The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 7.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[164] have chosen otherwise; and I am willing, for one, to leave my colored fellow-citizens to the unbiased exercise of their own judgment and instincts in deciding between them. The Democratic party labors under the disadvantage of antecedents not calculated to promote a rapid growth of confidence; and it is no matter of surprise that the vote of the emancipated class is likely to be largely against it. But if, as will doubtless be the case, that vote shall be to some extent divided between the two candidates, it will have the effect of inducing politicians of the rival parties to treat with respect and consideration this new element of political power, from self-interest if from no higher motive. The fact that at this time both parties are welcoming colored orators to their platforms, and that, in the South, old slave-masters and their former slaves fraternize at caucus and barbecue, and vote for each other at the polls, is full of significance. If, in New England, the very men who thrust Frederick Douglass from car and stage-coach, and mobbed and hunted him like a wild beast, now crowd to shake his hand and cheer him, let us not despair of seeing even the Ku-Klux tamed into decency, and sitting ‘clothed in their right minds’ as listeners to their former victims. The colored man is to-day the master of his own destiny. No power on earth can deprive him of his rights as an American citizen. And it is in the light of American citizenship that I choose to regard my colored friends, as men having a common stake in the welfare of the country; mingled with, and not separate from, their white fellow-citizens; not herded