Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of; Slavery to the Present Time
History
Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of; Slavery to the Present Time
African American orators; African Americans -- History -- Sources; Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- African American authors
We must not expect too much of the army. It is not a church, not a
Sunday-school, not a missionary society. Its code of morals is very
short, very narrow, but it enforces what it has. Its commandments are:
1. Thou shalt not fail to obey thy superior officer.
2. Thou shalt not miss any calls sounded out by the
trumpeter.
3. Thou shalt not appear at inspection with anything
out of order in thy person, clothing, or equipment.
4. Thou shalt not lie.
5. Thou shalt not steal.
6. Thou shalt not leave the post or garrison without
permission.
I would say, further, that warfare now requires so much from the man who
carries it on, that it is impossible to unite the general and the
statesman in one person. The army must be purely executive, carrying out
the mandates of the State. The moral and political questions must be
resolved by men of other professions. The soldier has all that he can do
to attend to the exigencies of the battle.
The Army of our Republic has a great moral mission which it is
performing almost unconsciously. It is a most influential witness
against lawlessness. By its own perfect order and obedience to
discipline it gives the force of a powerful example in favor of loyalty
to the Republic and respect for the laws. The best school of loyalty in
the land is the army. Every evening in the camp, to see ten thousand men
stand in respectful attention to our song to the national banner is a
lesson of great moral force. In still another sense our Army is also a
great moral force. When men see what a terrific engine of destruction it
is, the good people rejoice because they know this engine is in safe
hands; and the evil-disposed look on and are enlightened. Fierce
anarchists will stop to count ten, at least, before they begin their
attack upon the government.
Lastly, the Army, by the very aristocracy of its constitution,
contributes much to make effective the doctrines of equality. The black
soldier and the white soldier carry the same arms, eat the same rations,
serve under the same laws, participate in the same experience, wear the
same uniforms, are nursed in the same hospitals, and buried in the same
cemeteries. The Roman Catholic Church, by its priestly aristocracy, has
always been a bulwark against caste. So, in the same manner, the Army of
our Republic, by its aristocracy of commission, has proven itself the
most effectual barrier against the inundating waves of race
discrimination that the country has as yet produced.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND CHURCH AS A SOLUTION OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM[35]
BY D. WEBSTER DAVIS, D. D.
_of Richmond, Virginia_
[Note 35: Delivered at the International, Interdenominational
Sunday-school Convention, Massey Hall, Toronto, Canada, June 27, 1905.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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