A GLANCE AT THE PAST AND
PRESENT OF THE NEGRO
A GLANCE AT THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE NEGRO.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Two events in the history of our country take a foremostplace among the great deeds of the world. The signing of theDeclaration of Independence is one, and the promulgation of theEmancipation Proclamation is the other. In political importanceboth are unrivaled, and in moral grandeur both unsurpassed. Thecourage and patriotism of the men who wrote their names on theimmortal document that brought on the Revolutionary War willalways occupy as bright a page in the annals of our country asthe prowess and fierce determination of the heroes who fought itsbattles on the field. When Abraham Lincoln, of blessed memory,signed the sacred document that gave to the Negro his freedom,he not only immortalized himself, but performed a deed thatwill live in history as long as the great military engagements ofthe Civil War. When with the stroke of his pen he broke thechains of four millions of human beings, he crowned his careerwith a halo of glory that will grow brighter and brighter to theend of time.
The signing of the Declaration of Independence brought onthe war which culminated in victory for an oppressed peopleand in the establishment of our republican form of government.When the Colonial soldier returned to his fireside and laiddown his implements of battle he found awaiting him a politicalsystem so moulded and vitalized that it secured to him his libertyand those rights which tend to dignify man. The ultimate resultsof the Revolutionary War were all that the patriots of 1776 hadfought for, all that they had hoped for. They are today a blessedinheritance to their descendants. The American Republic is nowin the front ranks of great nations, and her white population thefirst in freedom of all people on earth.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a document far greaterin its moral purpose than the Declaration of Independence, forthere was in it more humanity and more Christianity. The Colonialfathers declared that all men are created equal—a beautifullywrought truth which meant everything for one part of the populationbut nothing for another part which was held in a cruel slavery.The historic paper which Lincoln gave to the world nearlya hundred years later abolished that slavery. It has not, however,fulfilled the wishes, the hopes, and the final expectations of thosewho pleaded so eloquently for the Negro on the rostrum, or thosewho fought so desperately on the field of battle to make its provisionseffective. And our cup is