Page:Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892).djvu/374

366 in a word, it was intended and well calculated to discourage, dishearten, and if possible to drive the whole free colored people out of the country. In looking at the black law then recently enacted in the State of Illinois one is struck dumb by its enormity. It would seem that the men who passed that law had not only successfully banished from their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame as well; these law codes propose to sell the bodies and souls of the blacks to provide the means of intelligence and refinement for the whites; to rob every black stranger who ventures among them to increase their educational fund.

"While this kind of legislation is going on in the States, a pro-slavery political board of health is being established at Washington. Senators Hale, Chase, and Sumner are robbed of their senatorial rights and dignity as representatives of sovereign States, because they have refused to be inoculated with the pro-slavery virus of the times. Among the services that a senator is expected to perform are many that can only be done efficiently by those acting as members of important committees, and the slave power in the Senate, in saying to these honorable senators, you shall not serve on the committees of this body, took the responsibility of insulting and robbing the States which have sent them there. It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the States who the States shall send to the Senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression on the part of the slave power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed and insulted senators the rebuke which we had a right to expect from them. It seems to me that a great opportunity was lost, that the great principle of senatorial equality was left undefended at a time when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose of my present statement to criticize the conduct of friends. Much should be left to the discretion of anti-slavery men in Congress. Charges of recreancy should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds. For of all places in the world where an anti-slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of his friends, I take Washington—the citadel of slavery—to be that place.

"Let attention now be called to the social influences operating and coöperating with the slave power of the time and designed to promote all its malign objects. We see here the black man attacked in his most vital interests: prejudice and hate are systematically excited against him. The wrath of other laborers is stirred up against him. The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere, are instantly taught when they step upon our soil to hate and despise the negro. They are taught to believe that he eats the bread that belongs to them. The cruel lie is told them, that we deprive them of labor and receive the money which would otherwise make its way into their pockets. Sir, the Irish-American will one day find out his