The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
In his letter to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island, Washington enumerates
an act of that colony, declaring that "none should speak, write, or act
against the proceedings of Congress or their Acts of Assembly, under
penalty of being disarmed and disqualified from holding any office,
and being further punished by imprisonment," as one that met his
approbation, and which should exist in other colonies. There is the
doctrine for you Democrats. So I could go on by the hour or by the
day. I could show you how they made domiciliary visits, interfered
with travel, imprisoned without any sort of writ or affidavit--in other
words, did whatever they thought was necessary to whip the enemy and
establish their independence.
What next do they charge against us? That we freed negroes. So we did.
That we allowed those negroes to fight in the army. Yes, we did,
That we allowed them to vote. We did that too. That we have made them
citizens. Yes, we have, and what are you Democrats going to do about it?
Now, what did our fathers do? Did they free any of the negroes? Yes,
sir. Did they allow any of them to fight in the army? Yes, sir. Did they
permit any of them to vote? Yes, sir. Did they make them citizens? Yes,
sir. Let us see whether they did or not.
Before we had the present Constitution we had what were called Articles
of Confederation. The fourth of those articles provided that every
free inhabitant of the colony should be a citizen. It did not make any
difference whether he was white or black; and negroes voted by the side
of Washington and Jefferson. Just here the question arises, if negroes
were good enough in 1787 and 1790 to vote by the side of such men,
whether rebels and their sympathizers are good enough now to vote
alongside of the negro.
Did they let any of these negroes fight? In 1750, when Massachusetts had
slaves, there appeared in the Boston Gazette the following notice:
"Ran away from his master, Wm. Brown, of Framingham, on the 30th
September last, a mulatto fellow, about 27 years of age, named Crispus,
about 6 feet high, short curly hair, had on a light colored bear-skin
coat, brown jacket, new buckskin breeches, blue yarn stockings and check
woolen shirt," etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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