In 1876 (twenty-five years ago) I was President of a National Convention held at Nashville, Tenn, and of which H. V. Redfield, an able correspondent of the "Cincinnati Commercial," made the following unduly flattering mention: "Mifflin W. Gibbs, of Arkansas, was selected as President. It may be interesting to know that Gibbs is strongly in favor of Bristoe, now an aspirant for the Presidency. He will likely be a delegate from Arkansas to the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati. He is a lawyer, one of the foremost of his race in Arkansas. He is rather slender and a genteel-looking man, with something in his features that denotes superiority" ("Though poor in thanks," Redfield, yet I thank thee.) "His speech upon taking the chair, was another event. It was the third good speech of the day and calculated to leave the believers of internal inferiority in something of a muddle. "He made a manly plea for equal rights for his race. All they wanted was an equal chance in the battle of life. They did not desire to hinder any man for exercising his political rights as he saw fit, and all they claimed was liberty of thought and action for themselves. He was sorry there was occasion for a convention of black men to consider black men's status. The fact alone was evidence that the race had not been accorded right and justice. Of the treatment of his race in Arkansas he had little to complain of, but spoke bitterly of the murders at Vicksburg, Miss. He gave the Republican party, as administered at Washington, several blows under the chin. He complained of bad treatment of colored men by that party, notwithstanding all its professions. He made the bold declaration that all the whites of the South need do to get their votes was to promise equal and exact justice and stand to it. All they wanted was their rights as American citizens and would go into the party that would secure them. He said the question primarily demanding the attention of the convention were educational and political, and he hoped the proceedings would be so orderly as to convince the whites present that we were capable of self-control. His speech had a highly independent flavor and the particular independent passages were applauded by whites and blacks alike."