William Wells Brown

“ Are these men who have been regenerated by wearing the United-States uniform, these men who have given their race to our armies to fight our would-be oppressors,—are these people to be, can they ever again be, handed over to the taskmaster? Would a Government that would do such a thing be respected by the world, be honored of God? Could the Christianized people of the globe have witnessed the funeral of Capt. Callioux, there would have been but one sentiment called forth, and that is this,—that the National Government can make no compromise on this slave question. ”

“ One of the bitterest fruits of slavery in our land is the cruel spirit of caste, which makes the complexion even of the free negro a badge of social inferiority, exposing him to insult in the steamboat and the railcar, and in all places of public resort, not even excepting the church; banishing him from remunerative occupations; expelling him from the legislative hall, the magistrate’s bench, and the jury-box; and crushing his noblest aspirations under a weight of prejudice and proscription which he struggles in vain to throw off. ”

“ Think of a religious kidnapper! a Christian slave-breeder! a slave-trader, loving his neighbor as himself, receiving the “sacraments” in some Protestant church from the hand of a Christian apostle, then the next day selling babies by the dozen, and tearing young women from the arms of their husbands to feed the lust of lecherous New Orleans! Imagine a religious man selling his own children into eternal bondage! Think of a Christian defending slavery out of the Bible, and declaring there is no higher law, but atheism is the first principle of Republican Government! ”

“ Nor were they white men alone who fought for the freedom of this country. The blood of black men flowed as freely as that of white men. Yes, the very first blood that was spilt was that of a negro. It was the blood of that heroic man (though black he was) , Crispus Attucks. And some of the very last blood shed was that of black men. To the truth of this, history, though prejudiced, is compelled to attest. It is true that black men did an equal share of the fighting for American independence; and they were assured by the whites that they should share equal benefits for so doing. ”

“ Our people, South, are loyal to a man, and wish to return at once to their relations in the General Government. We look upon you, Mr. President, as the embodiment of the truly chivalrous Southerner,—one who, born and bred in the South, understands her people: to you we appeal for justice; for we are sure that your impulses are pure. Your future, Mr. President, is to be a brilliant one. At the next presidential election, the South will be a unit for the man who saves her from the hands of these Yankees, who now, under the protection of the Freedman’s Bureau, are making themselves rich. ”

“ The efforts of Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and Madison Washington to strike the chains of slavery from the limbs of their enslaved race will live in, history, and will warn all tyrants to beware of the wrath of God and the strong arm of man.
Every iniquity that society allows to subsist for the benefit of the oppressor is a sword with which she herself arms the oppressed. ”

“ Most gentle tempered, genial as a warm winter’s sun, sympathetic, full of kindliness, unselfish, unobtrusive, and gifted with a manly beauty and a noble bearing, he was sure to win the love, in a very marked degree, of men of a race peculiarly susceptible to influence from such traits of character as these. First, they loved him with a devotion which could hardly exist anywhere else than in the peculiar relation he held to them as commander of the first regiment of free colored men permitted to fling out a military banner in this country,—a banner that, so raised, meant to them so much! ”

“ Double guard in the city, the country patrol on horseback and on foot, the watchfulness that was observed on all plantations, showed the deep feeling of fear pervading the hearts of the slave-holders, not only in South Carolina, but the fever extended to the other Southern States, and all seemed to feel that a great crisis had been passed. And, indeed, their fears appear not to have been without ground; for a more complicated plan for an insurrection could scarcely have been conceived. ”

“ If facts prove to be what they are now represented, this engagement of Sunday morning will be recorded as the most desperate of this war. Broken limbs, broken heads, the mangling of bodies, all prove that it was a contest between enraged men: on the one side, from hatred to a race; and, on the other, desire for self-preservation, revenge for past grievances, and the inhuman murder of their comrades. One brave man took his former master prisoner, and brought him into camp with great gusto. A rebel prisoner made a particular request, that his own negroes should not be placed over him as a guard. ”

“ This is only one of the two hundred and forty-nine that fell on the field of Honey Hill. With a sad heart, we turn away from the picture.
But shall we weep for the sleeping braves, who, turning their backs upon the alluring charms of home-life, went forth at the call of country and race, and died, noble martyrs to the cause of liberty? ’Tis noble to live for freedom; but is it not nobler far to die that those coming after you may enjoy it? ”

“ Drunk with power, and dazzled with prosperity, monopolizing cotton, and raising it to the influence of a veritable fetich, the authors of the Rebellion did not admit a doubt of the success of their attack on the Federal Government. They dreamed of perpetuating slavery, though all history shows the decline of the system as industry, commerce, and knowledge advance. The slave-holders proposed nothing less than to reverse the currents of humanity, and to make barbarism flourish in the bosom of civilization. ”

“ Colored soldiers, I have just received intelligence that the National Government, after a long and desperate struggle, has decided to put you on an equality with her white troops, making your pay equal with theirs. Now that she has done justice to you, I want you to do justice to her and justice to yourselves. Show yourselves men; and the way to show yourselves men is to be brave and stout-hearted. I want you to be particular in the execution of your ‘Shoulder arms,’ your ‘Charge bayonets.’ Learn to shoot well at your enemies. ”

“ We ask for it intelligently, with the knowledge and conviction that the fathers of the Revolution intended freedom for every American; that they should be protected in their rights as citizens, and be equal before the law. We are Americans,—native-born Americans. We are citizens. We are glad to have it known to the world that we bear no doubtful record on this point. On this fact, and with confidence in the triumph of justice, we base our hope. We see no recognition of color or race in the organic law of the land. ”

“ We shall stand by the man that saves us; and you are that man. Your genius, your sagacity, and your unequalled statesmanship, mark you out as the father of his country. Without casting a single ungenerous reflection upon the great name of George Washington, allow me to say what I am sure the rest of the delegation will join me in, and that is, that, a hundred years to come, the name of Andrew Johnson will be the brightest in American history. ”

“ The institution bred in the master insulting arrogance, deteriorating sloth, pampered the loathsome lust it inflamed, until licentious luxury sapped the strength and rottened the virtue of the slave-owners of the South. Never were the institutions of a people, or the principles of liberty, put to such a severe test as those of the American Republic. The convention to frame the Constitution for the government of the United States had not organized before the slave-masters began to press the claims of their system upon the delegates. ”

“ In every State north of Mason and Dixon’s Line, except Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which attempted to raise a regiment of colored men, the blacks are disfranchised, excluded from the jury-box, and in most of them from the public schools. The iron hand of prejudice in the Northern States is as circumscribing and unyielding upon him as the manacles that fettered the slave of the South.
Now, these are facts, deny it who will. The negro has little to hope from Northern sympathy or legislation. ”

“ Beneath that gentle and courtly bearing which so won upon the colored people of Boston when the Fifty-fourth was in camp, beneath that kindly but unswerving discipline of the commanding officer, beneath that stern but always cool and cheerful courage of the leader in the fight, was a clear and deep conviction of a duty to the blacks. He hoped to lead them, as one of the roads to social equality, to fight their way to true freedom ”

“ We hear Northern copperheads, who have never been south of Mason and Dixon’s Line, constantly prating about the unconstitutionality of arming the slaves of rebels; and often these prejudiced people accuse the negro troops of cowardice. After the bloody proof at Milliken’s Bend, Port Hudson, and at Fort Wagner in front of Charleston, it would seem that nothing more was needed to substantiate the resolution and undaunted courage of the slave when arrayed against his master, fighting for the freedom of his race. ”

“ Still, as I come here with full authority from the President of the United States to announce the policy, which, after mature deliberation, has been determined upon by the wisdom of the nation, it is my duty to make known to you clearly and fully the features of that policy.
“It is a source of extreme gratification to me to come before you this day, knowing, as I do full well, how glorious have been your achievements on the field of battle. No soldier can come before soldiers of tried valor, without having the deepest emotions of his soul stirred within him. ”

“ If we must still remember with humiliation that the Confederate flag yet waves where our national colors were struck, we should be all the more prompt to recognize the merit that has put in our possession the first trophy from Fort Sumter. And the country should feel doubly humbled if there is not magnanimity enough to acknowledge a gallant action, because it was the head of a black man that conceived, and the hand of a black man that executed it. ”

“ The tears of four millions of slaves whom he had liberated, five hundred thousand free blacks whose future condition he had made better, and the twenty millions of whites in the free States, stricken as they never had been before by the death of a single individual, followed his body to the grave. No nation ever mourned more sincerely the loss of its head than did the people of the United States that of President Lincoln. ”

“ Not only this, but even those with light or red whiskers run to the dye-kettle, steal a color which nature has refused them, and, an hour after, curse the negro for a complexion that is not stolen. If black is so hateful, why do not gentlemen have their boots whitewashed? If the slaves of the South had been white, the same prejudice would have existed against them. Look at the “poor white trash,” as the lower class of whites in the Southern States are termed. ”

“ And the Seventy-first catches him at the end of his painful journey,—the goal in sight,—and sends him back to the master who even now may be in arms against us, or may take the slave, sell him for a rifle, and use it on his friends in the Seventy-first New-York Regiment. Humanity speaks louder here than it does in a large city; and the men who in New York would dismiss the subject with a few words about ‘constitutional obligations’ are now the loudest in denouncing the abuse of power which changes a regiment of gentlemen into a regiment of negro-catchers. ”

“ John Brown’s trial, heroism, and execution, an excellent history of which has been given to the public by Mr. James Redpath, saves me from making any lengthened statement here. His life and acts are matters of history, which will live with the language in which it is written. But little can be said of his companions in the raid on slavery. They were nearly all young men, unknown to fame, enthusiastic admirers of the old Puritan, entering heartily into all of his plans, obeying his orders, and dying bravely, with no reproach against their leader. ”

“ Towards the close of the year 1860, the spirit of compromise began to show itself in such unmistakable terms as to cause serious apprehension on the part of the friends of freedom for the future of American liberty. The subdued tone of the liberal portion of the press, the humiliating offers of Northern political leaders of compromises, and the numerous cases of fugitive slaves being returned to their masters, sent a thrill of fear to all colored men in the land for their safety, and nearly every train going North found more or less negroes fleeing to Canada. ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill passed by Congress is almost a dead letter, and many of the rebel judges declare it unconstitutional. The States having relapsed into the hands of the late slave-holders, and they becoming the executioners of the law, the blacks cannot look for justice at their hands. The negro must be placed in a position to protect himself. How shall that be done? We answer, the only thing to save him is the ballot. Liberty without equality is no boon. Talk not of civil without political emancipation! ”

“ The blood is running freely from the mouth of Lieut. Jewett; but he does not leave his company. Sergeant-major Trotter is wounded, but still fights. Sergt. Shorter is wounded in the knee, yet will not go to the rear. A shell tears off the foot of Sergeant-major Charles L. Mitchel; and, as he is carried to the rear, he shouts, with uplifted hand, “Cheer up, boys: we’ll never surrender!” But look away in front: there are the colors, and foremost amongst the bearers is Robert M. King, the young, the handsome, and the gentlemanly sergeant, whose youth and bravery attract the attention of all. ”