Belief 3 - Reading 28 of 31, The Reconstruction Convention

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Belief 3 - Reading 28 of 31

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CONVENTION OF THE OTHER COLOR

Harper's Weekly, December 16, 1865, page 786 (Editorial)

As faithful chroniclers, we can not deny that the various conventions of the colored people in the late insurrectionary States compare favorably with those of their white brethren. Their conduct is no less orderly; their reasoning is indisputably superior; their resolutions are of an elevated humanity and commonsense to which those of the other Conventions make no pretension; while their expressions of gratitude and fidelity to the United States, and of Christian charity toward their late masters, are in the highest degree encouraging and refreshing after the sullen, reluctant, defiant, acrid tone of the reorganizing conventions in those States.

There is no more hopeful sign of the times than these Conventions. They show that the colored men are beginning to be conscious of their duties as well as their rights. The address of the State Convention of the colored Union men of South Carolina to the white men of the State says, manfully: "Now that we are freemen, now that we are elevated by the Providence of God to manhood, we have resolved to stand up, and like men, speak and act for ourselves. We fully recognize the truth of the maxim, the gods help those who help themselves." Every honest citizen who hopes for speedy peace and tranquillity will say a hearty Amen to that. We are glad to see the colored men organizing and speaking, and refusing to be torpid at a time when their welfare and their chances are at stake.

And it is really they who do the work of the Conventions. They are not the puppets of white men. It has been the fashion to speak of the slaves as utterly imbruted; as incorrigibly savage, as people who must, at our own peril, be kept forever in the strictest bondage. Yet the correspondent of the New York Herald, a paper which uniformly maligns and ridicules the colored race, says of the South Carolina colored Convention that it "has been marked by a display of ability and decorum that has won for its members great credit even from those who see in such gatherings only some ominous foreboding of insurrection and bloodshed." We venture to believe that those forebodings are not as likely to be justified in the case of the Convention I question as they were in "such gatherings" as the South Carolina Secession Convention of 1860. And we have yet to find in the resolutions of any Convention of the approved color which has met in the State of South Carolina or elsewhere in that region, so much good sense, humanity, and Christianity as in the following adopted by the body of which the correspondent speaks:

"Resolved, That it is with deep regret we perceive a willingness on the part of some of the people of the State to believe that there is danger of an insurrection, and we take this opportunity of making it known to the world that our past career as law-abiding subjects shall be strictly adhered to as law-abiding citizens.

"Resolved, That as the old institution of slavery has passed away, we cherish in our hearts no hatred toward those who have held our brethren as slaves; but that we extend the right hand of fellowship to all, and shall make it our special aim to establish unity, peace, and love among all men.

"Resolved, That we shall encourage the freedmen in acquiring habits of industry and obtaining education."

If the other Convention in South Carolina had been animated by a spirit as sensible, judicious, and statesmanlike, the State would at once enter upon such a career of prosperity as she has never known. Are not such an assembly and such resolutions and such addresses all written by men of the other color, partial proofs at least that justice may prove to be good policy?

The president of the Convention was Thomas M. Holmes, an ex-slave of the ex-rebel Secretary of the Treasury, Memminger. He was formerly librarian of the library of Mr. Memminger and his partners. Such facts should be remembered before launching into rhetoric about "barbarity" and "incapacity." The reader will remember George in Mrs. Stowe’s "Dred." He was a confidential manager. There are thousands of such men in the late slave States, who were trusted for their sagacity and discretion beyond any of "the poor whites." Nor was this surprising; for although Governor Humphreys, of Mississippi, says in an amusingly lofty way, in his inaugural address, that "miscegenation must be the work and taste of other climes and other people," yet every body knows that the clime and the people of the sunny South have succeeded in making about three-quarters of the colored population mulatoes of various degrees. That my not be miscegenation, but it is amalgamation, and they are very nearly related. Governor Humphreys and his friends may spare themselves the stately strain. The court may be supposed to know some law, and the people of this country will smile if the Governor is too positive, for they know all about miscegenation in the late slave States.

It is plain from the proceedings of the various conventions of the colored race that they fully understand the logic of their situation. They are freemen, and they ask, "Why should we suffer on account of the color which an all-wise Creator has given to us?" "We ask for no special privileges or peculiar favors, we ask for even-handed justice, for the removal of such positive obstructions and disabilities as past and recent legislation has thrown in our way and heaped upon us." "We ask for the right of suffrage, and the right of testifying in courts of law. These two things we deem necessary to our welfare and elevation. They are the rights of every freeman, and are inherent and essential to every republican form of government."

This is certainly as reasonable as any thing we have lately heard in the quarter from which it comes. Whatever political disability may be imposed, say these men, let it be real and not arbitrary. Why allow those whom Mr. Olmsted and other travelers describe as clay-eaters and sand-hillers to vote, and exclude Captain Robert Small or Mr. Memminger’s librarian? If, as the Providence Journal most aptly says, you gentlemen of the slave States, with all your Christianizing system of slavery for two centuries, have only succeeded in making this race idle, thievish, and false, suppose that we try the pagan process of treating them as men, and see what comes of that.

When we come to that conclusion we shall have a peace and union which we can trust, and not before.

Harper's Weekly, December 16, 1865, page 786 (Editorial)

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