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these two men are, nevertheless, conspicuous links in the great chain of causes and events which raised the Negro to his present level of freedom in this and other lands. Here, to night on the twenty-first anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, the capital of the grandest Republic of freedom on the earth, I kneel at the grave, amid the dust and shadows of bygone centuries, and offer my gratitude, and the gratitude of six millions of my race, to Morgan Godwin, as the grand pioneer of Garrison, Lundy, Goodell, Phillips, Henry Wilson, Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens, and the illustrious host of great men who have since risen to plead the cause of the negro against those who would oppress him.

Fellow-citizens – In view of the history now referred to, the low point at which he started in the race of life on this continent, and the many obstacles which had to be surmounted the Negro has reasons to be proud of his progress, if not of his beginning. He is a brilliant illustration of social and anthropological revolution and evolution.

His progress has been steady, vast and wonderful. No people has ever made greater progress under similar conditions. We may trace his rise from Godwin contending for his right to baptism, to Garrison with abolitionism, and later on to Gilliam alarmed at the prospect of negro supremacy. His progress is marked with three G's, Godwin, Garrison. Gilliam. We see him changed from a heathen to a christian by Godwin, from a slave to a freeman by Garrison, from a serf to a sovereign by Gilliam.

I am not a disciple of Professor Gilliam, and have neither hope nor fear of black supremacy. I have very little interest in his ethics or his arithmetic. It may or it may not come to pass. Sufficient unto the day is both the evil and the good thereof. A hundred years is a little further down the steps of time than I care to look, for good or for evil.

When father Miller proved by the Bible, from whose pages so many things have been proved, that the world would come to an end in 1843, and proved it so clearly that many began to make their robes in which they were to soar aloft above this burning world, he was asked by a doubting Thomas, "But father Miller, what if it does not come?" "Well," said the good old man, "then we shall wait till it does come."

The colored people of the United States should imitate the wisdom of father Miller, and, wait. But we should also work while we wait. For after all, our destiny is largely in our own hands. If we find, we shall have to seek. If we succeed in the race of life, it must be by our own energies, and our own exertions. Others may clear the road, but we must go forward, or be left behind in the race of life.

If we remain poor and dependent, the riches of other men

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will not avail us. If we are ignorant, the intelligence of other men will do but little for us. If we are foolish, the wisdom of other men will not guide us. If we are wasteful of time and money, the economy of other men will only make our destitution the more disgraceful and hurtful. If we are vicious and lawless, the virtues and good behavior of others will not save us from our vices and our crimes.

We are now free, and though we have many of the consequences of our past condition to contend against, by union, effort, co-operation, and by a wise policy in the direction and the employment of our mental, moral, industrial and political powers, it is the faith of my soul, that we can blot out the handwriting of popular prejudice, remove the stumbling-blocks left in our way by slavery, rise to an honorable place in the estimation of our fellow-citizens of all classes, and make a comfortable way for ourselves in the world.

I have referred to the vast and wonderful changes which have taken place in the condition of the colored people of this country. We rejoice in those changes to-day, and we do well. We are neither wood nor stone, but men. We possess the sentiments common to right-minded men.

But do we know the history of those vast and marvellous changes and the means by which they were brought about? Do we comprehend the philosophy of our progress? Do we ever think of the time, the thought, the labor, the pain, the self-sacrifice, by which they were accomplished? Have we a just and proper conception of the noble zeal, the inflexible firmness, the heroic courage, and other grand qualities of soul, displayed by the reformers and statesmen through whose exertions these changes in our condition have been wrought out and the victory won?

Mr. Williams, in his History of the Negro, tells his readers that it was the dissolution of the Union that abolished slavery. He might as well have told them that Charles Sumner was a slaveholder; that Jeff Davis was an abolitionist; that Abraham Lincoln was disloyal, and that the devil founded the Christian church. Had the Union been dissolved, you and I would not be here this evening. Had the Union been dissolved, the colored people of the South would now be in the hateful chains of slavery. No, no, Mr. Williams, it was not the destruction but the salvation of the Union that saved the slave from slavery and the country to freedom, and the Negro to citizenship.

The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia was one of the most important events connected with the prosecution of the war for the preservation of the Union, and, as such, is worthy of the marked commemoration we have given it to-day. It was not only a staggering blow to slavery throughout the country, but a killing blow to the rebellion,