Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

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Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection 152 LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. they are as wide apart as are the poles of the moral universe, but their civil rights are the same. The distinction between the two sorts of equality is broad and plain to the understanding of the most limited, and yet, blinded by prejudice, men never cease to confound one with.the other, and allow themselves to infringe the civil rights of their fellow-citizens, as if those rights were in some way in violation of their social rights. " That this denial of rights to us is because of our color, only as color is a badge of condition, is manifest in the fact that no matter how decently dressed or well-behaved a colored man may be, he is denied civil treatment in the ways thus pointed out, unless he comes as a servant. His color, not his character, determines the place he shall hold and the kind of treatment he shall receive. That this is due to a prejudice and has no rational principle under it, is seen in the fact that the presence of colored persons in hotels and rail cars is only offensive when they are there as guests and passengers. As servants they are welcome, but as equal citizens they are not. It is also seen in the further fact that nowhere else on the globe, except in the United States, are colored people subject to insult and outrage on account of color. The colored traveler in Europe does not meet it, and we denounce it here as a disgrace to American civilization and American religion and as a
Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. t$$ violation of the spirit and letter of the constitution of the United States. From those courts which have solemnly sworn to support the constitution, and that yet treat this provision of it with contempt, we appeal to the people, and call upon our friends to remember our civil rights at the ballot-box. On the point of the two equalities we are determined to be understood. " We leave social equality where it should be left, with each individual man and woman. No law can regulate or control it. It is a matter with which governments have nothing whatever to do. Each may choose his own friends and associates without interference or dictation of any. "POLITICAL EQUALITY. " Flagrant as have been the outrages committed upon colored citizens in respect to their civil rights, more flagrant, shocking, and scandalous still have been the outrages committed upon our political rights, by means of bulldozing and Kukluxing, Mississippi plans, fraudulent counts, tissue ballots, and the like devices. Three states in which the colored people outnumber the white population are without colored representation, and their political voice suppressed. The colored citizens in those states are virtually disfranchised, the constitution held in utter contempt, and its provisions nullified. This has been
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Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

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