that two colored men were members of the last Legislature of
Massachusetts; for more than forty years ago a black man was a
member of the Massachusetts Legislature. People seem to have
forgotten our past history. The first blood shed in the
Revolutionary war ran from the veins of a black man; and it is
remarkable that the first blood shed in the recent rebellion also
ran from the veins of a black man. What does it mean, that black
men, first and foremost in the defense of the American nation and
in devotion to the country, are to-day disfranchised in the State
of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay?

These were the last conventions ever held in "the Church of the
Puritans," as it soon passed into other hands, and not one stone was
left upon another; not even an odor of sanctity about the old familiar
corner where so much grand work had been done for humanity. The
building is gone, the congregation scattered, but the name of George
B. Cheever, so long the honored pastor, will not soon be
forgotten.[74]

At the close of the Convention a memorial[75] to Congress was
prepared, and signed by the officers of the Convention.

In a letter to the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_, dated Concord,
April 20, 1867, Parker Pillsbury, under the title, "The Face of the
Sky," says:

I have just read in the papers of last week what follows:

Mr. Phillips, in the _Anti-Slavery Standard_ says: "All our duty
is to press constantly on the nation the absolute need of three
things. 1st. The exercise of the whole police power of the
government while the seeds of republicanism get planted. 2d. The
Constitutional Amendment securing universal suffrage in spite of
all State Legislation. 3d. A Constitutional Amendment authorizing
Congress to establish common schools, etc. To these necessaries,"
Mr. Phillips adds, "we must educate the public mind."

Mr. Greeley in the _Tribune_ says: "We are most anxious that our
present State Constitution shall be so amended as to secure
prompt justice through the courts, preclude legislative and
municipal corruption, and secure responsibility by concentrating
executive power." Through the approaching Constitutional
Convention, he says the people "can secure justice through
reformed courts, fix responsibility for abuses of executive
power;--in short, they can increase the value of