I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, termin...ates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have got through with the South Carolina and Louisiana [problems]. At any rate, the troops are ordered away, and I now hope for... peace, and what is equally important, security and prosperity for the colored people. The result of my plans is to get from those States by their governors, legislatures, press, and people pledges that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments shall be faithfully observed; that the colored people shall have equal rights to labor, education, and the privileges of citizenship. I am confident this is good work. Time will tell.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourte...enth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Senate and House in the Forty-sixth Congress being both Democratic will insist on the right to repeal the election laws [enfor...cing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments], and, in case of my refusal, will put the repeal [as "riders"] on the appropriation bills. They will ... block the wheels of government, if I do not yield my conviction in favor of the election laws. It will be a severe, perhaps a long contest. I do not fear it.... The people will not allow this revolutionary course to triumph.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It could be clearly proved that by a practical nullification [by the South] of the Fifteenth Amendment the Republicans have for se...veral years been deprived of a majority in both the House and Senate. The failure of the South to faithfully observe the Fifteenth Amendment is the cause of the failure of all efforts towards complete pacification. It is on this hook that the bloody shirt now hangs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Man is at his furthest remove from the animal as a child, his intellect most human. With his fifteenth year and puberty he comes a... step closer to the animal; with the sense of possessions of his thirties (the median line between laziness and greediness), still another step. In his sixtieth year of life he frequently loses his modesty as well, then the septuagenarian steps up to us as a completely unmasked beast: one need only look at the eyes and the teeth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When in the enfranchisement of the black men [women] saw another ignorant class of voters placed about their heads, and beheld the... danger of a distinctively "male" government, forever involving the nations of the earth in war and violence; and demanded for the protection of themselves and children, that woman's voice should be heard and her opinions in public affairs be expressed by the ballot, they were coolly told that the black man had earned the right to vote, that he had fought and bled and died for his country. It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand and immutable truth, "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Woman--with a capital letter--should by now have ceased to be a specialty. There should be no more need of "movements" on her beha...lf, and agitations for her advancement and development ... than for the abolition of negro slavery in the United States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No matter how well-born, how intelligent, how highly educated, how virtuous, how rich, how refined, the women of to-day constitute... a political class below that of every man, no matter how base-born, how stupid, how ignorant, how vicious, how poverty-stricken, how brutal. The pauper in the almshouse may vote; the lady who devotes her philanthropic thought to making that almshouse habitable, may not. The tramp who begs cold victuals in the kitchen may vote; the heiress who feeds him and endows universities may not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While the womanly god demands our veneration, the godlike woman kindles our love; but while we allow ourselves to melt in the cele...stial loveliness, the celestial self-sufficiency holds us back in awe.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »