149

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 301

of the black man, deprive him of all means of defence, and clothe him whom
you regard as his enemy in the panoply of political power? Can it be that you
recommend a policy which would arm the strong and cast down the defenceless?
Can you, by any possibility of reasoning, regard this as just, fair, or wise?
Experience proves that those are most abused who can be abused with the
greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest. Peace
between races is not to be secured by degrading one race and exalting another,
by giving power to one race and withholding it from another, but by maintaining
a state of equal justice between all classes. First pure, then peaceable.

"3. On the colonization theory you were pleased to broach, very much
could be said. It is impossible to suppose, in view of the usefulness of the
black man in time of peace as a laborer in the South, and in time of war as a
soldier at the North, and the growing respect for his rights among the people,
and his increasing adaptation to a high state of civilization in his native land,
there can ever come a time when he can be removed from this country without
a terrible shock to its prosperity and peace. Besides, the worst enemy of
the nation could not cast upon its fair name a greater infamy than to admit
that negroes could be tolerated among them in a state of the most degrading
slavery and oppression, and must be cast away, driven into exile, for no other
cause than having been freed from their chains.

"WASHINGTON, February 7th, 1866."

From this time onward, the question of suffrage for the freedmen, was
not allowed to rest. The rapidity with which it gained strength, was something quite
marvelous and surprising even to its advocates. Senator Charles
Sumner soon took up the subject in the Senate and treated it in his usually
able and exhaustive manner. It was a great treat to listen to his argument
running through two days, abounding as it did in eloquence, learning, and
conclusive reasoning. A committee of the Senate had reported a proposition
giving to the States lately in rebellion in so many words complete option as
to the enfranchisement of their colored citizens: only coupling with that
proposition the condition that, to such States as chose to enfranchise such
citizens, the basis of their representation in Congress should be proportionately
increased; or, in other words, only three-fifths of the colored citizens
should be counted in the basis of representation in States where colored citizens
were not allowed to vote, while in the States granting suffrage to colored
citizens, the entire colored people should be counted in the basis of
representation. Against this proposition, myself and associates addressed to
the Senate of the United States the following memorial: