Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

DE SOTO DISCOVERING MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

And even to the very day and time whilst I am now writing, I have great pleasure in informing my kind reader that the work goes on, and still goes on well. Beginning gradually at the close of the war, nay, I might almost say, in some places before the close of the war—schools and colleges for all studies were set on foot, either South or North, some for the training of young colored men and women, who were destined to become teachers of their own race throughout the land; some were institutes or colleges for the study of law, medicine, music, elocution and a variety of other subjects. And the work still continues and extends in all directions, and promises to unfold itself more and more as the years go by. At the present time there are many beautiful private schools and seminaries in many parts of the South where young colored ladies exclusively are sent to be educated, and they are splendidly educated, too. And inasmuch as the colored race are born to excel in music, many of them have come to the front, and in the departments of music and song they have shone brightly in the nation, and in distant lands also, where they have no prejudice to contend with. But though the color line has by no means been wiped out yet, even in the Northern States, it must in all fairness be stated that colored youths and maidens are freely permitted to pursue their studies in almost all the schools and colleges of the land; and it is only where race prejudice exists, and the last dregs thereof prevail, that the children of African descent are barred from entering. But time changes all things; God alone cannot be changed—new generations will arise who will entirely sweep the evil past away!

The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution had been passed, securing the race in their personal and civil rights as freemen before the common law of the United States; but as yet colored men could not vote, and the Republican party, as a just and defensive measure, considered that it would be well to arm those who had formerly been slaves with all the rights of citizens, even as others. This brought up the question of a new amendment to the Constitution. It was to be a new dress in which the new citizens were to be clothed before the work was complete. There was opposition enough to this in some quarters; of course, it never was once intended to ask such men as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee for their consent. Even if many of the colored men were uneducated, they were as good, if not better, than a wicked and intelligent rebel. The rebels (as they were still commonly called), would rather pull the national government down to the ground than restore it, but the entire ransomed race desired to build it up. Politically, and also from a sense of gratitude for their freedom, they belonged to the Republican party, and therefore they were perfectly right in siding with the Republicans on every and all occasions. Besides, the right for colored men to vote was bound to come forward sometime or other, and it might just as well come now as hereafter. Ignorance on their part was much better than the studied opposition on the part of the rebels. And I doubt very much whether the most illiterate colored man did not know more about the American Constitution than those ignorant hordes of Europeans who are almost weekly dumped down on our shores, who neither know nor care anything about our Constitution, and who never even heard of the name of George Washington. If this was not so serious a matter, I could almost laugh at the thought of the ignorance of those foreigners.

Besides, if colored men were in many cases unfit for the franchise, it was no bad thing to give it them at once anyhow, because it would stimulate the nation at large to push their complete education along, and the race themselves would now have a far more powerful motive to acquire knowledge than they had ever had before. Therefore, there was a very great deal of interest taken by the nation at large in the passage of the new amendment to the Constitution that was destined to place black men upon the self-same footing with white men. The white Republicans also considered that they were indebted to colored soldiers for the restoration of the Union to the tune of at least 200,000 brave, heroic men, and that they owed them the right to vote.

The necessary three-fourths of all the States of the Union having voted in their legislatures in favor of the passage of the new amendment to the Constitution, President Grant deemed the new measure of such vast importance that he went out of the usual mode adopted upon such occasions, and addressed the following special message on the subject to Congress, for the purpose of still further enhancing its importance in the eyes of the Senate and House of Representatives, and, in short, of the whole American people:

"SPECIAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT GRANT ON THE RATIFICATION OF THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.

"To the Senate and House of Representatives:

"It is unusual to notify the two houses of Congress, by message, of the promulgation by proclamation of the Secretary of State of the ratification of a Constitutional Amendment. In view, however, of the vast importance of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution this day declared a part of the revered instrument, I deem a departure from the usual custom justifiable. A measure which makes at once four millions of people voters, who were heretofore declared by the highest tribunal in the land not citizens of the United States, nor eligible to become so (with the assertion that, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, the opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, regarded as an axiom in morals as well as politics, that black men had no rights which the white man was bound to respect) is indeed a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day.

"Institutions like ours, in which all power is derived directly from the people, must depend mainly upon their intelligence, patriotism, and industry. I call the attention, therefore, of the newly-enfranchised race to the importance of their new privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by our laws, I would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The 'Father of his country,' in his farewell address, uses this language, 'Promote, then, as a matter of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of the government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.' In his first annual message to Congress, the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message.

"I repeat that the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the need that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington. If these recommendations were important then, with a population of but a few millions, how much more now with a population of forty millions, and increasing in rapid ratio.