History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880
Chapter 126 : "In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my hand and seal, t

"In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my hand and seal, the fifth of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six.

HUGH AULD.

"Sealed and delivered in presence of T. Hanson Belt.

"JAMES N. S. T. WRIGHT."

Mr. Dougla.s.s had returned to America, but the truths he proclaimed in England, Ireland, and Scotland echoed adown their mountains, and reverberated among their hills. The Church of Scotland and the press of England were distressed with the problem of slavery. The public conscience had been touched, and there was "no rest for the wicked."

Mr. Dougla.s.s had received his name--Dougla.s.s--from Nathan Johnson, of New Bedford, Ma.s.sachusetts, because he had just been reading about the virtuous Dougla.s.s in the works of Sir Walter Scott. How wonderful then, in the light of a few years, that a fugitive slave from America, bearing one of the most powerful names in Scotland should lean against the pillars of the _Free Church of Scotland_, and meet and vanquish its brightest and ablest teachers (the friends of slavery, unfortunately), Doctors Cunningham and Candlis.h.!.+

It will be remembered that Mr. Garrison had built his school upon the fundamental idea that slavery was const.i.tutional; and that in order to secure the overthrow of the inst.i.tution he was compelled to do his work outside of the Const.i.tution; and to effect the good desired, the Union should be dissolved. With these views Mr. Dougla.s.s had coincided at first, and into the ranks of this party he had entered. But upon his return from England he changed his residence and views about the same time, and established his home and a newspaper in Rochester, New York State. Mr. Dougla.s.s gave his reasons for leaving the Garrisonian party as follows:

"About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole subject, I became convinced that there was no necessity for dissolving the 'union between the northern and southern states'; that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting, was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolis.h.i.+ng slavery; and that the const.i.tution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is, in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as the supreme law of the land."[125]

It was charged by some persons that for financial reasons Mr. Dougla.s.s changed his views and residence; that the Garrisonians were poor; but that Gerrit Smith was rich; and that he a.s.sisted Mr. Dougla.s.s in establis.h.i.+ng the "North Star," a weekly paper. But Mr. Dougla.s.s was a man of boldness of thought and independence of character; and whatever the motives were which led him away from his early friends he at least deserved credit for possessing the courage necessary to such a change.

But Mr. Dougla.s.s was not the only anti-slavery man who imagined that the Const.i.tution was an anti-slavery instrument. This was the error of Charles Sumner. Slavery was as legal as the right of the Government to coin money. As has been shown already, it was recognized and protected by law when the British sceptre ruled the colonies; it was recognized by all the courts during the Confederacy; it was acknowledged as a legal fact by the Treaty of Paris of 1782, and of Ghent in 1814: the gentlemen who framed the Const.i.tution fixed the basis of representation in Congress upon three fifths of the slaves; and gave the owners of slaves a fugitive slave law, at the birth of the nation, by which to hunt their slaves in all the States and Territories of North America. But Mr. Dougla.s.s lived long enough to see that he was wrong and Mr. Garrison right; that the dissolution of the Union was the only way to free his race. In his way he did his part as faithfully and as honestly as any of his brethren in either one of the anti-slavery parties.

Having established a reputation as an orator in England and America; and having lifted over the tangled path of his fugitive brethren the unerring, friendly "North Star," he now turned his attention to debating. It was a matter of regret that two such powerful and accomplished orators as Frederick Dougla.s.s and Samuel Ringgold Ward should have taken up so much precious time in splitting hairs on the const.i.tutionality or unconst.i.tutionality of slavery. Perhaps it did good. It certainly did the men good. It was an education to them, and exciting to their audiences. Mr. Dougla.s.s's forte was in oratory; in exposing the hideousness of slavery and the wrongs of his race. Mr.

Ward--a _protege_ of Gerrit Smith's--was scholarly, thoughtful, logical, and eloquent. Mr. Dougla.s.s was generally worsted in debate, but always triumphant in oratory. A careful study of Mr. Dougla.s.s's speeches from the time he began his career as a public speaker down to the present time reveals wonderful progress in their grammatical and synthetical structure. He grew all the time. On the 12th of May, 1846, he delivered a speech at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, from which the following is extracted:

"All the slaveholder asks of me is silence. He does not ask me to go abroad and preach _in favor_ of slavery; he does not ask any one to do that. He would not say that slavery is a good thing, but the best under the circ.u.mstances. The slaveholders want total darkness on the subject. They want the hatchway shut down, that the monster may crawl in his den of darkness, crus.h.i.+ng human hopes and happiness, destroying the bondman at will, and having no one to reprove or rebuke him. Slavery shrinks from the light; it hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved. To tear off the mask from this abominable system, to expose it to the light of heaven, aye, to the heat of the sun, that it may burn and wither it out of existence, is my object in coining to this country. I want the slaveholder surrounded, as by a wall of anti-slavery fire, so that he may see the condemnation of himself and his system glaring down in letters of light. I want him to feel that he has no sympathy in England, Scotland, or Ireland; that he has none in Canada, none in Mexico, none among the poor wild Indians; that the voice of the civilized, aye, and savage world is against him. I would have condemnation blaze down upon him in every direction, till, stunned and overwhelmed with shame and confusion, he is compelled to let go the grasp he holds upon the persons of his victims, and restore them to their long-lost rights."

This was in 1846. On the 5th of July, 1852, at Rochester, New York, he, perhaps, made the most effective speech of his life. The poet Sheridan has written: "Eloquence consists in the man, the subject, and the occasion." None of these conditions were wanting. There was the man, the incomparable Dougla.s.s; the wrongs of slavery was his subject; and the occasion was the 4th of July.

"FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout grat.i.tude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

"Would to G.o.d, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of grat.i.tude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the 'lame man leap as an hart.'

"But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is _yours_, not _mine_. _You_ may rejoice, _I_ must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.

And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.'

"Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, 'may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!' To forget them, to pa.s.s lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before G.o.d and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with G.o.d and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Const.i.tution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, every thing that serves to perpetuate slavery--the great sin and shame of America! 'I will not equivocate; I will not excuse'; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just."

His speech in England was labored, heavy, and some portions of it ambitious. But here are measured sentences, graceful transitions, truth made forcible, and the oratory refined. Thus he went on from good to better, until the managers of leading lecture-courses of the land felt that the season would not be a success without Frederick Dougla.s.s. He began to venture into deeper water; to expound problems not exactly in line with the only theme that he was complete master of. His attempts at wit usually missed fire. He could not be funny. He was in earnest from the first moment the light broke into his mind in Baltimore. He was rarely eloquent except when denouncing slavery. He was not at his best in abstract thought: too much logic dampened his enthusiasm; and an attempt at elaborate preparation weakened his discourse. He was majestic when speaking of the insults he had received or the wrongs his race were suffering. Martin Luther said during the religious struggle in Germany for freedom of thought: "Sorrow has pressed many sweet songs out of me." It was the sorrows of the child-heart of Dougla.s.s the chattel, and the sorrows of the great man-heart of Dougla.s.s the human being, that gave the world such remarkable eloquence. There were but two chords in his soul that could yield a rich sound, viz.: sorrow and indignation. Sorrow for the helpless slave, and indignation against the heartless master, made him grand, majestic, and eloquent beyond comparison.

Although he was going constantly he saved his means, and raised a family of two girls--one dying in her teens, an affliction he took deeply to heart--and three boys. When the war was on at high tide, and Colored soldiers required, he gave all he had, three stalwart boys, while he made it very uncomfortable for the Copperheads at home. At the close of the war he moved to Was.h.i.+ngton and became deeply interested in the practical work of reconstruction. He was appointed one of the Commissioners to visit San Domingo, when General Grant recommended its annexation to the United States; was a trustee of Howard University and of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company. Unfortunately he accepted the presidency of the latter inst.i.tution after nearly all the thieves had got through with it, and was its official head when the crash and ruin came.

Mr. Dougla.s.s's home[126] life has been pure and elevated. He has done well by his boys; and has aided many young men to places of usefulness and profit. He strangely and violently opposed the exodus of his race from the South, and thereby incurred the opposition of the Northern press and the anathemas of the Colored people. It was not just the thing, men said--white and black,--for a man who had been a slave in the South, and had come North to find a market for his labor, to oppose his brethren in their flight from economic slavery and the shot-gun policy of the South. His efforts to state and justify his position before the Colored people of New York were received with an impatient air and tolerated even for the time with ill grace. Before the Social Science Congress at Saratoga, New York, he met Richard T.

Greener, a young Colored man, in a discussion of this subject. But Mr.

Greener, a son of Harvard College, with a keen and merciless logic, cut right through the sophistries of Mr. Dougla.s.s; and although the latter gentleman threw bouquets at the audience, and indulged in the most exquisite word-painting, he was compelled to leave the field a vanquished disputant.

President Hayes appointed Mr. Dougla.s.s United States Marshall for the District of Columbia, an office which he held until President Garfield made him Recorder of Deeds for the same district. He has acc.u.mulated a comfortable little fortune, has published three books, edited two newspapers, pa.s.sed through a checkered and busy life; and to-day, full of honors and years, he stands confessedly as the first man of his race in North America. Not that he is the greatest in every sense; but considering "the depths from whence he came," the work he has accomplished, the character untarnished,--his memory and character, like the granite shaft, will have an enduring and undying place in the grat.i.tude of humanity throughout the world.

Among the representative young men of color in the United States--and now, happily in the process of time, their name is legion--Richard Theodore Greener has undisputed standing. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1844, but spent most of his life in Ma.s.sachusetts. His father and grandfather were men of unusual intelligence, social energy, and public spirit. Richard T. early manifested an eagerness to learn and a capacity to retain and utilize. He enjoyed better surroundings in childhood than the average Colored child a generation ago; and always accustomed to hear the English correctly spoken, he had in himself all the required conditions to acquire a thorough education. Having obtained a start in the common schools, he turned to Oberlin College, Lorain County, Ohio,--at that time an inst.i.tution toward which the Colored people of the country were very partial, and whose anti-slavery professors they loved with wonderful tenderness. For some of these professors, in the _Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case_, had preferred imprisonment in preference to obedience to the unholy fugitive-slave law. The years of 1862-3 were spent at Oberlin, and Mr.

Greener showed himself an excellent student. His ambition was to excel in every thing. Not exactly satisfied with the course of studies at Oberlin, he went to Phillips Academy, Andover, Ma.s.sachusetts. This inst.i.tution was a feeder for Harvard, and using uniform text-books he was placed in line and harmony with the course of studies to be pursued at Cambridge. He entered Harvard College in the autumn of 1865, and graduated with high honors in 1870.[127] He was the first of his race to enter this famous university, and while there did himself credit, and honored the race from which he sprang. All his performances were creditable. He won a second prize for reading aloud in his freshman year; in his soph.o.m.ore year he won the first prize for the Boylston Declamation, notwithstanding members of the junior and senior cla.s.ses contested. During his junior year he did not contest, preferring to tutor two of the compet.i.tors who were successful. In his senior year he won the two highest prizes, viz: the First Bowdoin for a Dissertation on "The Tenures of Land in Ireland," and the "Boylston Prize for Oratory."

The entrance, achievements, and graduation of Mr. Greener received the thoughtful and grateful attention of the press of Europe and America; while what he did was a stimulating example to the young men of his race in the United States.

At the time of his graduation there was a great demand for and a wide-spread need of educated Colored men as teachers. The Inst.i.tute for Colored Youth, in Philadelphia, had been but recently deprived of its princ.i.p.al, Prof. E. D. Ba.s.sett, who had been sent as Resident Minister and Consul-General to the Republic of Hayti. Mr. Greener was called to take the chair vacated by Mr. Ba.s.sett. He was princ.i.p.al of this inst.i.tution from Sept., 1870, to Dec., 1872. From Philadelphia he was called to fill a similar position in Sumner High School, at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. He did not remain long in Was.h.i.+ngton. His fame as an educator had grown until he was celebrated as a teacher throughout the country. He was offered and accepted the Chair of Metaphysics and Logic in the University of South Carolina, situate at Columbia. He remained here until 1877, when the Hampton Government found no virtue in a Negro as a teacher in an inst.i.tution of the fame and standing of this university. In 1877 he was made Dean of the Law Department of Howard University, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and held the position until 1880. He graduated from the Law School of the University of South Carolina, and has practised in Was.h.i.+ngton since his residence there.

In addition to his work as teacher, lawyer, and orator, Prof. Greener was a.s.sociate editor of the _New National Era_ at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and his editorial _Young Men to the Front_, gave him a reputation as a progressive and aggressive leader which he has sustained ever since with marked ability.

As a political speaker he began while in college, in 1868, and has continued down to the present time. He is a pleasant speaker, and acceptable and efficient in a campaign. As an orator and writer he excels. His early style was burdened, like that of the late Charles Sumner, with a too-abundant cla.s.sical ill.u.s.tration and quotation; but during the last five years his ill.u.s.trations are drawn largely from the English cla.s.sics and history. His ablest effort at oratory was his oration on _Charles Sumner, the Idealist, Statesman, and Scholar_. It was by all odds the finest effort of its kind delivered in this country. It was eminently fitting that a representative of the race toward whose elevation Mr. Sumner contributed his splendid talents, and a graduate from the same College that honored Sumner, and from the State that gave him birth and opportunity, should give the true a.n.a.lysis of his n.o.ble life and spotless character.

In the "National Quarterly Review" for July, 1880, Prof. Greener replied to an article from the pen of Mr. James Parton on _Antipathy to the Negro_, published in the "North American Review." Prof.

Greener's theme was _The Intellectual Position of the Negro_. The following paragraphs give a fair idea of the style of Mr. Greener:

"The writer himself appears not to feel such an antipathy to us that it must need find expression; for his liberality is well known to those who have read his writings for the past fifteen years. Nor is there any apparent ground for its appearance because of any new or startling exhibitions of _antipathia_ against us noticeable at the present time. No argument was needed to prove that there has been an unreasonable and unreasoning prejudice against negroes as a cla.s.s, a long-existing antipathy, seemingly, ineradicable, sometimes dying out it would appear, and then bursting forth afresh from no apparent cause. If Mr. Parton means to a.s.sert that such prejudice is ineradicable, or is increasing, or is even rapidly pa.s.sing away, then is his venture insufficient, because it fails to support either of these views.

It does not even attempt to show that the supposed antipathy is general, for the author expressly, and, we think, very properly, relegates its exercise to those whom he calls the most ignorant--the 'meanest' of mankind.

"If his intention was to attack a senseless antipathy, hold it up to ridicule, show its absurdity, a.n.a.lyze its const.i.tuent parts, and suggest some easy and safe way for Americans to rid themselves of unchristian and un-American prejudices, then has he again conspicuously failed to carry out such purpose. He a.s.serts the existence of antipathies, but only by inference does he discourage their maintenance, although on other topics he is rather outspoken whenever he cares to express his own convictions.

"On this question Mr. Parton is, to say the least, vacillating, because he fails to exhibit any platform upon which we may combat those who support early prejudices and justify their continuance from the mere fact of their existence. We never expect Mr.

Gayarre and Mr. Henry Watterson to look calmly and dispa.s.sionately at these questions from the negro's point of view. The one gives us the old argument of De Bow's _Review_, and the other deals out the _ex parte_ views of the present leaders of the South. The one line of argument has been answered over and over again by the old anti-slavery leaders; the pungent generalizations of the latter, the present generation of negroes can answer whenever the opportunity is afforded them.

"But Mr. Parton was born in a cooler and calmer atmosphere, where men are accustomed to give a reason for the faith that is in them, and hence it is necessary, in opening any discussion such as he had provoked, that he should a.s.sign some ground of opposition or support--Christian, Pagan, utilitarian, const.i.tutional, optimist, or pessimist.

"The very apparent friendliness of his intentions makes even a legitimate conclusion from him seem mere conjecture, likely to be successfully controverted by any subtle thinker and opponent. No definite conclusion is, indeed, reached with regard to the first query (Jefferson's fourteenth) with which Mr. Parton opens his article: Whether the white and black races can live together on this continent as equals. He lets us see at the close, incidentally only, what his opinion is, and it inclines to the negative. But throughout the article he is in the anomalous and dubious position of one who opens a discussion which he cannot end, and the logical result of whose own opinion he dares not boldly state. The ill.u.s.trations of the early opinions of Madison and Jefferson only show how permanent a factor the negro is in American history and polity, and how utterly futile are all attempts at his expatriation. Following Mr. Parton's advice, the negro has always prudently abstained from putting 'himself against inexorable facts.' He is careful, however, to make sure of two things,--that the alleged facts are verities and that they are inexorable. Prejudice we acknowledge as a fact; but we know that it is neither an ineradicable nor an inexorable one. We find fault with Mr. Parton because he starts a trail on antipathy, evidently purposeless, and fails to track it down either systematically or persistently, but branches off, _desipere in loco_, to talk loosely of 'physical antipathy,' meaning what we usually term natural antipathy; and at last, emerging from the 'brush,' where he has been hopelessly beating about from Pliny to Mrs. Kemble, he gains a partial 'open' once more by a.s.serting a truism--that it is the 'ignorance of a despised cla.s.s' (the lack of knowledge we have of them) which nourishes these 'insensate antipathies.' Here we are at one with Mr. Parton. Those who know us most intimately, who have a.s.sociated with us in the nursery, at school, in college, in trade, in the tenderer and confidential relations of life, in health, in sickness, and in death, as trusted guides, as brave soldiers, as magnanimous enemies, as educated and respected men and women, give up all senseless antipathies, and feel ashamed to Confess they ever cherished any prejudice against a race whose record is as unsullied as that of any in the land."

The following pa.s.sages from a most brilliant speech at the Dinner of the Harvard Club of New York, exhibit a pure, perspicuous, and charming style:

"What Sir John Coleridge in his 'Life of Keble' says of the traditions and influences of Oxford, each son of Harvard must feel is true also of Cambridge. The traditions, the patriotic record, and the scholarly attainments of her alumni are the pride of the College. Her contribution to letters, to statesmans.h.i.+p, and to active business life, will keep her memory perennially green. Not one of the humblest of her children, who has felt the touch of her pure spirit, or enjoyed the benefits of her culture, can fail to remember what she expects of her sons wherever they may be: to stand fast for good government, to maintain the right, to uphold honesty and character, to be, if nothing else, good citizens, and to perform, to the extent of their ability, every duty a.s.sumed or imposed upon them,--democratic in their aristocracy, catholic in their liberality, impartial in judgment, and uncompromising in their convictions of duty. [Cheers and applause.]

"Harvard's impartiality was not demonstrated solely by my admission to the College. In 1770, when Crispus Attucks died a patriot martyr on State Street, she answered the rising spirit of independence and liberty by abolis.h.i.+ng all distinctions founded upon color, blood, and rank. Since that day, there has been but one test for all. Ability, character, and merit,--these are the sole pa.s.sports to her favor. [Applause.]

"When, in my adopted State, I stood on the battered ramparts of Wagner, and recalled the fair-haired son of Harvard who died there with his brave black troops of Ma.s.sachusetts,--

"'him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men, Thet rived the Rebel line asunder,'--

I thanked G.o.d, with patriotic pleasure, that the first contingent of negro troops from the North should have been led to death and fame by an alumnus of Harvard; and I remembered, with additional pride of race and college, that the first regiment of black troops raised on South Carolina soil were taught to drill, to fight, to plough, and to read by a brave, eloquent, and scholarly descendant of the Puritans and of Harvard, Thomas Wentworth Higginson. [Great applause and cheers.]

"Is it strange, then, brothers, that I there resolved for myself to maintain the standard of the College, so far as I was able, in public and in private life? I am honored by the invitation to be present here to-night. Around me I see faces I have not looked upon for a decade. Many are the intimacies of the College, the society, the buskin, and the oar which they bring up, from cla.s.smates and college friends. I miss, as all Harvard men must miss to-night, the venerable and kindly figure of Andrew Preston Peabody, the student's friend, the consoler of the plucked, the encourager of the strong, Maecenas's benign almoner, the felicitous exponent of Harvard's Congregational Unitarianism. I miss, too, another of high scholars.h.i.+p, of rare poetic taste, of broad liberality--my personal friend, Elbridge Jefferson Cutler, loved alike by students and his fellow-members of the Faculty for his conscientious performance of duty and his genial nature.

"Mr. President and brothers, my time is up. I give you 'Fair Harvard,' the exemplar, the prototype of that ideal America, of which the greatest American poet has written,--

"'Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man, An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in Against the poorest child of Adam's kin."

"[Great applause.]"

Prof. Greener rendered legal services in the case of Cadet Whittaker at West Point, and in the trial at New York City, where, as a.s.sociate counsel with ex-Gov. Chamberlain,--an able lawyer and a magnificent orator,--he developed ability and industry as an attorney, and earned the grat.i.tude of his race.

Prof. Greener entered Harvard as a member of the Baptist Church; but the transcendentalism and rationalism of the place quite swept him from his spiritual moorings. In a recent address before a literary society in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., he is represented to have maintained that Mohammedanism was better for the indigenous races of Africa than Christianity. Dr. John William Draper made a similar mistake in his "_Conflict between Religion and Science!_" The learned doctor should have written "Conflict between the Church and Science." Religion is not and never was at war with science. Prof. Greener should have written, "Mohammedanism better for the Africans than Snake Wors.h.i.+p."

This brilliant young man cannot afford to attempt to exalt Mohammedanism above the cross of our dear Redeemer, and expect to have leaders.h.i.+p in the Negro race in America. Nor can he support the detestable ideas and execrable philosophy of Senator John P. Jones, which seek to shut out the Chinaman from free America. The Negro must stand by the weak in a fight like this, remembering the pit from which he was dug. But Prof. Greener is young as well as talented; and seeing his mistake, will place himself in harmony with not only the rights of his race, but those of humanity everywhere.

Blanche K. Bruce was born a slave on a plantation in Prince Edward County, Virginia, March 1, 1841, and in the very month and week of the anniversary of his birth he was sworn in as United States Senator from Mississippi. Reared a slave there was nothing in his early life of an unusual nature. He secured his freedom at the end of the war, and immediately sought the opportunities and privileges that would, if properly used, fit him for his new life as a man and a citizen. He went to Oberlin College where, in the Preparatory Department, he applied himself to his studies, attached himself to his cla.s.smates by charming personal manners, and gentlemanly deportment. He realized that there were many splendid opportunities awaiting young men of color at the South; and that profitable positions were going begging.

Mr. Bruce made his appearance in Mississippi at an opportune moment.

The State was just undergoing a process of reconstruction. He appeared at the capital, Jackson, with seventy-five cents in his pocket; was a stranger to every person in the city. He mingled in the great throng, joined in the discussions that took place by little knots of politicians, made every man his friend to whom he talked, and when the State Senate was organized secured the position of Sergeant-at-arms.

He attracted the attention of Gov. Alcorn, who appointed him a member of his staff with the rank of colonel. Col. Bruce was not merely Sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, but was a power behind that body. His intelligence, his knowledge of the character of the legislation needed for the people of Mississippi, and the excellent impression he made upon the members, gave him great power in suggesting and influencing legislation.