Volume 19 — RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF OUR COLORED FELLOW-CITIZENS.

Letter to the National Convention of Colored Citizens at Columbia, South Carolina, October 12, 1871.

This letter was read in the Convention October 24th, the sixth day of its sitting, and received a vote of thanks.

Boston, October 12, 1871.

DEAR SIR,—I am glad that our colored fellow-citizens are to have a Convention of their own. So long as they are excluded from rights or suffer in any way on account of color, they will naturally meet together in order to find a proper remedy; and since you kindly invite me to communicate with the Convention, I make bold to offer a few brief suggestions.

In the first place, you must at all times insist upon your rights; and here I mean not only those already accorded, but others still denied, all of which are contained in Equality before the Law. Wherever the law supplies a rule, there you must insist on Equal Rights. How much remains to be obtained you know too well in the experience of life.

Can a respectable colored citizen travel on steamboats or railways, or public conveyances generally, without insult on account of color? Let Governor Dunn of Louisiana describe his journey from New Orleans to Washington. Shut out from proper accommodation in the cars, the doors of the Senate Chamber opened to him, and there he found that equality which a railroad conductor had denied. Let our excellent friend, Frederick Douglass, relate his melancholy experience, when, on board the mail-boat of the Potomac and within sight of the Executive Mansion, he was thrust back from the supper-table, where his brother Commissioners were already seated. You know the outrage.

I might ask the same question with regard to hotels, and even the common schools. A hotel is a legal institution, and so is a common school, and as such each must be for the equal benefit of all. Nor can there be any exclusion from either on account of color. It is not enough to provide separate accommodations for colored citizens, even if in all respects as good as those of other persons. Equality is not found in any pretended equivalent, but only in equality; in other words, there must be no discrimination on account of color.

The discrimination is an insult, a hindrance, a bar, which not only destroys comfort and prevents equality, but weakens all other rights. The right to vote will have no security until your equal rights in the public conveyances, hotels, and common schools are at last established; but here you must insist for yourselves by speech, by petition, and by vote. Help yourselves, and others will help also.

The Civil Rights Law needs a supplement to cover these cases. This defect has been apparent from the beginning, and for a long time I have striven to remove it. A bill for this purpose, introduced by me, is now pending in the Senate. Will not colored fellow-citizens see that those in power no longer postpone this essential safeguard? Surely here is an object worthy of effort. Nor has the Republican party done its work until this is accomplished.

Is it not better to establish all our own people in the enjoyment of equal rights before we seek to bring others within the sphere of our institutions, to be treated as Frederick Douglass was on his way to the President from San Domingo? It is easy to see that a small part of the means, the energy, and the determined will spent in the expedition to San Domingo, and in the prolonged war-dance about that island, with menace to the Black Republic of Hayti, would have secured all our colored fellow-citizens in the enjoyment of equal rights. Of this there can be no doubt.

Among cardinal objects is Education, which must be insisted on; here again must be equality, side by side with the alphabet. It is vain to teach equality, if you do not practise it. It is vain to recite the great words of the Declaration of Independence, if you do not make them a living reality. What is a lesson without example?

As all are equal at the ballot-box, so must all be equal at the common school. Equality in the common school is the preparation for equality at the ballot-box. Therefore do I put this among the essentials of education.

In asserting your rights, you will not fail to insist upon justice to all, under which is necessarily included purity in the Government. Thieves and money-changers, whether Democrats or Republicans, must be driven out of our Temple. Let Tammany Hall and Republican self-seekers be overthrown. There should be no place for either. Thank God, good men are coming to the rescue. Let them, while uniting against corruption, insist upon Equal Rights for All,—also the suppression of lawless violence, whether in the Ku-Klux-Klan outraging the South, or illicit undertakings outraging the Black Republic of Hayti.

To these inestimable objects add Specie Payments, and you will have a platform which ought to be accepted by the American people. Will not our colored fellow-citizens begin this good work? Let them at the same time save themselves and save the country.

These are only hints, which I submit to the Convention, hoping that its proceedings will tend especially to the good of the colored race.

Accept my thanks and best wishes, and believe me faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

Hon. H. M. Turner.