National minority

“ Article 7 The Parties shall ensure respect for the right of every person belonging to a national minority to freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. ”

“ In other words, nothing short of an effective national law, to protect the weak against the strong and the minority of the whites against the aggressive assaults of the majority of that race, would enable the minority of the whites to make their power and influence effective and potential ”

“ The American state is dedicated to such a duty, not only by its democratic purpose, but by its national tradition. So far as the former is concerned, it is absurd and fatal to ask a popular majority to respect the rights of a minority, when those rights are interpreted so as seriously to hamper, if not to forbid, the majority from obtaining the essential condition of individual freedom and development—viz. ”

“ The majority of people, wherever found, ought in all questions to govern the minority. If the interior country should acquire this majority, it will not only have the right, but will avail itself of it, whether we will or no. ”

“ The pangs of the minorities are doubtless excruciating; but we welcome an eternal minority, under the banner inscribed with our principles, rather than an almighty and everlasting majority, purchased by their abandonment. ”

“ I confess, Sir, I have not known, in peaceable times, the power of the majority carried with a higher hand, or upheld with more relentless disregard of the rights, feelings and principles of the minority;—a minority embracing, as the gentleman himself will admit, a large portion of the worth and respectability of the State;—a minority comprehending in its numbers men who have been associated with him, and with us, in these halls of legislation; men who have served their country at home and honored it abroad ”

“ The minority, sir, are contending for the rights of mankind; what, then, are the majority contending for? If the minority are contending for the rights of mankind, the majority must be contending for the doctrines of tyranny and slavery. ”

“ They forgot what should be forgotten least of all in a system like ours, that the administration for the time being represents not only the majority which elects it, but the minority as well,—a minority in this case powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was opposed even to war. ”

“ We are, it is true, the appointed of a minority, and with that fact our enemies already taunt us, but, I would ask you, has it not always been minorities who have achieved anything worth achieving? who have brought about any unmistakably radical political or economic changes? ”

“ According to fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an overmatch for the majority;—in the first place, if the minority happen to include all such as possess the skill and habits of military life, with such as possess the great pecuniary resources, one third may conquer the remaining two thirds ”

“ For this reason: the greatest good of the greatest number necessitates the sacrifice of the few; now it is my opinion that the minority are of the most good to a state, for as a rule it is comprised of the more intellectual, artistic, and finer grades of mind. These people are the natural leaders; and, if by legislation you injure that minority, you do harm in the long run to the majority, for the great mass look to the few for ideals. ”

“ The white man's so-called privilege of class is made little of and the rules of government are framed with greater care for the interests of the majority who are not European than for those of the minority of superior race. ”

“ All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle that, though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. ”

“ Any theory which would carry us to the absurd extreme of constituting a State of an inconsiderable number of men,—the paltry minority of a large population—would not be more objectionable to the good sense of the people, than irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of our complex government. Such a minority, however small, would be entitled to the protection and to the highest favor of the Government; and if they could be built up into a power sufficiently strong to maintain themselves in the State, then they would fairly be entitled to claim full recognition. ”

“ Until Americans are willing to fraternize on terms of social equality with members of any race, there is great danger to national institutions in the presence of large numbers of that race within the country. ”

“ There is abundant evidence that the overwhelming majority, indeed all but an insignificant minority, meant what they said when they swore full and sole allegiance to America, that they will prove themselves wholly worthy of the high privilege of citizenship and of the generous [Pg 34] trust of their native fellow-citizens, and that they will not fail or falter under any test whatsoever.
We will not permit the blood in our veins to drown the conscience in our breast. We will heed the call of honour beyond the call of race. ”

“ A somewhat extensive reading of history has failed to show an instance in which a country occupied by two distinct races, with the minority race in control by reason of its possession of the property and educational opportunities, a government fair to the majority has ever resulted. ”

“ If the law of God and the law of man agree in the equality of right of man, explain to me the cause which keeps a superior force in subjection to a minority. Look to the misgovernment of the Reconstruction period for the answer—misgovernment by white men and black men who were lifted into a "little brief authority" by a mighty but unwieldy voting force. ”

“ One may hazard the statement that the prejudice of America’s native white majority against the Negroes, the Indians, the Jews and the Asiatics, is now and has always been in some sense attributable and proportional to the majority’s fear of some action on the part of the minority which might injure the material interests of the majority, while the only race-differences which have had any real importance are those superficial ones which serve to make the members of the minorities recognizable at sight. ”

“ The minority naturally felt that their time had now come, and were not altogether patient with the principles of our democratic Constitution, which require that a majority shall not be disfranchised, and which therefore make it practically impossible that a minority shall rule. ”

“ Their republican system, the minority believed, conferred civil equality and legal rights upon every citizen, knew neither privileged nor degraded classes, made no distinctions, and created no differences between rich and poor, learned and ignorant, or white and black, but extended to all alike its protection and benefits. ”

“ A leading advocate of permanent peace recently suggested that the question of national minorities might be solved to a large degree by a system of judicious exchange of such minorities, or of various members thereof. ”

“ But notwithstanding all this, in many parts of our country where the colored population is large the people of that race are by various devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and of many of their civil rights. ”

“ And when we remember that only a century ago every government in the Western world was avowedly organized on the basis of minority rule, we can readily understand that society has not yet had sufficient time to outgrow the influence of the old political order.
No one can discuss intelligently the question of political morality if he ignores the effect of this struggle between the old system of minority domination and the new system of majority rule. ”

“ According to the rule which has been in vogue a hundred years, the minority has the safeguard which is expressly secured in the constitutions of a majority of the States; according to the old rule the minority, by refusing to vote, can compel the concurrence of a majority before a law is passed. ”

“ The restless minority.—Its elements.—The clubs.—Their ascendancy.—How they interpret the Rights of Man.—Their usurpations and violence.
In default of the majority, who shirk their responsibilities, it is the minority which does the work and assumes the power. The majority having resigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public business, abandoned by the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude, falls into the hands of the resolute, energetic, ever-present few who find the leisure and the disposition to assume the responsibility. ”

“ And the bigger the majority which is thus extracting sustenance from the minority, and exploiting it to its own ends, the more you will admire the minority if it rises in revolt, and makes the imposed and one-sided bargain unprofitable to the majority. ”

“ In popular Governments the danger lies in an undue sympathy among individuals composing a majority, and a want of responsibility in the majority to the minority. The characteristic excellence of the political System of the U. S. arises from a distribution and organization of its powers, which at the same time that they secure the dependence of the Govt. on the will of the nation, provides better guards than are found in any other popular Govt. against interested combinations of a Majority against the rights of a Minority. ”

“ To the outside world we have proclaimed our democratic ideals, our moral support of the different people of Europe in obtaining representative government. Have we been as just to our own citizens—to the Negro? ”

“ Doctor, suppose these negroes to whom you talked awhile ago become what you urged them to be—useful, reliant, well-to-do citizens—what will be their status politically? Will the white people, with all this progress of the negro in education, in industry, in independence and in the acquisition of property, acknowledge his political rights? ”

“ So a small minority rules and governs the majority. This may for those in the saddle be clever enough, but can never be right in theory. What ab initio could give an absolute unlimitted right to one twentieth of a community, to govern the other nineteen by their sovereign will and pleasure? ”

“ I have a heritage in each and every provision incorporated in the Constitution of my country, and should this heritage be attempted to be filched from me by any man or body of men, I should deem the provocation sufficiently grievous to stake even life in defense of it. I would plant every colored man in this country on a platform of this nature—to think for himself, to speak for himself, to act for himself. This is the ideal citizen of an ideal government such as ours is modelled to become. This is my conception of the colored man as an independent force in our politics. ”

“ Our constitutional system amply provides for the protection of minorities by means other than giving them majority control of state legislatures. And the democratic ideals of equality and majority rule, which have served this Nation so well in the past, are hardly of any less significance for the present and the future. ”

“ The Constitution favors no racial group no political or social group. ”

“ This limits the negative power of the governments of the several States to the minority, for the time: and even that minority will have, as experience proves, a minority in its own limits, almost always opposed to its will, and nearly of equal numbers with itself, identified in views and party feelings, with the majority in possession of the control of the government of the United States; and ever ready to counteract any opposition to its encroachments on the reserved powers. ”

“ These are the basic qualities which underlie democracy,—intelligence, manliness, coöperation. If they are lacking, democracy is futile. Here is the problem of races, the fundamental division of mankind. Race differences are established in the very blood and physical constitution. ”

“ There were a lot of instances in which the American people were up against a brick wall of sorts, in which a small group of Americans, often not just a minority but sometimes a minority within a minority, faced a substantial obstacle. ”

“ History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. ”