And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No slave treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of complete emancipation have not been felt. The emancipated class, as a whole, have done wisely, and well under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The masters have learned that cotton can be raised better by free than by slave labor, and nobody now wishes a return to slave-holding. Sectional prejudices are subsiding, the bitterness of the civil war is slowly passing away. We are beginning to feel that we are one people, with no really clashing interests, and none more truly rejoice in the growing prosperity of the South than the old abolitionists, who hated slavery as a curse to the master as well as to the slave.
In view of this commemorative semi-centennial occasion, many thoughts crowd upon me; memory recalls vanished faces and voices long hushed. Of those who acted with me in the convention fifty years ago nearly all have passed into another state of being. We who remain must soon follow; we have seen the fulfilment of our desire; we have outlived scorn and persecution; the lengthening shadows invite us to rest. If, in looking back, we feel that we sometimes erred through impatient zeal in our contest with a great wrong, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we were influenced by no merely selfish considerations. The low light of our setting sun shines over a free, united people, and our last prayer shall be for their peace, prosperity, and happiness.
RESPONSE
TO THE CELEBRATION OF MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY BY THE COLORED CITIZENS OF WASHINGTON D. C.
To R. H. TERRELL AND GEORGE W. WILLIAMS, ESQUIRES.
GENTLEMEN,—Among the great number of tokens of interest and good-will which reached me on my birthday, none have touched me more deeply than the proceedings of the great meeting of the colored citizens of the nation's capital, of which you are the representatives. The resolutions of that meeting came to me as the voice of millions of my fellow- countrymen. That voice was dumb in slavery when, more than half a century ago, I put forth my plea for the freedom of the slave.
It could not answer me from the rice swamp and cotton field, but now, God be praised, it speaks from your great meeting in Washington and from all the colleges and schools where the youth of your race are taught. I scarcely expected then that the people for whom I pleaded would ever know of my efforts in their behalf. I cannot be too thankful to the Divine Providence that I have lived to hear their grateful response.
I stand amazed at the rapid strides which your people have made since emancipation, at your industry, your acquisition of property and land, your zeal for education, your self-respecting but unresentful attitude toward those who formerly claimed to be your masters, your pathetic but manly appeal for just treatment and recognition. I see in all this the promise that the time is not far distant when, in common with the white race, you will have the free, undisputed rights of American citizenship in all parts of the Union, and your rightful share in the honors as well as the protection of the government.
Your letter would have been answered sooner if it had been possible. I have been literally overwbelmed with letters and telegrams, which, owing to illness, I have been in a great measure unable to answer or even read.
I tender to you, gentlemen, and to the people you represent my heartfelt thanks, and the assurance that while life lasts you will find me, as I have been heretofore, under more difficult circumstances, your faithful friend.