But to say now, having given freedom to the blacks, that they shall not enjoy the essential rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the Proclamation of Emancipation, and tacitly to admit that the whole emancipation policy is erroneous.
Boutwell argues that denying essential rights to freed blacks contradicts the principles of emancipation.
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I hope it is not necessary in this day and this hour of the Republic to argue anywhere that a property qualification is not only unjust in itself, but that it is odious to the people of the country to a degree which cannot be expressed.
They were relived from the disparaging distinctions that came into existence with the system of slavery.
Does anybody contemplate such a qualification to the elective franchise, in the case of black people or white?
The people of the United States were embittered against the Government of Great Britain, and had General Grant chosen to seek redress by arms he would have been sustained throughout the North with substantial unanimity.
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