" He never drew the line
in public or private between him and the people whose cause was his
cause--not even socially. He went into their homes and was in all things
one with them. He forgot that he was white, forgot that they were black,
forgot the pride of race, forgot the stigma of race too in the tie of
human kinship which bound him to them. If he had what they did not
possess, the rights of a man, the civil and political position of a man
in the State, the equality of a brother in the church, it could not make
him feel better than they, it filled him instead with a righteous sense
of wrong, a passionate sympathy, a supreme desire and determination to
make his own rights the measure of theirs.
"I lose sight of your present situation," he said in his address before
Free People of Color, "and look at it only in futurity. I imagine myself
surrounded by educated men of color, the Websters, and Clays, and
Hamiltons, and Dwights, and Edwardses of the day. I listen to their
voice as judges and representatives, and rulers of the people--the whole
people." This glowing vision was not the handiwork of a rhetorician
writing with an eye to its effect upon his hearers. The ardent hope of
the reformer was rather the father of the golden dream.
This practical recognition of the negro as a man and a brother was the
exact opposite of the treatment which was his terrible lot in the
country.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175