But the great struggle which lasted nearly through the entire session was upon the subject of railroad passenger commutations. Commodore Vanderbilt had secured control of the Hudson River and Harlem railroads, and had increased the price of commuters’ tickets from two hundred to four hundred per cent. Many men living on the line of these roads at distances of from ten to fifty miles from New York, had built fine residences in the country, on the strength of cheap transit to and from the city, and were compelled to submit to the extortion. Commodore Vanderbilt was a large shareholder in the New York and New Haven road; indeed, subsequent elections showed that he had a controlling interest, and it seemed evident to me that the same practice would be put in operation on the New Haven Railroad, that commuters were groaning under on the two other roads. I enlisted as many as I could in an effort to strangle this outrage before it became too strong to grapple with. Several lawyers in the Assembly had promised me their aid, but long before the final struggle came, every lawyer except one in that body was enlisted in favor of the railroads!
What potent influence had been at work with these legal gentlemen could only be surmised. Certain it is that all the railroad interests in the State were combined; and while they had plenty of money with which to carry out their designs and desires, the chances looked slim in favor of those members of the legislature who had no pecuniary interest in the matter, but were struggling simply for justice and the protection of the people. But “Yankee stick-to-it-iveness” was always a noted feature in my character. Every inch of the ground was fought over, day after day, before the legislative railroad committee. Examinations and cross-examinations of railroad commissioners and lobbyists were kept up. Scarcely more than one man, Senator Ballard, of Darien, aided me personally in the investigations which took place. But he was a host in himself, and we left not a stone unturned; we succeeded by our persistence, in letting in considerable light upon a dark subject. The man whom I had prevented from being made chairman, succeeded in becoming a member of the railroad committee; but, from the mouths of unwilling witnesses, I exhibited his connection with railroad reports, railroad laws, and railroad lobbyings, in such a light that he took to his bed some ten days before the end of the session, and actually remained there, “sick,” as he said, till the legislature adjourned.
The speaker offered me the chairmanship of any one of several committees, and I selected that of the Agricultural committee, because it would occupy but little of my time, and give me the opportunity I so much desired to devote my attention to the railway combinations. The Republicans had a majority in both branches of the legislature; the Democrats, however, were watchful and energetic. The amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery, met with but little open opposition; but the proposed amendment to the State Constitution, striking out the word “white” from that clause which defined the qualifications of voters, was violently opposed by the Democratic members. The report from the minority of the committee to whom the question was referred, gave certain reasons for offering the contemplated amendment, and in reply to this, I spoke, May 26, 1865, as follows:
SPEECH OF P. T. BARNUM,
ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Mr. Speaker:—I will not attempt to notice at any length the declamation of the honorable gentleman from Milford, for certainly I have heard nothing from his lips approaching to the dignity of argument. I agree with the gentleman that the right of suffrage is “dearly and sacredly cherished by the white man”; and it is because this right is so dear and sacred, that I wish to see it extended to every educated moral man within our State, without regard to color. He tells us that one race is a vessel to honor, and another to dishonor; and that he has seen on ancient Egyptian monuments the negro represented as “a hewer of wood and a drawer of water.” This is doubtless true, and the gentleman seems determined always to keep the negro a “vessel of dishonor,” and a “hewer of wood.” We, on the other hand, propose to give him the opportunity of expanding his faculties and elevating himself to true manhood. He says he “hates and abhors and despises demagogism.” I am rejoiced to hear it, and I trust we shall see tangible evidence of the truth of what he professes in his abandonment of that slavery to party which is the mere trick and trap of the demagogue.
When, a few days since, this honorable body voted unanimously for the Amendment of the United States Constitution abolishing human slavery, I not only thanked God from my heart of hearts, but I felt like going down on my knees to the gentlemen of the opposition for the wisdom they had exhibited in bowing to the logic of events by dropping that dead weight of slavery which had disrupted the Democratic party, with which I had been so long connected. And on this occasion I wish again to appeal to the wisdom and loyalty of my Democratic friends. I say Democratic “friends,” for I am and ever was a thorough, out and out Democrat. I supported General Jackson, and voted for every Democratic president after him, up to and including Pierce; for I really thought Pierce was a Democrat until he proved the contrary, as I conceived, in the Kansas question. My democracy goes for the greatest good to the greatest number, for equal and exact justice to all men, and for a submission to the will of the majority. If I thought I had one drop of blood in my veins which was not democratic, in the light of this definition, I would have it out, no matter at what trouble or sacrifice. It was the repudiation by the southern democracy of this great democratic doctrine of majority rule which opened the rebellion.
And now, Mr. Speaker, let me remind our democratic friends that the present question simply asks that a majority of the legal voters, the white citizens of this State, may decide whether or not colored men of good moral character, who are able to read and who possess all the qualifications of white voters, shall be entitled to the elective franchise. The opposition may have their own ideas, or may be in doubt upon this subject; but surely no true democrat will dare to refuse permission to our fellow-citizens to decide the question.
Negro slavery and its legitimate outgrowths of ignorance, tyranny and oppression, have caused this gigantic rebellion which has cost our country thousands of millions of treasure, and hundreds of thousands of human lives in defending a principle. And where was this poor, down-trodden colored race in this rebellion? Did they seize the “opportunity” when their masters were engaged with a powerful foe, to break out in insurrection, and massacre those tyrants who had so long held them in the most cruel bondage? No, Mr. Speaker, they did not do this. My “democratic” friends would have done it. I would have done it. Irishmen, Chinamen, Portuguese, would have done it; any white man would have done it; but the poor black man is like a lamb in his nature compared with the white man. The black man possesses a confiding disposition, thoroughly tinctured with religious enthusiasm, and not characterized by a spirit of revenge. No, the only barbarous massacres we heard of, during the war, were those committed by their white masters on their poor, defenceless white prisoners, and to the eternal disgrace of southern white “democratic” rebels, be it said, these instances of barbarism were numerous all through the war. When this rebellion first broke out, the northern democracy raised a hue-and-cry against permitting the negroes to fight; but when such a measure seemed necessary, in order to put down traitors, these colored men took their muskets in hand and made their bodies a wall of defence for the loyal citizens of the north. And now, when our grateful white citizens ask from this assembly the privilege of deciding by their votes whether these colored men, who, at least, were partially our saviors in the war, may or may not, under proper restrictions, become participants in that great salvation, I am amazed that men calling themselves democrats dare refuse to grant this democratic measure. We wish to educate ignorant men, white or black. Ignorance is incompatible with the genius of our free institutions. In the very nature of things it jeopardizes their stability, and it is always unsafe to transgress the laws of nature. We cannot safely shut ourselves up with ignorance and brutality; we must educate and christianize those who are now by circumstances our social inferiors.
Years ago, I was afraid of foreign voters. I feared that when Europe poured her teeming millions of working people upon our shores, our extended laws of franchise would enable them to swamp our free institutions, and reduce us to anarchy. But much reflection has satisfied me that we have only to elevate these millions and their descendants to the standard of American citizenship, and we shall find sufficient of the leaven of liberty in our system of government to absorb all foreign elements and assimilate them to a truly democratic form of government.