nomination, has faithfully carried out the laws of Congress in their
behalf. Nor, on the other hand, can I see any just grounds for distrust
of such a man as Horace Greeley, who has so nobly distinguished himself
as the advocate of human rights irrespective of race or color, and who by
the instrumentality of his press has been for thirty years the educator
of the people in the principles of justice, temperance, and freedom.
Both of these men have, in different ways, deserved too well of the
country to be unnecessarily subjected to the brutalities of a
presidential canvass; and, so far as they are personally concerned, it
would doubtless have been better if the one had declined a second term of
uncongenial duties, and the other continued to indite words of wisdom in
the shades of Chappaqua. But they have chosen otherwise; and I am
willing, for one, to leave my colored fellow-citizens to the unbiased
exercise of their own judgment and instincts in deciding between them.
The Democratic party labors under the disadvantage of antecedents not
calculated to promote a rapid growth of confidence; and it is no matter
of surprise that the vote of the emancipated class is likely to be
largely against it. But if, as will doubtless be the case, that vote
shall be to some extent divided between the two candidates, it will have
the effect of inducing politicians of the rival parties to treat with
respect and consideration this new element of political power, from self-
interest if from no higher motive. The fact that at this time both
parties are welcoming colored orators to their platforms, and that, in
the South, old slave-masters and their former slaves fraternize at caucus
and barbecue, and vote for each other at the polls, is full of
significance. If, in New England, the very men who thrust Frederick
Douglass from car and stage-coach, and mobbed and hunted him like a wild
beast, now crowd to shake his hand and cheer him, let us not despair of
seeing even the Ku-Klux tarried into decency, and sitting "clothed in
their right minds" as listeners to their former victims. The colored man
is to-day the master of his own destiny. No power on earth can deprive
him of his rights as an American citizen. And it is in the light of
American citizenship that I choose to regard my colored friends, as men
having a common stake in the welfare of the country; mingled with, and
not separate from, their white fellow-citizens; not herded togethe