In this impromptu address at city hall in Rochester on the day Lincoln died, Douglass describes how the assassination would unite black and white Northerners, “making us kin” by creating an interracial national family.
SOURCE: Rochester Democrat and American, April 17, 1865
Mayor Moore1 and Fellow Citizens: This call to address you on this occasion was quite unexpected to me, and one to which I find it almost impossible to respond. If you have deep grief in the death of Abraham Lincoln,2 and feel in it a severe stab at Republican institutions, I feel it on all these accounts and more. I feel it as a personal as well as national calamity; on account of the race to which I belong and the deep interest which that good man ever took in its elevation. This is not an occasion for speech making, but for silence. I have scarcely been able to say a word to any of those friends who have taken my hand and looked sadly in my eyes to-day. A dreadful disaster has befallen the nation. It is a day for silence and meditation; for grief and tears. Yet I feel that though Abraham Lincoln dies, the Republic lives; (cheers;) though that great and good man, one of the noblest men [to] trod God’s earth, (applause,) is struck down by the hand of the assassin, yet I know that the nation is saved and liberty established forever. (Loud applause.) The human mind naturally turns from a calamity like this, and endeavors, through its tears and anguish, to catch some gleam of hope—some good that may be born of the tremendous evil. And I think it is not inconsistent with this tearful occasion to discover through the blinding mists that rise from this yawning gulf, the beautiful bow of promise spanning the gloom and giving hope to all. (Applause.)
Only the other day, it seemed as if this nation were in danger of losing a just appreciation of the awful crimes of this rebellion. We were manifesting almost as much gratitude to Gen. Lee for surrendering as to Gen. Grant for compelling him to surrender! (Cheers.) It seemed to me that Gen. Lee was about the most popular man in America. (Applause and laughter.) The crimes of treason and slavery were [line obliterated] amnesty and oblivion in behalf of men whose hands are red with the best blood of the land. (Loud cheers.) Republics have proverbially short memories. I was afraid the American people were growing weak. It may be in the inscrutable wisdom of Him who controls the destinies of Nations, that this drawing of the Nation’s most precious heart’s blood was necessary to bring us back to that equilibrium which we must maintain if the Republic was to be permanently redeemed. (Applause.)
How I have to-day mourned for our noble President, I dare not attempt to tell. It was only a few weeks ago that I shook his brave, honest hand,3 and looked into his gentle eye and heard his kindly voice uttering those memorable words—words which will live immortal in history, and be read with increasing admiration from age to age:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another, drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, that the judgments of the Lord are righteous altogether. (Long continued applause.)
Brave good words are those; and I think, with Dr. Robinson, that if treason expects to gain anything by this hell-black assassination, it will be awfully disappointed.4 To-day, to-day as never before this North is a unit! (Great applause.) To-day, to-day as never before, the American people, although they know they cannot have indemnity for the past—for the countless treasure and the precious blood—yet they resolve to-day that they will exact ample security for the future! (Cheers.) And if it teaches us this lesson, it may be that the blood of our beloved martyred President will be the salvation of our country. Good man we call him; good man he was. If “an honest man is the noblest work of God,”5 we need have no fear for the soul of Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.)
This new demonstration of the guilt of slavery, teaches another lesson. Hereafter we must not despise any hand or any arm that has been uplifted in defence of the Nation’s life. Let us not be in too much haste in the work of restoration. Let us not be in a hurry to clasp to our bosom that spirit which gave birth to Booth. When we take to our arms again, as brethren, our Southern foes, let us see to it that we take also our Southern friends. (Cheers.) Let us not forget that justice to the negro is safety to the Nation. When the tall heads[?] of this Rebellion are swept off (as they will be) (applause), in their tracks will spring up another race, their luckless sons, to whom the wretched traitors will bequeath some infernal passions like that which has caused our great bereavement. By their hand other officers of the government will be stricken down. Where is our remedy? It is here: know no man hereafter in all these States[?] by his complexion, but know every man by his loyalty (cheers), and wherever there is a patriot in the North or South, white or black, helping on the good cause, hail him as a citizen, a kinsman, a clansman, a brother beloved! (Great applause.) Let us not remember our enemies and disenfranchise our friends. The black man will not only run everywhere to bring us information and to warn us of dangerous plots, through marsh and fen and forest, will not only bear exposure and privation, and lead and feed our fugitive prisoners, and bind up their wounded feet, sheltering them by day and piloting them in the darkness, will not only build for you ramparts of earth and solid stone, but they offer you ramparts of flesh, and fight the battles of the nation amid contumely and persecution. (Cheers.) For the safety of all, let justice be done to each. I thank you, gentlemen, for the privilege of mingling my sorrows and hopes with yours on this memorable occasion.