Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Rights of Colored Men

A citizen of Tipton accompanies a remittance in payment of his subscription to our Daily with the following reflections which we take the liberty of publishing:

I cannot refrain from expressing my satisfaction with the position of the GAZETTE, on the great questions now prominently before the public.  The vivacity and spirit with which it is conducted, seem to me uncommonly commendable, in this time of misrepresentation and unsoundness, among editors, correspondents, officers, and public men generally.

Your Des Moines correspondent and yourselves have the right of it, in relation to many of the Republicans even, now at Des Moines.  The idea of granting citizenship only to “free white” men, who have fought for our dearest rights, is a reproach to every man who voted for it.  I am glad to see that on the motion to strike out the word, “free white,” our own representatives, from Cedar, Rothrock and Loomis, voted in the affirmative.  With what strange pertinacity and vehemence men cling to the essential spirit of slavery, by enacting injustice to the poor and the oppressed, while professedly contending for the glorious principle of the inherent right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!  I confess, this deplorable reluctance, on the part of so many at the North, to recognize any just claim of the colored race in the great controversy now pending, reconciles me more than anything else to delays, misfortunes, taxation, and whatever other judgments may be necessary to open our minds clearly to the real truth and equity of the case.

May God speed the right and maintain it against all our selfish clamor for a speedy settlement of our troubles.

Yours truly,

M. K. C.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 21, 1862, p. 2

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