OSCAR JAMES DUNN.
Oscar J. Dunn was a native of Louisiana, and by trade a plasterer, at which he worked during his early life. His education was limited, but what he lacked in book learning was made up in good common sense. In color, he was a brown skin, of commanding appearance, dignified in manners, and calculated to make a favorable impression upon all who had the good fortune to make his acquaintance. Although born a slave, he was, nevertheless, one of Nature’s noblest men.
Called into public life at a time when the condition of his race was in a critical transition state, he exhibited powers of intellect, honesty of purpose, and private virtues seldom equalled. General Sheridan, while in command at New Orleans, early discovered the rare gifts of Mr. Dunn, and appointed him a member of the city council. He served the city and state in various ways until he was elected to the position of lieutenant-governor of the state. Intelligent upon all subjects, and remarkable for sound judgment, his opinion and counsel upon questions of state were sought by men of all parties. As a presiding officer in the Louisiana Senate, Mr. Dunn exhibited parliamentary talent that at once commanded the respect and challenged the admiration of the most fastidious; and for dispatch of business in his official chair, few men in the country have been his equal.
But the greatest characteristic of this man was his downright honesty. In this he stood almost alone, for while the legislature of Louisiana was charged with being a stock-jobbing concern, and its members, one after another, rolling in their new-gained wealth, Oscar J. Dunn was not only above suspicion, but actually died a poor man.
He was a calm, vigilant sentry for Louisiana when she dreamed it least. Firmly resisting temptations to sin, which too often beset official station, he could never be made an accomplice with others against her. His inflexible integrity was in itself a mighty protest against the shams of the state administration, and commanded such candid respect even from the Democrats, that of late the authors of those shams, in their recourse to Democrats for the fresh lease of power denied them by Republicans, were constrained to revive a prejudice for a pretext, and to charge him with instigating a black man’s party. There existed not a fact to justify the charge; but a lie was a fit auxiliary to new projects of fraud, and unhappily, there were “itching palms” to subscribe it per order.
His views were most catholic on the question of class. He wanted amity, not jealousy, between the colors, for he recognized all in the political society as brethren, not as rivals. He felt that injustice to any one citizen, white or black, was, if unredressed, a menace to all; that our interests were in common; our ballots, honestly counted, our common consent; and our influence for good, our common basis of endeavor for Louisiana. His aims for his race were too sincere to embarrass its progress by provoking anew the old sectional spleen against it—and he tacitly compelled in his own case a recognition, which any citizen might envy. Standing in a high official trust, and yet in a dark skin, he rebuked with quiet, inoffensive emphasis, the miserable heresy that a man is more or less a worthy citizen because of his color.
As a speaker, Mr. Dunn was not what the world would call “eloquent,” but what he said was always listened to with the greatest interest and respect. All classes held him in high esteem, and with his own color his power was unlimited. Attacked by a sudden and sure malady, death swept him away while in the zenith of his influence, on the twenty-first of November, 1871.