I might ask the same question with regard to hotels, and even the common schools. A hotel is a legal institution, and so is a common school, and as such each must be for the equal benefit of all. Nor can there be any exclusion from either on account of color. It is not enough to provide separate accommodations for colored citizens, even if in all respects as good as those of other persons. Equality is not found in any pretended equivalent, but only in equality; in other words, there must be no discrimination on account of color. The discrimination is an insult, a hindrance, a bar, which not only destroys comfort and prevents equality, but weakens all other rights. The right to vote will have no security until your equal rights in the public conveyances, hotels, and common schools are at last established; but here you must insist for yourselves by speech, by petition, and by vote. Help yourselves, and others will help also. The Civil Rights Law needs a supplement to cover these cases. This defect has been apparent from the beginning, and for a long time I have striven to remove it. A bill for this purpose, introduced by me, is now pending in the Senate. Will not colored fellow-citizens see that those in power no longer postpone this essential safeguard? Surely here is an object worthy of effort. Nor has the Republican party done its work until this is accomplished. Is it not better to establish all our own people in the enjoyment of equal rights before we seek to bring others within the sphere of our institutions, to be treated as Frederick Douglass was on his way to the President from San Domingo? It is easy to see that a small part of the means, the energy, and the determined will spent in the expedition to San Domingo, and in the prolonged war-dance about that island, with menace to the Black Republic of Hayti, would have secured all our colored fellow-citizens in the enjoyment of equal rights. Of this there can be no doubt. Among cardinal objects is Education, which must be insisted on; here again must be equality, side by side with the alphabet. It is vain to teach equality, if you do not practise it. It is vain to recite the great words of the Declaration of Independence, if you do not make them a living reality. What is a lesson without example? As all are equal at the ballot-box, so must all be equal at the common school. Equality in the common school is the preparation for equality at the ballot-box. Therefore do I put this among the essentials of education.