C.
LETTER FROM CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE TO A COMMITTEE OF COLORED MEN IN NEW ORLEANS.
New Orleans, June 6, 1865.
Gentlemen—I should hardly feel at liberty to decline the invitation you have tendered me, in behalf of the loyal colored Americans of New Orleans, to speak to them on the subject of their rights and duties as citizens, if I had not quite recently expressed my views at Charleston, in an address, reported with substantial accuracy, and already published in one of the most widely circulated journals of this city. But it seems superfluous to repeat them before another audience.
It is proper to say, however, that these views, having been formed years since, on much reflection, and confirmed, in a new and broader application, by the events of the civil war now happily ended, are not likely to undergo, hereafter, any material change.
That native freemen, of whatever complexion, are citizens of the United States; that all men held as slaves in the States which joined in the rebellion against the United States have become freemen through executive and legislative acts during the war; and that these freemen are now citizens, and consequently entitled to the rights of citizens, are propositions which, in my judgment, can not be successfully controverted.
And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise. They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action. Its justice is already acknowledged by great numbers of their white fellow-citizens, and these numbers constantly increase.
The peculiar conditions, however, under which these rights arise, seem to impose on those who assert them peculiar duties, or rather special obligations to the discharge of common duties. They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues. In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, and convince even the most prejudiced that the denial to them of any right which citizens may properly exercise is equally unwise and wrong.
Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage. It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress. May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the most speedy and certain revival of general prosperity?
Very respectfully, yours,
S. P. CHASE.
Messrs. J. B. Roudanez, L. Goelis and L. Banks, Committee.