A.
[The following is the speech made by Chief-Justice Chase to the negroes at Charleston, under the circumstances narrated on page [83]:]
My Friends—In compliance with the request of General Saxton, your friend and mine, I will say a few words.
He has kindly introduced me as a friend of freedom; and such, since I have taken a man’s part in life, I have always been. It has ever been my earnest desire to see every man, of every race and every color, fully secured in the enjoyment of all natural rights, and provided with every legitimate means for the defense and maintenance of those rights.
No man, perhaps, has more deplored the war, from which the country is now emerging, than myself. No one would have made greater sacrifices to avert it. Earnestly desirous, as I always was, of the enfranchisement of every slave in the land, I never dreamed of seeking enfranchisement through war. I expected it through peaceful measures. Never doubting that it would come sometime; fully believing that by a wise and just administration of the National Government, friendly to freedom, but in strict conformity with the National Constitution, the time of its coming might be hastened; I yet would gladly have put aside, if I could, the cup of evil, of which our Nation has drunk so deeply. Not through those seas of blood, and those vast gulfs of cost, would I have willingly sought even the great good of universal emancipation.
But God, in His providence, permitted the madness of slavery-extension and slavery-domination to attempt the dismemberment of the Union by war. And when war came, there came also the idea, gradually growing into settled conviction in the hearts of the people, that slavery, having taken the sword, must perish by the sword. It was quite natural, perhaps, that I, having thought much on the relations of the enslaved masses to the Republic, should be among the first to recognize the fact that the colored people of the South, whether bond or free, were the natural allies of the Nation, [prolonged cheers,] in its struggle with rebellion, and the duty of the National Government to assert their rights, and welcome their aid. A very few months of experience and observation satisfied me that if we would succeed in the struggle we must, as a first and most necessary measure, strike the fetters from the bondsmen. [Cheers.]
Such was my counsel in the Cabinet; and when our honored President, whose martyrdom this Nation now mourns, in common with all lovers of freedom throughout the world, after long forbearance, made up his mind to declare all men in our land free, no one was more ready with his sanction, or more hearty in his approval than myself. [Cheers.]
So, too, when necessarily that other question arose: “Shall we give arms to the black men?” I could not doubt or hesitate. The argument was plain and irresistible: If we make them freemen, and their defense is the defense of the Nation, whose right and duty is it to bear arms, if not theirs? In this great struggle, now for universal freedom not less than for perpetual Union, who ought to take part, if not they? And how can we expect to succeed, if we fail to avail ourselves of the natural helps created for us by the very conditions of the war? When, therefore, the President, after much consideration, resolved to summon black soldiers to battle for the flag, I felt that it was a wise act, only too long delayed. [Cheers.]
And now, who can say that the colored man has not done his full part in the struggle? Who has made sacrifices which he has not made? Who has endured hardships which he has not endured? What ills have any suffered which he has not suffered?
If, then, he has contributed in just measure to the victory, shall he not partake of its fruits? If Union and Freedom have been secured through courage, and fortitude, and zeal, displayed by black as well as white soldiers, shall not the former be benefited in due measure as well as the latter? And since we all know that natural rights can not be made secure except through political rights, shall not the ballot—the freeman’s weapon in peace—replace the bayonet—the freeman’s weapon in war?