Analyses of social reformers

- Excerpted by the National Humanities Center for use in a Professional Development Seminar  *

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THE RACE PROBLEM

GREAT SPEECH OF

REDERICK DOUGLASS d before the Bethel Literary and Historical

Association ropolitan A. M. E. Church, Washington, D.C.

October 21, 1890

Excerpts*

nd friends of the Bethel Literary and Historical

:

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great privilege to be with you and assist in this

erm. The organization of your association was an

his city. It is an institution well fitted to improve

mbers, but of the general public. Nowhere else

ited States have I heard vital public questions more

now very well that what they may utter is

rant, bombast, and self-inflation may pass

n self-respect, I shall endeavor to say only what I

he Negro Problem. . . . �

e words are things. They are especially such when

cerning the Negro: to couple his name with

him likewise. Hence I object to characterizing the

le of this country as the Negro problem, as if the

in any way responsible for the problem. . . .

at the North and South are no longer enemies: now

r, but sit together in halls of Congress, commerce,

s to lose by their sectional harmony and good will

er bitter enmity. This, it is found, cannot be

accomplished without confusing the moral sense of the nation and misleading the public mind; without

creating doubt, inflaming passion, arousing prejudice, and attracting to the enemies of the negro the

popular sympathy by representing the negro as an ignorant, base, and dangerous person, and by

presenting to those enemies that his existence to them is a dreadful problem. With their usual cunning,

these enemies of the negro have made the North partly believe that they are now contending with a vast

and mysterious problem, the mere contemplation of which should cause the whole North to shudder and

come to the rescue. The trick is worthy of its inventors, and has been played for all that it is worth. The

orators of the South have gone North and have eloquently described this terrible problem, and the press of

the South has flamed with it, and grave Senators from that section have painted it in most distressing

colors. Problem, problem, race problem, negro problem, has, as Junius says, fitted through their sentences

in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion. . . .

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. . . The true problem is not the negro, but the nation. Not the law-abiding blacks of the South, but the

white men of that section, who by fraud, violence, and persecution, are breaking the law, trampling on the

Constitution, corrupting the ballot-box, and defeating the ends of justice. The true problem is whether

these white ruffians shall be allowed by the nation to go on in their lawless and nefarious career,

dishonoring the Government and making its very name a mockery. It is whether this nation has in itself

sufficient moral stamina to maintain its own honor and integrity by vindicating its own Constitution and

fulfilling its own pledges, or whether it has already touched that dry rot of moral depravity by which

nations decline and fall, and governments fade and vanish. The United States Government made the negro

a citizen, will it protect him as a citizen? This is the problem. It made him a soldier, will it honor him as a

patriot? This is the problem. It made him a voter, will it defend his right to vote? This is the problem.

This, I say, is more a problem for the nation than for the negro, and this is the side of the question far

more than the other which should be kept in view by the American people.

What these problem orators now ask is that the nation shall undo all that it did by the suppression of

the rebellion and in maintenance of the Union. They ask that the nation shall recede from its advance in

the path of justice, liberty, and civilization. They boldly ask that what was justly and gratefully given to

the negro in the hour of national peril shall be taken from him in the hour of national security. They ask

that the nation shall stultify itself and commit an act of national shame which ought to make every lover

of his country cry out in bitter indignation and unite as one man to oppose. A demand so scandalous and

so shocking to every sentiment of honor and gratitude. And from whom does this demand come? Not

from who gave their lives to save the nation, but from those who gave their lives to destroy it. Not from

the free and loyal North, but from the rebellious and slave-holding South. Not from the section where men

go to the ballot-box with the same freedom from personal danger as they go to church on Sunday, but

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from that section where personal safety is endangered, where Federal authority is defied, where the

amendments to the Constitution are nullified, where the ballot-box is tainted by fraud, and red-shirted

intimidation makes a free vote impossible. It comes from the men who led the nation in a dance of blood

during four long years, and who now have the impudence to assume to control the destiny of this

Republic as well as the destiny of the negro.

And what are the reasons they give for demanding of the nation this retreat from its advanced

position? They are these: They tell us that they are afraid, very much afraid: they are alarmed, very much

alarmed, by the possibility of negro supremacy over them. This is the calamity from which they would be

delivered, and with eloquent lips and lusty lungs they are calling out: �Men and brethren, save us from

this threatened and terrible danger!�

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My reply to this alarm is easy. It is that the wicked flee when no man pursueth: that the thief thinks

each bush an officer: that the thing they pretend to fear can never happen, and that blank absurdity is

written upon the face of it. The eagle, with fierce talon and bloody beak screaming in terror at the

approach of a harmless black bird would not be more absurd and ridiculous. The superior intelligence of

the whites, the comparative ignorance of the blacks, the former dominion of the whites and the former

subjection of the blacks, the habit of bearing rule of the whites, and the habit of submission by the blacks

make black supremacy in any part of our common country utterly impossible.

But supposing such an occurrence possible, what hardship would it impose? What wrong would it

inflict? Who would be injured by it? If the blacks should get the upper hand, their rule would have to be

regulated by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. They could not discriminate against white

people on account of race, color, or previous condition without findings the iron hand of the nation laid

heavily on their shoulders. The white people of the South are the rich, the negroes the poor; the white

people are the landowners, the negroes are the landlers. The white people of the South are numbered with

the ruling class of the nation. They have behind them every possible source of power. They have

railroads, steamships, electric telegraphs, the Army and the Navy. They have the sword and the purse of

the nation behind them, and yet they profess to be shaking in their shoes lest the 8,000,000 of blacks shall

come to rule over them and their brethren, the 50,000,000 of whites.

Now I am here to say that there is nothing whatever in this supposition. I can hardly call this

invention a cunning device, for the pretense is too open, too transparent, too absurd, to rise even to the

dignity of low cunning. It is an old ragged pair of trousers, and an old mashed and battered hat of the last

century stuck upon a pole in a field where there are neither crows nor corn. It is the cry of fire by the thief

when he would divert the officer of the law. It is as I have said, a red herring to divert the hounds from the

true game, and the strange thing is that any class of our citizens, white or black, can be deceived by it. . . .

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But let me say again, the South neither really fears the ignorance of the negro, nor the supremacy of

the negro. It is not the ignorant negro, but the intelligent North that it fears; not the supremacy of a

different race from itself, but the supremacy of the Republican party. It is not the men who are

emancipated but the people who emancipated them that disturb its repose. In other words the trouble is

not racial, but political. It is not the race and color of the vote. Disguise this as it may, the real thing that

troubles the South is the Republican party, its principles, and its ascendancy in Southern States and the

nation. When it talks of negro ignorance, negro supremacy, it means this, and simply this, only this. . . .

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And now comes Mr. Isaiah Montgomery, of Mississippi, with his solution of the pretended Negro

problem.* I have spoken of him elsewhere, and I take back nothing that I have said either of this

remarkable man, or his remarkable address. He has surrendered to a disloyal State a great franchise given

to himself and his people by the loyal nation. He has taken the work of solving the nation's work of the

nation's hands. He has virtually said to the nation: �You have done wrong in giving us this great liberty.

You should give us back a part of our bondage.� He has surrendered a part of his rights to an enemy who

will make this surrender a reason for demanding all of his rights. He has conducted his people to a depth

from which they will be invited to a lower deep, for if he can rightfully surrender a part of his heritage

from the National Government at the bidding of his oppressors, he may surrender the whole. The people

with whom he makes this deal are restrained in dealing with the rights of colored men by no sense of

modesty or moderation in their demands. They want all that is to be had, and will take all that they can

get. Their real sentiment is that no Negro shall or ought to have the right to vote. Yet I have no

denunciation for the man Montgomery. He is not a conscious traitor though his act is treason: treason to

the cause of the colored people, not only of his own State, but of the United States.

I wish the consequences of his act could be confined to Mississippi alone, but I fear this cannot be.

Other colored men in other States, dazzled by the fame obtained by Mr. Montgomery through the

Democratic press, will probably imitate his bad example. I speak of this Montgomery business more in

sorrow than in anger. I hear in the plaintive eloquence of his marvelous address a groan of bitter anguish

born of oppression and despair. It is the voice of a soul from which all hope has vanished. His deed

kindles indignation to be sure, but his condition awakens pity. He had called to the nation for helphelp

which it ought to have rendered and could have rendered but it did notand in a moment of impatience

* Isaiah Montgomery, a successful black businessman and former slave, was the only black representative at the 1890 Mississippi constitutional convention, the first of many state conventions called primarily to disenfranchise African Americans. Montgomery voted in favor of disenfranchisement, arguing that the loss of political power would enable blacks to pursue education and economic progress without fear of white opposition and violence. Later that year he joined with Booker T. Washington in founding the National Negro Business League. [NHC note]

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and despair he has thought to make terms with the enemy, an enemy with whom no colored man can

make terms but by a sacrifice of his manhood. . . .

. . . I am hopeful. I have no doubt whatever of the future. I know that there are times in the history of

all reforms when the future looks dark; when the friends of reform are impatient and despondent; when

they cannot see the end from the beginning; when the truth that is plain to them compels them to reject the

honesty of all who receive it. When they meet with opposition where they expected co-operation; when

they met with treachery where they expected fidelity, and defeat where they expected victory. I, for one,

have gone through all this. I have had fifty years of it, and yet I have not lost either heart or hope. . . .

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. . . The business of government is to hold its broad shield over all and to see that every American

citizen is alike and equally protected in his civil and personal rights. My confidence is strong and high in

the nation as a whole. I believe in its justice and in its power. I believe that it means to keep its word with

its colored citizens. I believe in its progress, in its moral as well as its material civilization. Its trend is in

the right direction. Its fundamental principles are sound. Its conception of humanity and of human rights

is clear and comprehensive. Its progress is fettered by no State religion tending to repress liberal thought:

by no order of nobility tending to keep down the toiling masses: by no divine right theory tending to

national stagnation under the idea of stability. It stands out free and clear with nothing to obstruct its view

of the lessons of reason and experience.

It may be said, as has been said, that I am growing old, and am easily satisfied with things as they

are. When our young men shall have worked and waited for victory as long as I have worked and waited,

they will not only learn to have patience with the men opposed to them, but with me also for having

patience with such. I have seen dark hours in my life, and I have seen the darkness gradually disappearing

and the light gradually increasing. One by one I have seen obstacles removed, errors corrected, prejudices

softened, proscriptions relinquished, and my people advancing in all the elements that go to make up the

sum of general welfare. And I remember that God reigns in eternity, and that what ever delays, whatever

disappointments and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately

prevail.

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