e before the rebellion and after the rebellion.
You can not keep to its ancient level a race which has been released
from servitude any more than you can keep back the ocean with your
hand after you have thrown down the sea-wall which restrained its
impatient tides. Freedom is every-where in history the herald of
progress. It is written in the annals of all nations. It is a law of
the human race. Ignorance, idleness, brutality--these belong to
slavery; they are her natural offspring and allies, and the gentleman
from New York, [Mr. Chanler,] who consumed so much time in
demonstrating the comparative inferiority of the black race, answered
his own argument when he reminded us that the Constitution recognized
the negro only as a slave, and gave us the strongest reason why we
should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt
that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question.
You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that
premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior,
but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely
intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and
responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of
Alabama and Mississippi, but here in the District of Columbia. Nay,
you must not only prove that this is the general character of this
population here, but that this condition is so universal and
unexceptional that you can not allow them to take this first step in
freedom, although it may be hedged about with qualifications and
conditions; for which of you who have opposed this measure on the
ground of race has proposed to give the benefit of it to such as may
be found worthy? Not one of you. And this shows that your objection is
founded really on a prejudice, although it assumes the dignity and
proportions of an argument. The real question, sir, is, can we afford
to be just--nay, if you please, generous--to a race whose shame has
been washed out in the consuming fires of war, and which now stands
erect and equal before the law with our own? Shall we give hope and
encouragement to that race beginning, as it does now for the first
time, its career of freedom, by erecting here in the capital of the
republic a banner inscribed with the sacred legend of the elder days,
'All men are born free and equal?' or shall we unfurl in its stead
that other banner, with a strange device, aroun