re
property and education. The fundamental and unanswerable argument in
favor of the enfranchisement of the negro is found in the undisputed
fact of his manhood. He is a man, and by every fact and argument by
which any man can sustain his right to vote, the negro can sustain his
right equally. It is plain that, if the right belongs to any, it belongs
to all. The doctrine that some men have no rights that others are bound
to respect, is a doctrine which we must banish as we have banished
slavery, from which it emanated. If black men have no rights in the
eyes of white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the
blacks. The result is a war of races, and the annihilation of all proper
human relations.

But suffrage for the negro, while easily sustained upon abstract
principles, demands consideration upon what are recognized as the urgent
necessities of the case. It is a measure of relief,--a shield to break
the force of a blow already descending with violence, and render it
harmless. The work of destruction has already been set in motion all
over the South. Peace to the country has literally meant war to the
loyal men of the South, white and black; and negro suffrage is the
measure to arrest and put an end to that dreadful strife.

Something then, not by way of argument, (for that has been done by
Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and
other able men,) but rather of statement and appeal.

For better or for worse, (as in some of the old marriage ceremonies,)
the negroes are evidently a permanent part of the American population.
They are too numerous and useful to be colonized, and too enduring and
self-perpetuating to disappear by natural causes. Here they are, four
millions of them, and, for weal or for woe, here they must remain. Their
history is parallel to that of the country; but while the history of
the latter has been cheerful and bright with blessings, theirs has
been heavy and dark with agonies and curses. What O'Connell said of the
history of Ireland may with greater truth be said of the negro's. It may
be "traced like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood." Yet the
negroes have marvellously survived all the exterminating forces of
slavery, and have emerged at the end of two hundred and fifty years
of bondage, not morose, misanthropic, and revengeful, but cheerful,
hopeful, and forgiving. They now stand before Congress and the country,
not complaining of the p