{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-9:address-to-the-colored-people",
  "slug": "address-to-the-colored-people",
  "title": "An Address to the Colored People",
  "subtitle": "Galesburg, Illinois, 1867.",
  "excerpt": "An 1867 address to the freed colored people of Galesburg, Illinois — a survey of slavery in all its ages and forms, from Gonzales' Portuguese slave trade to the abolitionists and the Emancipation Proclamation.",
  "year": 1867,
  "volume": 9,
  "category": "Political",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/address-to-the-colored-people/",
  "wordCount": 2742,
  "body": "• An address delivered to the colored people at Galesburg,\n    Illinois, 1867.\n\nFELLOW-CITIZENS—Slavery has in a thousand forms existed in all ages,\nand among all people. It is as old as theft and robbery.\n\nEvery nation has enslaved its own people, and sold its own flesh and\nblood. Most of the white race are in slavery to-day. It has often been\nsaid that any man who ought to be free, will be. The men who say this\nshould remember that their own ancestors were once cringing, frightened,\nhelpless slaves.\n\nWhen they became sufficiently educated to cease enslaving their own\npeople, they then enslaved the first race they could conquer. If they\ndiffered in religion, they enslaved them. If they differed in color,\nthat was sufficient. If they differed even in language, it was enough.\nIf they were captured, they then pretended that having spared their\nlives, they had the right to enslave them. This argument was worthless.\nIf they were captured, then there was no necessity for killing them. If\nthere was no necessity for killing them, then they had no right to\nkill them. If they had no right to kill them, then they had no right to\nenslave them under the pretence that they had saved their lives.\n\nEvery excuse that the ingenuity of avarice could devise was believed to\nbe a complete justification, and the great argument of slaveholders in\nall countries has been that slavery is a divine institution, and thus\nstealing human beings has always been fortified with a \"Thus saith the\nLord.\"\n\nSlavery has been upheld by law and religion in every country. The word\nLiberty is not in any creed in the world. Slavery is right according to\nthe law of man, shouted the judge. It is right according to the law of\nGod, shouted the priest. Thus sustained by what they were pleased to\ncall the law of God and man, slaveholders never voluntarily freed the\nslaves, with the exception of the Quakers. The institution has in all\nages been clung to with the tenacity of death; clung to until it sapped\nand destroyed the foundations of society; clung to until all law became\nviolence; clung to until virtue was a thing only of history; clung to\nuntil industry folded its arms—until commerce reefed every sail—until\nthe fields were desolate and the cities silent, except where the poor\nfree asked for bread, and the slave for mercy; clung to until the slave\nforging the sword of civil war from his fetters drenched the land in the\nmaster's blood. Civil war has been the great liberator of the world.\n\nSlavery has destroyed every nation that has gone down to death. It\ncaused the last vestige of Grecian civilization to disappear forever,\nand it caused Rome to fall with a crash that shook the world. After\nthe disappearance of slavery in its grossest forms in Europe, Gonzales\npointed out to his countrymen, the Portuguese, the immense profits that\nthey could make by stealing Africans, and thus commenced the modern\nslave-trade—that aggregation of all horror—that infinite of all\ncruelty, prosecuted only by demons, and defended only by fiends. And\nyet the slave-trade has been defended and sustained by every civilized\nnation, and by each and all has been baptized \"Legitimate commerce,\" in\nthe name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost:\n\nIt was even justified upon the ground that it tended to Christianize the\nnegro.\n\nIt was of the poor hypocrites who had used this argument that Whittier\nsaid,\n    \"They bade the slaveship speed from coast to coast,\n    Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nBacked and supported by such Christian and humane arguments slavery was\nplanted upon our soil in 1620, and from that day to this it has been\nthe cause of all our woes, of all the bloodshed—of all the\nheart-burnings—hatred and horrors of more than two hundred years, and\nyet we hated to part with the beloved institution. Like Pharaoh we would\nnot let the people go. He was afflicted with vermin, with frogs—with\nwater turned to blood—with several kinds of lice, and yet would not let\nthe people go. We were afflicted with worse than all these combined—the\nNorthern Democracy—before we became grand enough to say, \"Slavery\nshall be eradicated from the soil of the Republic.\" When we reached this\nsublime moral height we were successful. The Rebellion was crushed and\nliberty established.\n\nA majority of the civilized world is for freedom—nearly all the\nChristian denominations are for liberty. The world has changed—the\npeople are nobler, better and purer than ever.\n\nEvery great movement must be led by heroic and self-sacrificing\npioneers. In England, in Christian England, the soul of the abolition\ncause was Thomas Clarkson. To the great cause of human freedom he\ndevoted his life. He won over the eloquent and glorious Wilberforce,\nthe great Pitt, the magnificent orator, Burke, and that far-seeing and\nhumane statesman, Charles James Fox.\n\nIn 1788 a resolution was introduced in the House of Commons declaring\nthat the slave trade ought to be abolished. It was defeated. Learned\nlords opposed it. They said that too much capital was invested by\nBritish merchants in the slave-trade. That if it were abolished the\nships would rot at the wharves, and that English commerce would be swept\nfrom the seas. Sanctified Bishops—lords spiritual—thought the scheme\nfanatical, and various resolutions to the same effect were defeated.\n\nThe struggle lasted twenty years, and yet during all those years in\nwhich England refused to abolish the hellish trade, that nation had the\nimpudence to send missionaries all over the world to make converts to\na religion that in their opinion, at least, allowed man to steal his\nbrother man—that allowed one Christian to rob another of his wife, his\nchild, and of that greatest of all blessings—his liberty. It was not\nuntil the year 1808 that England was grand and just enough to abolish\nthe slave-trade, and not until 1833 that slavery was abolished in all\nher colonies.\n\nThe name of Thomas Clarkson should be remembered and honored through all\ncoming time by every black man, and by every white man who loves liberty\nand hates cruelty and injustice.\n\nClarkson, Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, Burke, were the Titans that swept the\naccursed slaver from that highway—the sea.\n\nIn St. Domingo the pioneers were Oge and Chevannes; they headed\na revolt; they were unsuccessful, but they roused the slaves to\nresistance. They were captured, tried, condemned and executed. They were\nmade to ask forgiveness of God, and of the King, for having attempted to\ngive freedom to their own flesh and blood. They were broken alive on the\nwheel, and left to die of hunger and pain. The blood of these martyrs\nbecame the seed of liberty; and afterward in the midnight assault, in\nthe massacre and pillage, the infuriated slaves shouted their names\nas their battle-cry, until Toussaint, the greatest of the blacks, gave\nfreedom to them all.\n\nIn the United States, among the Revolutionary fathers, such men as John\nAdams, and his son John Quincy—such men as Franklin and John Jay were\nopposed to the institution of slavery. Thomas Jefferson said, speaking\nof the slaves, \"When the measure of their tears shall be full—when\ntheir groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness—doubtless a\nGod of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light\nand liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating\nthunder manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that\nthey are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality.\"\n\nThomas Paine said, \"No man can be happy surrounded by those whose\nhappiness he has destroyed.\" And a more self-evident proposition was\nnever uttered.\n\nThese and many more Revolutionary heroes were opposed to slavery and\ndid what they could to prevent the establishment and spread of this most\nwicked and terrible of all institutions.\n\nYou owe gratitude to those who were for liberty as a principle and not\nfrom mere necessity. You should remember with more than gratitude that\nfirm, consistent and faithful friend of your downtrodden race, Wm.\nLloyd Garrison. He has devoted his life to your cause. Many years ago in\nBoston he commenced the publication of a paper devoted to liberty.\nPoor and despised—friendless and almost alone, he persevered in that\ngrandest and holiest of all possible undertakings. He never stopped, or\nstayed, or paused until the chain was broken and the last slave could\nlift his toil-worn face to heaven with the light of freedom shining down\nupon him, and say, I am a Free Man.\n\nYou should not forget that noble philanthropist, Wendell Phillips, and\nyour most learned and eloquent defender, Charles Sumner.\n\nBut the real pioneer in America was old John Brown. Moved not by\nprejudice, not by love of his blood, or his color, but by an infinite\nlove of Liberty, of Right, of Justice, almost single-handed, he attacked\nthe monster, with thirty million people against him. His head was wrong.\nHe miscalculated his forces; but his heart was right. He struck the\nsublimest blow of the age for freedom. It was said of him that, he\nstepped from the gallows to the throne of God. It was said that he\nhad made the scaffold to Liberty what Christ had made the cross to\nChristianity. The sublime Victor Hugo declared that John Brown was\ngreater than Washington, and that his name would live forever.\n\nI say, that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and\nheroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be\ngreater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not\nshrink from what he believes to be his highest duty. If the black people\nwant a patron saint, let them take the brave old John Brown. And as the\ngentleman who preceded me said, at all your meetings, never separate\nuntil you have sung the grand song,\n    \"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,\n    But his soul goes marching on.\"\n\nYou do not, in my opinion, owe a great debt of gratitude to many of the\nwhite people.\n\nOnly a few years ago both parties agreed to carry out the Fugitive\nSlave Law. If a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had fled from\nslavery—had traveled through forests, crossed rivers, and through\ncountless sufferings had got within one step of Canada—of free\nsoil—with the light of the North Star shining in her eyes, and her babe\npressed to her withered breast, both parties agreed to clutch her and\nhand her back to the dominion of the hound and lash. Both parties, as\nparties, were willing to do this when the Rebellion commenced.\n\nThe truth is, we had to give you your liberty. There came a time in\nthe history of the war when, defeated at the ballot box and in the\nfield—driven to the shattered gates of eternal chaos—we were forced\nto make you free; and on the first day of January, 1863, the justice so\nlong delayed was done, and four millions of people were lifted from\nthe condition of beasts of burden to the sublime heights of freedom.\nLincoln, the immortal, issued, and the men of the North sustained the\ngreat proclamation.\n\nAs in the war there came a time when we were forced to make you free, so\nin the history of reconstruction came a time when we were forced to make\nyou citizens; when we were forced to say that you should vote, and that\nyou should have and exercise all the rights that we claim for ourselves.\n\nAnd to-day I am in favor of giving you every right that I claim for\nmyself.\n\nIn reconstructing the Southern States, we could take our choice, either\ngive the ballot to the negro, or allow the rebels to rule. We preferred\nloyal blacks to disloyal whites, because we believed liberty safer in\nthe hands of its friends than in those of its foes.\n\nWe must be for freedom everywhere. Freedom is progress—slavery is\ndesolation, cruelty and want.\n\nFreedom invents—slavery forgets. The problem of the slave is to do the\nleast work in the longest space of time. The problem of free men is to\ndo the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time. The free\nman, working for wife and children, gets his head and his hands in\npartnership.\n\nFreedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the\nhighest, from the simplest to the most complex. Freedom believes in\neducation—the salvation of slavery is ignorance.\n\nThe South always dreaded the alphabet. They looked upon each letter as\nan abolitionist, and well they might. With a scent keener than their own\nbloodhounds they detected everything that could, directly or indirectly,\ninterfere with slavery. They knew that when slaves begin to think,\nmasters begin to tremble. They knew that free thought would destroy\nthem; that discussion could not be endured; that a free press would\nliberate every slave; and so they mobbed free thought, and put an end to\nfree discussion and abolished a free press, and in fact did all the\nmean and infamous things they could, that slavery might live, and that\nliberty might perish from among men.\n\nYou are now citizens of many of the States, and in time you will be\nof all. I am astonished when I think how long it took to abolish the\nslave-trade, how long it took to abolish slavery in this country. I am\nalso astonished to think that a few years ago magnificent steamers went\ndown the Mississippi freighted with your fathers, mothers, brothers,\nand sisters, and maybe some of you, bound like criminals, separated from\nwives, from husbands, every human feeling laughed at and outraged, sold\nlike beasts, carried away from homes to work for another, receiving for\npay only the marks of the lash upon the naked back. I am astonished\nat these things. I hate to think that all this was done under the\nConstitution of the United States, under the flag of my country, under\nthe wings of the eagle.\n\nThe flag was not then what it is now. It was a mere rag in comparison.\nThe eagle was a buzzard, and the Constitution sanctioned the greatest\ncrime of the world.\n\nI wonder that you—the black people—have forgotten all this. I wonder\nthat you ask a white man to address you on this occasion, when the\nhistory of your connection with the white race is written in your blood\nand tears—is still upon your flesh, put there by the branding-iron and\nthe lash.\n\nI feel like asking your forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has\ninflicted upon yours. If, in the future, the wheel of fortune should\ntake a turn, and you should in any country have white men in your power,\nI pray you not to execute the villainy we have taught you.\n\nOne word in conclusion. You have your liberty—use it to benefit your\nrace. Educate yourselves, educate your children, send teachers to the\nSouth. Let your brethren there be educated. Let them know something of\nart and science. Improve yourselves, stand by each other, and above all\nbe in favor of liberty the world over.\n\nThe time is coming when you will be' allowed to be good and useful\ncitizens of the Great Republic. This is your country as much as it is\nmine. You have the same rights here that I have—the same interest\nthat I have. The avenues of distinction will be open to you and your\nchildren. Great advances have been made. The rebels are now opposed\nto slavery—the Democratic party is opposed to slavery, as they say.\nThere is going to be no war of races. Both parties want your votes in\nthe South, and there will be just enough negroes without principle to\njoin the rebels to make them think they will get more, and so the rebels\nwill treat the negroes well. And the Republicans will be sure to treat\nthem well in order to prevent any more joining the rebels.\n\nThe great problem is solved. Liberty has solved it—and there will be no\nmore slavery. On the old flag, on every fold and on every star will be\nliberty for all, equality before the law. The grand people are marching\nforward, and they will not pause until the earth is without a chain, and\nwithout a throne.\n"
}