But as the legislature has thought proper thus to set at defiance the moral sense of mankind, and to take refuge behind the enactments of the Constitution, let us try the strength of their entrenchments. The words of the Constitution, which it is pretended sanction the resolution we are considering are the following, viz.—"The people have a right to assemble together in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the legislature for a redress of grievances." It is obvious that this clause confers no rights, but is merely declaratory of existing rights. Still, as the right of the people to apply for a redress of grievances is coupled with the right of instructing their representatives, and as negroes are not electors and consequently are without representatives, it is inferred that they are not part of the people. That Ohio legislators are not Christians would be a more rational conclusion. One of the members avowed his opinion that "none but voters had a right to petition." If then, according to the principle of the resolution, the Constitution of Ohio denies the right of petition to all but electors, let us consider the practical results of such a denial. In the first place, every female in the State is placed under the same disability with "blacks and mulattoes." No wife has a right to ask for a divorce—no daughter may plead for a father's life. Next, no man under twenty-one years—no citizen of any age, who from want of sufficient residence, or other qualification, is not entitled to vote—no individual among the tens of thousands of aliens in the State—however oppressed and wronged by official tyranny or corruption, has a right to seek redress from the representatives of the people, and should he presume to do so, may be told, that, like "blacks and mulattoes," he "has no constitutional right to present his petition to the General Assembly for any purpose whatever." Again—the State of Ohio is deeply indebted to the citizens of other States, and also to the subjects of Great Britain for money borrowed to construct her canals. Should any of these creditors lose their certificates of debt, and ask for their renewal; or should their interest be withheld, or paid in depreciated currency, and were they to ask for justice at the hands of the legislature, they might be told, that any attention paid to their request must be regarded as a "mere act of privilege or policy, and not imposed by any expressed or implied power of the Constitution," for, not being voters, they stood on the same ground as "blacks and mulattoes." Such is the folly and wickedness in which prejudice against color has involved the legislators of a republican and professedly Christian State in the nineteenth century.
4. EXCLUSION FROM THE ARMY AND MILITIA.
The Federal Government is probably the only one in the world that forbids a portion of its subjects to participate in the national defence, not from any doubts of their courage, loyalty, or physical strength, but merely on account of the tincture of their skin! To such an absurd extent is this prejudice against color carried, that some of our militia companies have occasionally refused to march to the sound of a drum when beaten by a black man. To declare a certain class of the community unworthy to bear arms in defence of their native country, is necessarily to consign that class to general contempt.
5. EXCLUSION FROM ALL PARTICIPATION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
No colored man can be a judge, juror, or constable. Were the talents and acquirements of a Mansfield or a Marshall veiled in a sable skin, they would be excluded from the bench of the humblest court in the American republic. In the slave States generally, no black man can enter a court of justice as a witness against a white one. Of course a white man may, with perfect impunity, defraud or abuse a negro to any extent, provided he is careful to avoid the presence of any of his own caste, at the execution of his contract, or the indulgence of his malice. We are not aware that an outrage so flagrant is sanctioned by the laws of any free State, with one exception. That exception the reader will readily believe can be none other than OHIO. A statute of this State enacts, "that no black or mulatto person or persons shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn, or give evidence in any court of Record or elsewhere, in this State, in any cause depending, or matter of controversy, when either party to the same is a WHITE person; or in any prosecution of the State against any WHITE person."
We have seen that on the subject of petition the legislature regards itself as independent of all obligation except such as is imposed by the Constitution. How mindful they are of the requirements even of that instrument, when obedience to them would check the indulgence of their malignity to the blacks, appears from the 7th Section of the 8th Article, viz.—"All courts shall be open, and every person, for any injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without denial or delay."
Ohio legislators may deny that negroes and mulattoes are citizens, or people; but they are estopped by the very words of the statute just quoted, from denying that they are "persons." Now, by the Constitution every person, black as well as white, is to have justice administered to him without denial or delay. But by the law, while any unknown white vagrant may be a witness in any case whatever, no black suitor is permitted to offer a witness of his own color, however well established may be his character for intelligence and veracity, to prove his rights or his wrongs; and hence in a multitude of cases, justice is denied in despite of the Constitution; and why denied? Solely from a foolish and wicked prejudice against color.
6. IMPEDIMENTS TO EDUCATION.
No people have ever professed so deep a conviction of the importance of popular education as ourselves, and no people have ever resorted to such cruel expedients to perpetuate abject ignorance. More than one third of the whole population of the slave States are prohibited from learning even to read, and in some of them free men, if with dark complexions, are subject to stripes for teaching their own children. If we turn to the free States, we find that in all of them, without exception, the prejudices and customs of society oppose almost insuperable obstacles to the acquisition of a liberal education by colored youth. Our academies and colleges are barred against them. We know there are instances of young men with dark skins having been received, under peculiar circumstances, into northern colleges; but we neither know nor believe, that there have been a dozen such instances within the last thirty years.
Colored children are very generally excluded from our common schools, in consequence of the prejudices of teachers and parents. In some of our cities there are schools exclusively for their use, but in the country the colored population is usually too sparse to justify such schools; and white and black children are rarely seen studying under the same roof; although such cases do sometimes occur, and then they are confined to elementary schools. Some colored young men, who could bear the expense, have obtained in European seminaries the education denied them in their native land.