A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. BarnumBenton, Joel
History
A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum
Benton, Joel
Barnum's American Museum; Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
Mr. Johnson, of Wallingford: "The gentleman misapprehends my
remarks. The gentleman from Norwich had urged that the negro
should vote because they have fought in our battles. I replied
that oxen and asses can fight, and therefore should, on the same
grounds, be entitled to vote."
Mr. Barnum: I accept the gentleman's explanation. Doubtless
General Grant will feel himself highly complimented when he
learns that it requires no greater capacity to handle the musket,
and meet armed battalions in the field, than "oxen and asses"
possess.
Let the educated free negro feel that he is a man; let him be
trained in New England churches, schools and workshops; let him
support himself, pay his taxes, and cast his vote, like other
men, and he will put to everlasting shame the champions of modern
Democracy, by the overwhelming evidence he will give in his own
person of the great Scripture truth, that "God has made of one
blood all the nations of men." A human soul, "that God has
created and Christ died for," is not to be trifled with. It may
tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot--it
is still an immortal spirit; and, amid all assumptions of caste,
it will in due time vindicate the great fact that, without regard
to color or condition, all men are equally children of the common
Father.
A few years since, an English lord and his family were riding in
his carriage in Liverpool. It was an elegant equipage; the
servants were dressed in rich livery; the horses caparisoned in
the most costly style; and everything betokened that the
establishment belonged to a scion of England's proudest
aristocracy. The carriage stopped in front of a palatial
residence. At this moment a poor beggar woman rushed to the side
of the carriage, and gently seizing the lady by the hand,
exclaimed, "For the love of God give me something to save my poor
sick children from starvation. You are rich; I am your poor
sister, for God is our common Father."
"Wretch!" exclaimed the proud lady, casting the woman's hand
away; "don't call me sister; I have nothing in common with such
low brutes as you." And the great lady doubtless thought she was
formed of finer clay than this suffering mendicant; but when a
few days afterward she was brought to a sick bed by the smallpox,
contracted by touching the hand of that poor wretch, she felt the
evidence that they belonged to the same great family, and were
subject to the same pains and diseases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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