The Civil Rights Law needs a supplement to cover these cases. This defect has been apparent from the beginning, and for a long time I have striven to remove it. A bill for this purpose, introduced by me, is now pending in the Senate. Will not colored fellow-citizens see that those in power no longer postpone this essential safeguard? Surely here is an object worthy of effort. Nor has the Republican party done its work until this is accomplished.
Is it not better to establish all our own people in the enjoyment of equal rights before we seek to bring others within the sphere of our institutions, to be treated as Frederick Douglass was on his way to the President from San Domingo? It is easy to see that a small part of the means, the energy, and the determined will spent in the expedition to San Domingo, and in the prolonged war-dance about that island, with menace to the Black Republic of Hayti, would have secured all our colored fellow-citizens in the enjoyment of equal rights. Of this there can be no doubt.
Among cardinal objects is Education, which must be insisted on; here again must be equality, side by side with the alphabet. It is vain to teach equality, if you do not practise it. It is vain to recite the great words of the Declaration of Independence, if you do not make them a living reality. What is a lesson without example?
As all are equal at the ballot-box, so must all be equal at the common school. Equality in the common school is the preparation for equality at the ballot-box. Therefore do I put this among the essentials of education.
In asserting your rights, you will not fail to insist upon justice to all, under which is necessarily included purity in the Government. Thieves and money-changers, whether Democrats or Republicans, must be driven out of our Temple. Let Tammany Hall and Republican self-seekers be overthrown. There should be no place for either. Thank God, good men are coming to the rescue. Let them, while uniting against corruption, insist upon Equal Rights for All,—also the suppression of lawless violence, whether in the Ku-Klux-Klan outraging the South, or illicit undertakings outraging the Black Republic of Hayti.
To these inestimable objects add Specie Payments, and you will have a platform which ought to be accepted by the American people. Will not our colored fellow-citizens begin this good work? Let them at the same time save themselves and save the country.
These are only hints, which I submit to the Convention, hoping that its proceedings will tend especially to the good of the colored race.
Accept my thanks and best wishes, and believe me faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
Hon. H. M. Turner.