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UNITED STATES. 



On October 3d, a National Convention of 

 colored people was held in Syracuse, N. Y., to 

 take into consideration the future of the col- 

 ored race in America. The delegates were 

 respectable in numbers, and their proceedings 

 highly creditable. The following was adopted 

 as the sense of the Convention : 



1st. As a branch of the human family, we have for 

 long ages been deeply and cruelly wronged by peo- 

 ple whose might constituted their right ; we have 

 been subdued, not by the power of ideas, but by 

 brute force, and have been unjustly deprived not 

 only of many of our natural rights, but debarred the 

 privileges and advantages freely accorded to other 

 men. 



2d. We have been made to suffer well-nigh every 

 cruelty and indignity possible to be heaped upon 

 human beings, and for no fault of our own. 



3d. We have been taunted with our inferiority bj 

 people whose statute books contain laws inflicting 

 the severest penalties on whomsoever dared teach us 

 the art of reading God's word; we have been de- 

 nounced as incurably ignorant, and, at the same 

 time, have been, by stern enactments, debarred 

 from taking even the first step toward self-enlight- 

 enment and personal and national elevation ; we 

 have been declared incapable of self-government by 

 those who refused us the right of experiment in that 

 direction, and we have been denounced as cowards 

 by men who refused at first to trust us with a mus- 

 ket on the battle-field. 



4th. As a people we have been denied the owner- 

 ship of our bodies, our wives, homes, children, and 

 the products of our own labor ; we have been com- 

 pelled, under pain of death, to submit to wrongs 

 deeper and darker than the earth ever witnessed in 

 the case of any other people ; we have been forced 

 to silence and inaction in full presence of the infernal 

 spectacle of our sons groaning under the lash, our 

 daughters ravished, our wives violated, and our fire- 

 sides desolated, while we ourselves have been led to 

 the shambles and sold like beasts of the field. 



5th. When the nation in her trial hour called her 

 sable sons to arms, we gladly went to fight her bat- 

 tles, but were denied the pay accorded to others, 

 until public opinion demanded it, and then it wus 

 tardily granted. We have fought and conquered, 

 but have been denied the laurels of victory. We 

 have fought where victory gave us no glory, and 

 where captivity meant cool murder on the field by 

 fire, sword, and halter, and yet no black man ever 

 flinched. 



6th. We are taxed, but denied the right of repre- 

 sentation. We are practically debarred the right of 

 trial by jury. And institutions of learning which we 

 help to support are closed against us. 



We submit to the American people and the world 

 the following declaration of our rights, asking a 

 calm consideration thereof: 



1st. We declare that all men are born free and 

 equal ; that no man or government has a right to 

 annul, repeal, abrogate, contravene, or render inop- 

 erative this fundamental principle, except it be for 

 crime ; therefore we demand the immediate and un- 

 conditional abolition of slavery. 



2d. That as natives of the American soil we claim 

 the right to remain upon it, and that any attempt to 

 deport, remove, expatriate, or colonize us to any 

 other land, or to mass us here against our will, is 

 unjust, for here were we born, for this country our 

 fathers and our brothers have fought, and here we 

 hope to remain in the full enjoyment of enfranchised 

 manhood and its dignities. 



3d. That as citizens of the Republic we claim the 

 rights of other citizens ; we claim that we are, by 

 light, entitled to respect, that due attention should 

 be given to our needs, that proper rewards should be 

 given for our services, and that the immunities and 



privileges of all other citizens and defenders of tne 

 nation^ honor should be conceded to us ; we claim 

 the right to be heard in the halls of Congress ; and 

 we claim our fair share of the public domain, whether 

 acquired by purchase, treaty, confiscation, or military 

 conquest. 



4th. That emerging as we are from the long night 

 of gloom and sorrow, we are entitled to and claim 

 the sympathy and aid of the eptire Christian world, 

 and we invoke the considerate aid of mankind in this 

 crisis of our history, and in this hour of sacrifice, 

 suffering, and trial. 



These are our wrongs these a portion of what we 

 deem to be our rights as men, as patriots, as citizens, 

 and as children of the Common Father. To realize 

 and attain these rights and their practical recogni- 

 tion, is our purpose. We confide our cause to the 

 just God, whose benign aid we solemnly invoke. To 

 Him we appeal. 



The progress of public opinion in the free 

 States relative to the social and political con- 

 dition of the African race, is too important to 

 be overlooked. 



The following letter is from the most highly 

 educated and prominent man of that race in 

 the Northern States : 



ROCHESTER, May 23, 18&J. 



Sin : I mean the complete abolition of every ves- 

 tige, form, and modification of slavery in every part 

 of the United States ; perfect equality for the'black 

 man in every State before the law, in the jury-box, 

 at the ballot-box, and on the battle-field ; ample and 

 salutary retaliation for every instance of enslavement 

 or slaughter of prisoners of any color. I mean that 

 in the distribution of offices and honors under this 

 Government, no discrimination shall be made in favor 

 of or against any class of citizens, whether black or 

 white, of native or foreign birth. And, supposing 

 that the convention which is to meet at Cleveland 

 means the same thing, I cheerfully give my name as 

 one of the signers of the call. 



Yours, respectfully, 



FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 



E. GILBERT, Esq. 



On June 3d Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the 

 Treasury, in reply to an invitation to be present 

 at a public meeting in New York, to cele- 

 brate Gen. Grant's victories, said : 



Permit me to add that, while we rejoice in the suc- 

 cess of our armies, and give thanks to God for them, 

 we should not forget that there is one class of de- 

 fenders of the flag one class of men loyal to the 

 Union to whom we yet fail to do complete justice. 

 It will be the marvel of future historians that states- 

 men of this day were willing to risk the success of 

 rebellion, rather than entrust to black loyalists bul- 

 lets and ballots. Very truly yours, 



S. P. CHASE. 



At a later day, when Chief Justice, and pre- 

 siding at the third anniversary of the Freed- 

 men's Belief Association in Washington, he 

 said : 



And now comes another question. Shall the loyal 

 blacks of rebel States be permitted to protect them- 

 selves and protect white loyalists also by their votes, 

 from new oppression by amnestied but still vindictive 

 rebels? I cannot doubt what a just and magnani- 

 mous people will determine. They will say, " Let 

 ballots go with bullets : let freedom be defended by 

 suffrage," and again legislation and administration 

 will bow to the majesty of the people. 



While the bill to organize Montana Territory 

 was before Congress, the question of negro suf 



