Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/58

 You tell me that the late rebels had deserved all this in the way of punishment. Granting that, I beg leave to suggest that this is not the question. The question is: What were the means best calculated to overcome the difficulties standing in the way of a willing and universal recognition of the new rights and privileges of the emancipated class? What were the means to overcome the hostile influences impending the development of the harmony of society in its new order? I am far from asserting that, had no disabilities existed, universal suffrage would have been received by the Southern whites with universal favor. No, sir, most probably it would not; but I do assert that the existence of disabilities, which put so large and influential a class of whites in point of political privileges below the colored people, could not fail to inflame those prejudices which stood in the way of a general and honest acceptance of the new order of things; they increased instead of diminishing the dangers and difficulties surrounding the emancipated class; and nobody felt that more keenly than the colored people of the South themselves. To their honor be it said, following a just instinct, they were among the very first, not only in the South but all over the country, in entreating Congress to remove those odious discriminations which put in jeopardy their own rights by making them greater than those of others. From the colored people themselves, it