DEAD ISSUES SHOULD BE DKOPPED. 5^ 



of this city all one rainy, chill November day, peddling bal- 

 lots for Eqnal Suffrage. I got many Whigs to take them, but not 

 one Democrat. Again in 1860 — not eleven years ago — I again 

 stood at my poll all day, and handed out the same kind of vote ; 

 and I do not remember that a single Democrat took one. Some 

 Republicans, even, would not take them ; but no Democrat would. 



I believe in Human Progress. I believe that men are rather 

 wiser and better to-day than they were twelve years ago ; and here 

 is proof of it. It is not two years since our Democratic State 

 Legislature withdrew the consent given by its Republican predeces- 

 ' sors to the XVth Amendment, and, by a party vote, so far as New 

 York could do it, they tried to defeat that amendment. Now, we 

 have a New Departure. Was it not high time ? I think it was. 



Fellow-citizens : I am weary, weary, of this sterile strife concern- 

 ing the fundamental j^rinciples of republican institutions. I am 

 tired of trying to teach Democrats the A, B, C's of Democracy. I 

 rejoice to know that they have taken a New Departure ; and I tell 

 you that, when they have once taken it, it will be a great deal 

 harder to get back to the old ground than to go on. Some one 

 says, " Isn't it going to pvxt the Republicans ovit of power ? " I 

 cannot tell. Immediately, I think not. Mr. Burke well says : 

 " Confidence is a plant of slow growth ; " and I think it will take 

 some time for the people to realize that the Democrats mean to up- 

 hold Equal Rights — some time for their own folks to realize it — a 

 great deal longer to make any Black man believe that they mean it. 



I don't anticipate any sudden change in the relative strength of 

 parties, because of the New Departure, Ultimately, I think, it will 

 strengthen the Democrats. "Then," one says, '•'■you will go out of 

 power." Yes, we shall some time, no doubt. If it were to be my 

 fate to go out this moment, and every year of my life thereafter to 

 be in the minority, prostrate and powerless, I should still thank 

 God, most humbly and heartily, that He allowed me to live in an 

 age, and to be a part of the generation, that witnessed the downfall 

 and extinction of American Slavery. [Prolonged a])plause.] 



Fellow-citizens : I trust the day is not distant wherein, putting 

 behind us the things that concern the Past, we shall defer to that 

 grand old inJTinction of the Bible : " Speak to the children of Israel 

 that they go forward." I am weary of fighting over issues that 

 ought to be dead — that logically were dead yeai's ago. When Slav- 

 ery died, I thought that we ought speedily to have ended all that 



