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A Speech Delivered by Rev. Reverdy C. Ransom, D.D.,
of Boston, Mass., before the Second Annual
Meeting of The Niagara Movement
HARPER'S FERRY, W. VA„ AUGUST 17, 1906
Great epochs in the world's history-
are hinged upon some spot of land or
sea, which becomes historic and sa¬
cred forever more. There are Mt. Si¬
nai and Mt. Calvary, the Jordan, the
Euphrates, the Nile and Rubicon,
Thermopylae, Runnymede, Waterloo,
Gettysburg, Appomatox, Port Arthur
and Manila Bay; WHILE JOHN
BROWN HAS MADE HARPER'S
FERRY AS CLASSIC AS BUNKER
HILL.
The leonine soul of this old hero-
saint and martyr proves how impo¬
tent and defenseless are tyranny, in¬
justice and wrong, even when upheld
by the sanction of the law, supported
by the power of money and defended
by the sword.
If modern history furnishes a soli¬
tary example of the appearance of a
man who possessed the spirit of the
prophets of ancient Israel, it is John
Brown. The sublime courage with
which he met the Goliath of slavery
in mortal combat, was not surpassed
by that of David, who went forth to
meet the Philistine who had defied
the armies of the living God. He was
commissioned by the same authority,
and bore the same credentials as did
Moses, who left his flocks in the
Midian Desert to go and stand before
Pharoah and demand in the name of
"I Am That I Am" that he should
l'ree his slaves.
John Brown left his flocks and
fields at Mt. Elba, New York and
fought at Osawatomie to make the soil
of Kansas free; at Harper's Ferry
where his 'brave followers fought and
fell, he delivered a blow against
slavery in the most vital part, and
fired the gun whose opening shot
echoed the sound of the death knell
of slavery.
Melchizedek of Modern World.
This old Puritan, whose steel gray
eyes gleamed with the spirit and
courage that possessed Cromwell at
the battle of Dunbar, took literally
"the sword of the Lord and of Gid¬
eon," as both battle cry and watch¬
word. Men like John Brown appear
only ONCE OR TWICE IN A THOUS¬
AND YEARS. Like Mt. Blanc, the
king of the mountains, he towers high
above the loftiest figure of his time.
The place he occupied in the affairs
of men is unique. He is the Mel¬
chizedek of the modern world. He
had no predecessors and can have no
successors. Any picture of him which
does not have its proper setting amid
the background of his time, makes
him appear Quixotic, rather than the
heroic figure that he was.
A Man of Action.
Like Moses, Joshua, Cromwell and
Touissaint L'Overture, he defies class¬
ification. He belonged to no party,
was a disciple of no school, he was
swayed neither by precedent nor con¬
vention. He was a man of achieve¬
ment, of action. Garrison could write
and Beecher could preach, while the
silver-toned voice of Phillips pleaded;
this man performed the DOING OF
IT. He could not choose his course;
the hand of the Almighty was upon
him. He felt the breath of God upon
his soul and was strangely moved.
He was imbued with the spirit of the
Declaration of Independence, and
clearly saw that slavery was incom¬
patible with a free republic. He could
not reconcile the creed of the slave¬
holder with the word of God. While
dealing with the border ruffians of
Kansas he had segn the slave power
seek to justify itself and extend its
sway, by the murder of peaceful citi¬
zens; he had seen the prairies, illum¬
inated at night by the flames of their
burning homes, their crops destroyed
and their cattle and valuables stolen.
An "Act of God" Needed.
The government was cognizant of
this and also acquiescent. Statesmen,
and politicians were making conces¬
sions and compromises to quiet the
demands of the South in behalf of its
cherished institution. Tne nation
found itself bound to a body of death
whose foul decay was spreading its
influence to the highest sources of its
life. No time then for Missouri com¬
promises and Kansas and Nebraska
acts; what was needed then was an
ACT OF ALMIGHTY GOD. Slavery
leaning upon the arm of law was
defiant, it could only be attacked by
appealing to "the higher law." John
Brown appealed.
Traitor to Country to Be True to Slave.
God sent him to Harper's Ferry to
become a traitor to the government in
order that he might be true to the
slave. This nation was estab¬
lished by men who took up arms
to fight against a tax on tea, and the
universal verdict of mankind approves
their action. When John Brown fought
at Harper's Ferry he commanded his
immortal band with the SWORD OF
FREDERICK THE GREAT, which
had been presented to George Wash¬
ington, and posterity has given him a
fnme no less secure than that of these
two great captains who unsheathed in
no worthier cause.
It has been fifty years since Osawa-
tomje, and fifty years, less three, since
an old man, whose austere manner
and flowing beard gave him pro¬
phetic mien, INTRODUCED HAR¬
PER'S FERRY TO HISTORY. Since
then the armies of North and South
have marched across the country in
a robe of fire and blood, to fall upon
the field of battle locked in the em¬
brace of a death of lead and iron.
Brown a Puritan.
The true value and merit of a man
lie embalmed and treasured up in the
life he lived, and the character of the
service he rendered to mankind. The
whole life of John Brown was serious
and purposeful. He was a descendant
of one of the company who landed
from the Mayflower at Plymouth
Rock, and from ancestors who fought
in the Revolutionary war. He had
all of the moral uprightness and strict
religious character of the Puritan, as
well as his love of liberty and hatred
of oppression and tyranny.
From a child he loved to dwell be¬
neath the open sky. The many voices
of the woods, and fields, and moun¬
tains, spoke to him a familiar lan¬
guage. He understood the habits of
plants and animals, of birds, and
trees, and flowers, and dwelt with
them upon terms of familiarity and
friendship. His heredity and environ¬
ment were just such a school as was
needed to shape his character and
prepare him for his God-appointed task.
For he believed himself to be sent
upon a MISSION UNDER THE AU¬
THORITY OF HEAVElN. When he
wrought like a mighty man of valor,
whether in Kansas or at Harper's
Ferry, he believed with all the mod¬
esty of his truly great and heroic soul,
that he was only doing his duty. He
proved the sincerity of his motives,
the unselfishness of his purpose and
his entire devotion, by sacrificing upon
the altar of human freedom his
money, goods, wife and children.
When God's clock struck the hour, he
acted. The friends of freedom cried
"ill-timed, premature"; education
and respectability shouted, "monoma¬
niac, madman, fool!" Posterity hails
him hero, and crowns him martyr—
saint.
Armed Slave to Free Himself.
The distinctive act which has given
the name of John Brown to immor¬
tality was his attempt to organize
AND ARM THE SLAVES TO RAISE
AND STRIKE FOR THEIR FREE¬
DOM. This deed aroused the nation
and STARTLED THE WORLD. His
was not an attempt to assist them to
break their chains in order to flee to
Canada, but to forcibly assert and
maintain their freedom in the South¬
land where they had been held as
slaves.
The Negro will never enjoy the
fruits of freedom in this country un¬
til he first demonstrates his man¬
hood and maintains his rights here
IN THE SOUTH, where they are the
most violently protested and most
completely denied.
What is to be the final status of the
Negro in this country cannot be set¬
tled in New England, or settled in
the North. There will be no rest or
peace, or harmony upon this ques¬
tion until it is settled, and settled
justly, ON SOUTHERN SOIL, where
the great majority of the Negro Amer¬
icans make their home.
Rights Must Be Won in South.
Im the days of John Brown a hand¬
ful of slaves found freedom in flight
10 Canada and the .North. But this
did not change the condition of the
enslaved millions, or the attitude of
their cruel oppressors, while it did
cause the supreme court of the United
States to make every white man of the
North a detective and an agent of
the South, in the detection, capture
and surrender of fugitive slaves.
Today Negroes are coming North in
increasing numbers. But this does not
change or modify a revised constitu¬
tion in any Southern State, abolish
one Jim-Crow car or stop a single
lynching. In the days of slavery the
Negro had a few devoted friends in
the North and also in the South, but
those in the South dare not speak or
act; while some in the North were out¬
spoken, they were backed by no pub¬
lic opinion which would support radi¬
cal action. So today, the Negro has
sympathetic friends and helpers, but
public opinion nowhere sustains agi¬
tation or action against the condi¬
tions that prevail.
Nothing New in Country's Attitude.
The present manner of dealing with
the Nego question is nothing but the
old method in a new disguise. The
former attitude of the North was to
confine the institution of slavery with¬
in the boundaries it occupied and to
permit the inhabitants of new terri¬
tory to settle the questiofr among
themselves. Today the South is un¬
molested in its disfranchising con¬
stitutions, by which two score seats
are occupied in congress in viola¬
tion of the constitution. The Jim-
Crow car is also kept within these
borders.
President Never Mentioned Suffrage.
While no President has been so
voluminous a writer of messages to
Congress, or traveled so extensively in
every section of the country, speaking
freely and at length on a wide range
of subjects, the present occupant 6f
the White House has been ABSO¬
LUTELY SILENT on the question of
the enforcement of the Fifteenth
Amendment; while his Secretary of
War has admitted the violation 01 the
constitution, he has recently in a
notable address openly condoned it, if
not tacitly, indeed, INDORSED it. On
the admission of Oklahoma and the
Indian Territory, as in the case of
Kansas fifty years ago, the Negro
question reappears, and it is never to
be unconstitutional to separate tne
races in the public schools, which
opens the door for legislation which
will discriminate against the Colored
citizen.
in the early sixties scores of North¬
ern regiments and 185,000 Negro
soldiers went into valorous action,
singing as they marched, and fought
and fell, "John Brown's body lies
mouldering in the tomb, and his soul
goes marching on." The dreams
of this dreamer at last found
fulfillment as his soul went marching
on in the Proclamation of Emancipa¬
tion, in the Thirteenth Amendment to
the constitution abolishing slavery,
Fourteenth Amendment bestowing
citizenship, and the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment, giving the elective franchise to
the Negro to protect and defend his
citizenship and rights under the con¬
stitution and laws.
It is, indeed, paradoxical that a na¬
tion. which has erected monuments of
marble and bronze to Jonn Brown,
Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd
Garrison, Charles Sumner and other
abolitionists; a nation which pro¬
claims a holiday that all classes, in¬
cluding school children, may decorate
with {lowers the graves oi the men
who fought to preserve tlie Union, and
to free the slaves, a nation which has
enacted into organic law the freedom
and political status of a race which
has been bought with blood, now sits
supinely down, silent and inactive,
while the work of the liberators is
ignored, while those who fought to
destroy the government, REGAIN IN
THE HALLS OF CONGRESS THE
VICTORIES THEY LOST ON THE
FIELD OF BATTLE, while the con¬
stitution is flouted and the Fifteenth
Amendment brazenly trampled under
foot.
The Charter of Rights Annulled.
It is thus that the charter of the
Negroes' rights is being annulled. The
North is busy with its money making
and money getting. Northern manu¬
facturers think more of the Southern
market for their goods than of the
rights of the loyal Negro citizen.
Every few months a captured
battle flag is returned to some
Southern State, to be followed
by a proclamation that the gulf be¬
tween the North and South has dis¬
appeared and that the wounds of the
war have been healed. SOUTHERN
MEN are neither CAJOLED NOR
FLATTERED - by these overtures.
Their determination to refuse to recog¬
nize the political v equality of the
Negro remains unaltered, while their
purpose to fix his social status and re¬
duce him as far as possible to a con¬
dition of industrial serfdom is firm.
Political Action Needed.
The Negro regards the Democratic
party as his traditional and hereditary
ioe. Tradition, gratiiude, sentiment,
bind him to the Republican party with
an idolatrous allegiance which is as
blind as it is unpatriotic and unrea¬
soning. TODA\ THERE IS VERY
LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
iHE TWO PARTIES, SO FAR AS
THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE
NEGRO IS CONCERNED. While the
Republicans do not, perhaps, INITI¬
ATE legislation unfriendly to the
Negro, neither do they, on the other
hand, openly attack, defeat or VETO
such legislation. It has been demon¬
strated repeatedly that a REPUB¬
LICAN cabinet and a Republican Con¬
gress will maKe the Negro's civil and
political rights a matter of barter and
trade, to secure Democratic votes in
the interest of tariff schedules, inter¬
state policy relating to commerce, or
some scheme of our expanded republic
relating to its possessions and dark-
sKinned subjects in the islands across
the Pacific ocean.
Taft Calls Us Political Children.
Secretary Taft, speaking for the
President, chides us by saying that the
Negroes are political children, that
they have shown their incapacity to
maintain their political rights. It is
true that the Negro had a CHILD¬
LIKE FAITH IN THE REPUBLICAN
PARTY, believing that it would ad¬
minister the sacred trust which the
fortunes of war and the constitution
had imposed upon it, and that it would
not use him like a gambler's stake in
the game of politics.
Scales Falling From Our Eyes.
Thank God, at last the scales are
falling from the Negro's eyes. He is
being disillusioned by the acts of a
REPUBLICAN CONGRESS, the
speeches of members of a REPUB¬
LICAN CABINET, and the silence of
a REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT. He
has reached his political majority. It
is his patriotic duty to emancipate
himself from his political fetich and
cast his influence and his vote where
they will make for the preservation of
his liberty and the welfare of his
country. He should not hesitate
to REPUDIATE HIS FORMER
FRIENDS, who have betrayed
him, nor refuse to FRATERNIZE
WITH FORMER ENEMIES, who are
willing to give him aid/ While he re¬
mains a political issue he must insist
upon making his power felt and his
rights respectedr
Negroes Divided Among Themselves.
There never has been a time when
the American people have not sought
to fix the status of the Negro in this
country, in every phase of its life,
within limitations and boundaries
more or less definitely defined. But
our fathers have told us that in the
darkest days of slavery, when this na¬
tion fancied that they were contented
with their lot, which they bore with
30 much patience and submission,
they secretly cherished the hope of
some day reaching the goal which was
set before their white fellow-country¬
men.
There is not now, and never has
been, any division among the Negroes
as to the place they hope to occupy
within this nation. But there is divi¬
sion among them as to methods and
the choice of ways leading to the
coveted goal. It was one of the de¬
fensive weapons of slavery to keep the
Negroes divided ' among themselves,
lest they unite to the injury and. de¬
struction of that institution.
The race has not wholly survived
this heritage, nor have the whites
ceased in their efforts for division
among us by pitting one Negro against
another, and the condition in which,
we are placed tends to make this prac¬
tice more or less effective. The 10,-
000,000 Negroes in this land, despite
their seeming acquiescence in the in¬
equalities and restrictions placed upon
them, are determined, if it takes a
thousand years, to enter, as an equal,
every avenue of American life.
Today two classes of Negroes, con¬
fronted by a united opposition, are
standing at the parting of the ways.
The one counsels patient submission
to our present humiliations and
degradations; it deprecates political
activity; ignores or condones the
usurpation and denial of our political
and constitutional rights, and preaches
the doctrine of industrial develop¬
ment and the acquisition of property,
while it has no word of protest or
condemnation for those who visit
upon us all manner of fiendish and
inhuman indignities.
This form of teaching is alike ac¬
ceptable to the North* and to the
South. It tends to keep the Negro in
his preconceived place, and eliminates
him, both as a factor and a cause of
irritation in politics and all that
vitally relates to civic and social af¬
fairs.
Position of the Agitators.
The other class believes that it
should not submit to being humiliated,
degraded and remanded to an inferior
place. It neither seeks nor desires
that a special place be made for it
within this nation, separate and apart
from other people. It believes in
money and property, but it does NOT
BELIEVE IN BARTERING ITS MAN¬
HOOD FOR THE SAKE OF GAIN. It
believes in the gospel of work and in
industrial efficiency, but it does NOT
BELIEVE IN ARTISANS BEING
TREATED AS INDUSTRIAL SERFS,
and in laborers occupying the position
of a peasant class. It does not believe
that those who toil and accumulate
will be free to enjoy the fruits of their
industry and frugality, if they permit
themselves to be shorn of political
power.
Founded as this nation is. it does
not. believe that submission to injus¬
tice, the surrender of rights for the
sake of an opportunity to labor and
save, is the road to the goal of the
manhood and eauality which we seek.
It believes the Negro should assert his
full title to American manhood, and
maintain every right guaranteed him
by the constitution of the United
States, and having these, all other
things will be added.
The White South Frank.
However we may regard them, wft
mnsjt rfespect the frankness and..
honesty of the Southern people. Theyj
do not disguise their attitude. Theyi
boldly declare that they seek not to
deceive the Negro, the nation or the
world. However high the Negro's
character and education, however
large his accumulation of money and
property, however industrious and ef¬
ficient as a laborer, they do not in¬
tend to permit him to enjoy with them
political equality, or any other kind
of equality. They are not deceived by
the Negroes who are seeking to DE¬
LUDE THEM BY SUBMISSION TO
present conditions, in the hope of out¬
flanking them by a circuitous march.
The Neeroes who are aggressively
fighting for their rights have the press
against them and the weight of
public opinion. They are branded as
disturbers of the harmony between the
races, but they have the same spirit
that animated the founders of this
nation. IN THEM THE SOUL OF
JOHN BROWN GOES MARCHING
ON. Unless the Declaration of Inde¬
pendence is a lie. and the throne of
Almighty God breaks down, they will
at last take their place in our na¬
tional household as an equal among
their brethren.
Need Unusual Voice and Issue to
Arouse Nation.
Like the ghost of Hamlet's father,
the spirit of John Brown beckons us
to arise and seek the recoverv of our
rights, which our enemy, "with witch¬
craft of his wit. with traitorous gifts ''
has sought forever to destroy. John
Brown was thought bv many, even
among his friends, to be insane. But
an exhibition of such insanity was re¬
quired to arouse the nation against
|the crime of slaverv and to bring on
'the Civil War. NO WEAK AND
ORDINARY VOICE CAN CALL THE
NATION BACK TO A SENSE OF
JUSTICE. A commonplace movement
or event cannot influence or change
the present attitude and current of *he
public mind.
Rights of Citizens the Battle-Cry.
The rifle shot at Harper's Ferry re-
reived defiant answer from the cannon
fired upon Fort Sumter. This nation
needs a sain to he aroused. The friends
of truth and justice must be rallied.
But men cannot be rallied without a
rallying cry: and even -with this upon
thfir lips, there must be a lofty stan¬
dard to which they may resort. Can
Siot the hearts of men warm as earn¬
estly to the cry of the rights of an
American citizen, as they did to that of
thp freedom of the slave? Will tn*»
nation which could not tolerate the
enslavement, of human beines sanction
the disfranchisempnt of its citizenp?
Abraham Lincoln set before this na¬
tion in its darkest hour the preserva¬
tion of the Union as the standard for
all loval men. Can the men of the
present take higher ground than 10
mn^e secure the life and liberty of the
black men who helped to sustain ft
when it was tottering to its fall?
The gae-e of battle has been thrown
down. The lines are clearly drawn;
the supremacy of the constitution has
bepri challenged. In fighting for his
ri"-ht<5 the Negro defends the nation.
His weapons are more powerful than
nikes and Sharp's rifles which John
Brown sought to place in his hands : t
Harper's Ferry. He has the constitu¬
tion, the courts, the ballot, the power
to organize, to protest and to resist.
The battle before us must be fought,
not on the principle of the INFERIOR¬
ITY OF ONE RACE AND THE SU¬
PERIORITY OF THE OTHER, but
upon the ground of our common man¬
hood and equality.
Socrates drained the cup of hemlock
to its dregs; Jesus Christ suffered cru¬
cifixion on a cross; Savonarola was
burned in the streets of Florence, and
John Brown was hung from a gallows.
But the cause for which they willingly
became martyrs, the principles they
advocated, and the truths they taught,
have become the richest and most
glorious heritage of mankind.
Before the strife and hatred of race
and class have vanished, many will be
called upon to wear the martyr's
crown. A new birth of freedom wifbin
a nation is alwavs accompanied with
prpat suffering and pain. How much
greater, then, the travail through
which humanitv must pass to bring
forth its last and highest birth, for
which all preceding ages have worked
and waited until now.
We see it in the tyrant's face, in the
oppressor's cruel wrongs; we read it
in the statute books of every unjust
law; we hear it in the strife of human
conflict; we feel it in the universal
aspiration of the soul; it comes to
earth by many signs from heaven.
The spirit of human brotherhood is
unbarring the srites of life to admit
a civilization in which it can reign in¬
carnate, while out of the many thread?
of huipan life upon this planet we are
weaving the royal garments it shall
wear.