through what trials and through what difficulties he has so triumphantly come. ”

“ He is beginning life again and moving along the lines of a natural evolution. He will win his way, not by statutes so much as by a public sentiment which will see that he gets equal and exact justice as a man and as a citizen. This may be the work of years, but the day will come when we shall see its accomplishment. There will no longer be one law for the Negro and one for the white man ”

“ And as he was the innocent party to his slavery, so he has been since his emancipation the innocent and abused party in all controversies relating to his privileges as a freeman and to his rights as a citizen.
There have been stirring issues and far-reaching upheavals crowded into the eventful years, and things have moved fast in this country since its first settlement. A great war came and changed the legal relations of its inhabitants and conferred upon them new rights, discharged old bonds and imposed new duties. A people achieved independence and brought into existence a nation. ”

“ The slightest lack of vigor, either in denunciation of the crime or in bringing the criminal to justice is itself unpardonable.” In his wisdom the President has struck the note to which we must readily and willingly respond. No man, black or white, who commits a crime is entitled to our sympathy or to our protection. It is our duty both in speech and in conduct to endeavor to impress the communities in which we live with two things; first, that we are unalterably opposed to mob law; secondly, that we are anxious to have Negro criminals punished, but in accordance with legal methods. ”

“ The whole country owes a debt of gratitude to the superb statesmanship of these men, but the Negro race is preeminently the beneficiary of their mighty thoughts and prodigious labors. For out of the conflicts of purposes and plans for rebuilding a shattered nation, there were evolved with their aid the three great war amendments, guaranteeing to the Negro freedom, citizenship and the elective franchise. To weave into the organic law these marks of manhood for the black man was a fit return of a grateful country for the support he had given it in time of its distress. ”

“ Unless the Negroes endeavor to excel in all branches of work in which they are employed they will be driven out of them, and no one can tell how far reaching will be the result. This matter is of vital interest, not only to the people themselves directly concerned, but also to the Negro tradesmen and Negro professional men who are dependent upon them for a living. The lawyers, doctors, teachers, preachers and the men in business cannot escape the logic of the situation. In this practical age the laborer must in truth be worthy of his hire. ”

“ When he was eliminated from the field of politics by state constitutions, adopted for that sole purpose, it was our hope and prayer that he would at least find some compensation for the wrong in safety from the mob and in the enjoyment of that peace which should attend every law abiding citizen, whether white or black. Our hopes have not been realized and we are forced to the conclusion that the brutal treatment of the Negro is not due to the fact that he was in politics. ”

“ Today the descendants of these savages dwelling in our country number ten millions. They have come in contact with a great civilization and have absorbed its elements with a marvellous rapidity. They have learned to work, have acquired the language and adopted the religion of a great people. The world knows amid what trials and sacrifices all of this has been accomplished. Though his new life and upward career did not begin until 1865, the Negro has impressed the country with his innate worth as a factor in a great civilization. ”

“ He does not take into account that there are thousands of black men and women among us who have made for themselves a place among the most orderly and the most industrious elements in their communities. For some reason it seems to suit the purpose of a great and powerful people with all of the machinery of publication and circulation under their control to expose to the world and to emphasize the faults of the Negro.
It cannot be denied that the Negro has made remarkable progress along all lines of commendable endeavor since his emancipation. ”

“ That best and fairest of men President Roosevelt, sees the danger. He knows that they who violate the rights of one race of men, unrestrained, will soon violate the rights of another. In his own vigorous way he has spoken to the country on the subject of mob law. It is to be hoped that one speaking from so exalted a place will arouse the American conscience from the slumber into which it has been lulled by an unconcern dangerous to individuals and to the country alike. Referring to the crime of rape he has given us the wisest and best advice. ”

“ The progress of the Negro since his emancipation is a marvellous story. It reflects credit upon himself and it is a lasting tribute to the Northern philanthropists and those broad-minded Southerners who environed him with effective helps and valuable opportunities, and who gave him such stimulating encouragement. By and through these elements the Negro has been able to give a striking evidence of his ability for a self-developing American citizenship. ”

“ It is a popular thing nowadays to say that the ballot was given the Negro too soon, or he would be better off, if it had not been given him at all. I know not by what system of reasoning these conclusions are reached. For “freedom is the school in which freemen are taught, and the ballot box is the educator.” A man must have his political rights, in order to protect his natural rights. It is most fortunate that the elective franchise was given to the Negro so soon after his emancipation. ”

“ Unfortunately and unjustly, the white man chooses to judge the whole Negro race by its bad, vicious, shiftless, unreliable members. He does not measure it by the multitude who have learned and who practice the common moralities of every day life. ”

“ They put brains into the work which the Negro too often foolishly despises. They elevate it from unskilled to skilled labor. It is easy enough to forecast the result of such a situation. The employer will get the best labor possible for his money. He is not going to hire an incompetent man, when he can get a competent one at the same price.
Once out of his usual occupations, there is nothing for the Negro to do. He becomes an idler subjected to all of the dangers and vices of his condition. Crime is sure to follow idleness. ”

“ And our cup is all the more bitter, when the thought comes to us that among those who bled and died that the country might be saved and their kinsmen free were black men, the bravest soldiers that ever wore a uniform. ”

“ This exclusion from domestic service the Negro cannot charge to prejudice on account of color. The truth is, competition is becoming so keen in other branches of employment that a good class of intelligent white men and women are forced into these humble walks of life for a livelihood. ”

“ Massachusetts had declared back in 1780 that no man could stand upon her soil and look upon the towering monuments erected to the memory of her illustrious sons who fell in defense of liberty, and be a slave. ”

“ Those who associate the movement for the freedom of the Negro only with the northern section of our country forget that in Tennessee the first anti-slavery paper was published, and that in the early years of the nineteenth century it was far safer to deliver a speech against slavery in East Tennessee than in any part of the North. ”

“ In its comment on similar statistics the Boston Herald recently said, “When we think that forty years ago the Negroes were the poorest people on the face of the earth, that their only home was the wide, wide world and their roof was an expanse of blue sky, is it not wonderful that within a short generation they have not only been able to house and clothe themselves and children, but to educate in part nearly one half of their number, and still pile up a large competence to lay by for a rainy day.” ”

“ And, as if to paralyze and destroy any effort that might be made to adjust conditions so that a permanent peace and prosperity and happiness might follow, fell assassination came and struck down the great emancipator—the man best prepared to guide the ship of state through such difficulties and dangers. ”

“ These efficient and well schooled servants are coming to America from time to time in large numbers. It is not to be expected that the unskilled Negro waiters can successfully compete with these men. Sentiment in their favor may save them for a while, but not for all time. Cooks, chambermaids and nurses among the whites are similarly drilled. Unless the colored people dependent upon these vocations for a living adopt like methods of training, they will awake some morning and find these occupations in the cities gone from them. ”

“ The twenty millions of one race forming one section of the country, carried out to some extent among themselves that portion of the Declaration of Independence touching the equal creation and inalienable rights of man. The ten millions forming the other section consisted in nearly equal portions of two races—one Anglo-Saxon, the other African; one master, the other slave; one the descendants of voluntary emigrants who came hither seeking happiness and a broader freedom ”