No Chinese wall can now be
tolerated. The South must be opened to the light of law and liberty, and
this session of Congress is relied upon to accomplish this important
work.
The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated at the
beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law, one government,
one administration of justice, one condition to the exercise of the
elective franchise, for men of all races and colors alike. This great
measure is sought as earnestly by loyal white men as by loyal blacks,
and is needed alike by both. Let sound political prescience but take the
place of an unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion; but it is
no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in conquering Rebel armies
as in reconstructing the rebellious States, the right of the negro is
the true solution of our national troubles. The stern logic of events,
which goes directly to the point, disdaining all concern for the color
or features of men, has determined the interests of the country as
identical with and inseparable from those of the negro.
The policy that emancipated and armed the negro--now seen to have been
wise and proper by the dullest--was not certainly more sternly demanded
than is now the policy of enfranchisement.
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