Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 2

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“ [317] freedmen, private individuals would take up and still carry on the work, and finish the noble task which has gone so far in disenthralling the black race.” Mr. Greeley sat down amid a tempest of applause.

I had hardly resumed my desk in Washington after this trip when some delegates from the colored people, Frederick Douglass, Henry H. Garnett, Sella Martin, John M. Langston, and others who had come from various sections of the country to Washington to have a conference with each other and watch the interests of their race in legislation, desired an interview with me. The gentlemen sought the highest and best privileges and securities for their people, and laid stress upon their right to vote; but, judging by newspaper reports, they feared that I was opposed to them and that I was not in favor of securing to the blacks the right of suffrage. They came to my office and told me frankly what reports they had seen. I expressed to the delegation my sincere desire to have the cooiperation and support, in my efforts to benefit the freedmen, of leaders of the colored people like themselves. My conviction was, first, that all citizens should be equal before the law, and then, as in military generalship, one position should be carried at a time and then the next tenable position, each of which I would fortify and defend for the right, and advance from that. I was all along in favor of eventual suffrage for the negroes, but hoped that it might be limited at least by an educational qualification. Opposition to education was, I feared, forcing us to adopt at once universal suffrage.

On April 20th, there was a gathering of the Methodist church people in Baltimore at the new Assembly Rooms. The object of the meeting was stated to be to