Carter G. Woodson - Negro Orators and Their Orations: With linked Table of Contents

Negro Orators

and

Their Orations

Edited by Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D.

These orations were to be edited by another writer, but because of his many duties he had to abandon the task after having collected a number of the important discourses. The original plan was for a much smaller work than this, consisting of a few select orations of literary worth. In the hands of the new editor, however, the plan was changed so as to include orations of all sorts, in fact, practically all of the extant speeches of consequence delivered by Negroes of the United States.

A short sketch of the orator appears with his oration and the occasion of the delivery is also given. The source of the oration as originally recorded is accounted for in the introductory paragraph, the footnote, or in the title of the address.

In reprinting these orations the editor has endeavored to present them here as nearly as possible in their original form. No effort has been made to improve the English. Published in this form, then, these orations will be of value not only to persons studying the development of the Negro in his use of a modern idiom but also in the study of the history of the race. It is in this spirit that these messages are again given to the public.

C. G. Woodson.

Washington, D. C. September, 1925.

By Othello

Amidst the infinite variety of moral and political subjects proper for public commendation, it is truly surprising that one of the most important and affecting should be so generally neglected. An encroachment on the smallest civil or political privilege shall fan the enthusiastic flames of liberty till it shall extend over vast and distant regions, and violently agitate a whole continent. But the cause of humanity shall be basely violated, justice shall be wounded to the heart, and national honor deeply and lastingly polluted, and not a breath or murmur shall arise to disturb the prevailing quiescence or to rouse the feelings of indignation against such general, extensive, and complicated iniquity.To what cause are we to impute this frigid silencethis torpid indifferencethis cold inanimated conduct of the otherwise warm and generous Americans! Why do they remain inactive amidst the groans of injured humanity, the shrill and distressing complaints of expiring justice and the keen remorse of polluted integrity?Why do they not rise up to assert the cause of God and the world, to drive the fiend Injustice into remote and distant regions, and to exterminate oppression from the face of the fair fields of America?

When the united colonies revolted from Great Britain, they did it upon this principle, that all men are by nature and of right ought to be free.After a long, successful, and glorious struggle for liberty, during which they manifested the firmest attachment to the rights of mankind, can they so soon forget the principles that then governed their determinations? Can Americans, after the noble contempt they expressed for tyrants, meanly descend to take up the scourge? Blush, ye revolted colonies, for having apostatized from your own principles!

Slavery, in whatever point of light it is considered, is repugnant to the feelings of nature, and inconsistent with the original rights of man. It ought, therefore, to be stigmatized for being unnatural; and detested for being unjust. Tis an outrage to Providence and an affront offered to divine Majesty, who Has given to man His own peculiar image.That the Americans, after considering the subject in this lightafter making the most manly of all possible exertions in defense of libertyafter publishing to the world the principle upon which they contended, viz., that all men are by nature and of right ought to be free, should still retain in subjection a numerous tribe of the human race merely for their own private use and emolument, is, of all things, the strongest inconsistency, the deepest reflection on our conduct, and the most abandoned apostasy that ever took place since the Almighty fiat spoke into existence this habitable world. So flagitious a violation can never escape the notice of a just Creator, whose vengeance may be now on the wing, to disseminate and hurl the arrows of destruction.

In what light can the people of Europe consider America after the strange inconsistency of her conduct? Will they not consider her as an abandoned and deceitful country! In the hour of calamity she petitioned heaven to be propitious to her cause. Her prayers were heard. Heaven pitied her distress, smiled on her virtuous exertions, and vanquished all her afflictions. The ungrateful creature forgets this timely assistanceno longer remembers her own sorrowsbut basely commences oppression in her turn. Beware, America! pauseand consider the difference between the mild effulgence of approving Providence and the angry countenance of incensed divinity!

The importation of slaves into America ought to be a subject of the deepest regret to every benevolent and thinking mind.And one of the greatest defects in the federal system is the liberty it allows on this head. Venerable in everything else, it is injudicious here; and it is to be much deplored that a system of so much political perfection should be stained with anything that does an outrage to human nature. As a door, however, is open to amendment, for the sake of distressed humanity, of injured national reputation, and the glory of doing so benevolent a thing, I hope some wise and virtuous patriot will advocate the measure, and introduce an alteration in that pernicious part of the government. So far from encouraging the importation of slaves, and countenancing that vile traffic in human flesh, the members of the late Constitutional Convention should have seized the happy opportunity of prohibiting forever this cruel species of reprobated villainy. That they did not do so will forever diminish the luster of their other proceedings, so highly extolled and so justly distinguished for their intrinsic value.Let us for a moment contrast the sentiments and actions of the Europeans on this subject with those of our own countrymen. In France the warmest and most animated exertions are making, in order to introduce the entire abolition of the slave trade; and in England many of the first characters of the country advocate the same measure with an enthusiastic philanthropy. The Prime Minister himself is at the head of that society, and nothing can equal the ardor of their endeavors but the glorious goodness of the cause.Will the Americans allow the people of England to get the start of them in acts of humanity? Forbid it, shame!

The practice of stealing or bartering for human flesh is pregnant with the most glaring turpitude, and the blackest barbarity of disposition.For can any one say that this is doing as he would be done by? Will such a practice stand the scrutiny of this great rule of moral government? Who can, without the complicated emotions of anger and impatience, suppose himself in the predicament of a slave? Who can bear the thought of his relatives being torn from him by a savage enemy; carried to distant regions of the habitable globe, never more to return; and treated there as the unhappy Africans are in this country? Who can support the reflection of his fatherhis motherhis sisteror his wifeperhaps his childrenbeing barbarously snatched away by a foreign invader, without the prospect of ever beholding them again? Who can reflect upon their being afterwards publicly exposed to sale obliged to labor with unwearied assiduityand because all things are not possible to be performed by persons so unaccustomed to robust exercise, scourged with all the rage and anger of malignity until their unhappy carcasses are covered with ghastly wounds and frightful contusions? Who can reflect on these things when applying the case to himself without being chilled with horror at circumstances so extremely shocking?Yet hideous as this concise and imperfect description is of the sufferings sustained by many of our slaves, it is nevertheless true; and so far from being exaggerated, falls infinitely short of a thousand circumstances of distress, which have been recounted by different writers on the subject and which contribute to make their situation in this life the most absolutely wretched and completely miserable that can possibly be conceived. In many places in America the slaves are treated with every circumstance of rigorous inhumanity, accumulated hardship, and enormous cruelty Yet when we take them from Africa we deprive them of a country which God hath given them for their own, as free as we are, and as capable of enjoying that blessing. Like pirates we go to commit devastation on the coast of an innocent country, and among a people who never did us wrong.