The house being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 11022) for the reorganization of the Army of the United States, and for other purposes--

Mr. White of North Carolina said:Mr. Chairman: I supported very cheerfully all measures tending to bring about the recent war for liberating a very much oppressed and outraged people. I supported with equal cheer all appropriations that were necessary for the successful prosecution of that war to a final termination. I thought it was necessary then; I think now that it was a necessity. It has been the province of the people of the United States at all times to extend a helping hand to the oppressed, to the outraged--I mean, of course, without the borders of the United States.

Being a member of this great Republic and one of the Representatives on this floor, I gave my support in voice and in every way that I could to all measures tending to the liberation of these poor people in Cuba. I now favor the acquisition of all of the territory that is within our grasp as a result of that war. [Applause.]

To say that we will not accept, to say that we will not take these acquisitions, and to say that we will not extend to the people thereof the civilization of our country, the Christian manhood and womanhood we enjoy, is to do them a wrong and to take steps backward. I therefore favor the annexation of the Philippine Islands, and I also favor the bill now pending before this House for the extension of our standing Army commensurate with our new conditions.

Our Army up to the time of this recent war was a mere bagatelle. It was not at all in keeping with the great nation that we 00034are. Our Navy consisted of only a few crafts hanging around our shores, and the condition we were found in at the beginning of the American-Spanish war is too well known to us all to require any discussion on my part.

In times of peace it is well to prepare for war. We are now at peace, but it may not be thirty days before we shall be thrown into another war. Who can tell? Certainly if this discussion goes on, the treaty being considered in the other end of the Capitol being transferred, in part, to this end of the Capitol, and being of such character so as to encourage and inflame those of the Philippines opposed to annexation, it is most likely that it will not be thirty days before we will be at war again. Therefore I favor action upon this bill and extending our Army so that it will be ample for all emergencies that may arise.

Mr. Chairman, it is not so much on account of the recent war with Spain, or the money it took to carry on that war, or the annexation of Cuba, or Porto Rico, or the Philippine Islands that I desire to speak, nor is it so much the pending bill we have before us that I desire to address myself to this House.

But it is another problem, possibly more vexing than the one we have now under consideration. I know that you will pardon me if I do not address myself to the question before us when you recollect that I am the only representative on this floor of 10,000,000 people, from a racial standpoint. They have no one else to speak for them, from a race point of view, except myself. I shall therefore address the remainder of my remarks to another phase of the situation in this country--to another great problem that confronts us, and one which I trust ere long we shall have the manhood to stand up in our places and meet like American citizens, not like sectional cowards. I refer to the race problem. I have sat here in my place and heard discussions pro and con; I have heard my race referred to in terms anything else than dignified and complimentary. I have heard them referred to as savages, as aliens, as brutes, as vile and vicious and worthless, and I have heard but little or nothing said with reference to their better qualities, their better manhood, their developed American citizenship. It is therefore in reply to those seemingly unguarded expressions that I wish to speak.

I have listened to gentlemen here--particularly one of the gentlemen from the State of Mississippi [Mr. Williams] in his great eloquence about "white supremacy"--just here permit me to say that I have no respect for a "supremacy," white or black, which has been obtained through fraud, intimidation, carnage, and death--"white supremacy" in the great State of Mississippi; about the Anglo-Saxon ruling this country. I did not know that it required any specific reference of this kind for the world to know the fact that the Anglo-Saxon will rule the United States. We constitute as a race less than one-seventh, possibly, of the population. We have been enslaved; we have done your bidding for two hundred and forty years without any compensation; and we did it faithfully. We do not revert to it grumblingly or regretfully, but we refer to it because it seems ungracious in you now, after you have had all this advantage of us, after you have had all this labor of ours, to be unwilling, at this late day, to give us a man's share in the race of life.

That is the only sense in which I refer to it. It is not with a view to digging up the past. It is not with a view of kindling renewed animosity between the races, but only in answer to those who slur at us and remind us of our inferiority. Yes, by force of circumstances, we are your inferiors. Give us two hundred and forty years without compensation, give us the wealth that the brawny arm of the black man made for you, give us the education that his unpaid labor gave your boys and girls, and we will not be begging, we will not be in a position to be sneered at as aliens or members of an inferior race. Not at all.

We are inferior. We regret it. But if you will only allow us an opportunity we will amend our ways, we will increase our usefulness, we will become more and more intelligent, more and more useful to the nation. It is a chance in the race of life that we crave. We do not expect any special legislation. We do not expect the mythical "40 acres and a mule."

The mule died long ago of old age, and the land grabbers have obtained the 40 acres. We do not expect any of those things. But we have a right to expect a man's chance and opportunity to carve out our own destiny. That is all we ask, and that we demand.

This problem is confronting the nation. We seem as a race to be going through just now a crucible, a crisis-a peculiar crisis. It is not necessary, nor have I the time, to enter into any explanation as to what brought about this crisis. I may say, however, in passing, that possibly more than by any other one thing it has been brought about by the fact that despite all the oppression which has fallen upon our shoulders we have been rising, steadily rising, and in some instances we hope ere long to be able to measure our achievements with those of all other men and women of the land. This tendency on the part of some of us to rise and assert our manhood along all lines is, I fear, what has brought about this changed condition.

Shall the nation stand by listlessly, or shall it uphold the principles that it has established? Shall it recognize, as declared in the organic law, that all men are born free and equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

During the discussions here since the pendency of the treaty of peace I have heard a good deal said, both in this House and at the other end of the Capitol, about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I have heard a good deal said about Thomas Jefferson and others who had to do with the drafting of that instrument. And it has been alleged that they did not mean what they said in that declaration, for the reason that at the very time it was promulgated they owned slaves, and therefore when they spoke of all men being free and equal they did not mean the black population. The Constitution is a very elastic instrument when you have a purpose to serve. Public sentiment is law, and law, when properly executed, is public sentiment.

I heard once of a learned old lawyer who was instructing his class preparatory to their examination before the supreme court of the State for license. He said to them one day, "My dear boys, whenever you have a case in regard to which the law is in your favor and the facts against you, you must lean hard on the law; but if the law is against you and the facts in your favor, then lean hard on the facts." One bright young fellow said, "Well Judge, suppose both the law and the facts are against us, then 00067what must we do?" "Ah, my boys," said the Judge, "then you must beat about the bush." It occurs to me sir, that every time a construction of the Constitution or an interpretation of the law is made with reference to the humble race with which I am identified, the principle of that old judge's instruction is brought into play. If the law is in favor of the negro and the facts rather against him, they lean hard on the facts. If the reverse is true, they lean hard on the law in the construction of a statue with reference to him; but if the negro happens to have both the law and the facts on his side, all the decisions touching his rights seem to be beating around the bush. I regret to say it, and I say it with respect, with no intention of reflecting upon anybody or any branch of this Government.

Now, the problem to which I refer not only touches my people, but in my humble judgment it reaches out and ramifies and affects every citizen of the American Republic. How long will we sit-I say "we." I will sit here only two years longer, should I live, and I am going to try mighty hard to live that long. How long will you sit in your seats here and see the principles that underlie the foundation of this Government sapped little by little, but nevertheless surely sapped away? I took the pains this afternoon to run over one or two of the States that have been harping, through their representatives, most about the colored man on this floor since I have been in Congress.

I took up Mississippi, because I recall that two gentlemen from that State especially--I have reference to Congressman Allen and Congressman Williams--have taken special pains on several occasions to refer to the negro; they referred to him in a slurring way, referred to him as something to be managed, referred to him as something to be gotten rid of, referred to him as somebody that must be--oh, well, Congressman Allen told a yarn here one day--"transferred," I believe he called it. He must be "transferred." Well, now, here is the situation. I could not say much with reference to him, but here is the situation, taking his district in the State of Mississippi.

I deal with 1896, because I could not get the figures of last November. I find in the gentleman's district there were only 8,418 votes cast for all the candidates in that district, while the estimated 00078vote of the district is 28,663. I found in the Second district that the estimated vote was 34,102. The Congressman said that he got a plurality of 254 over his opponent, but did not give us the benefit of how many he got. I presume a few thousand. In the Third district the estimated vote is 36,859,and 4,050 were cast in the Presidential election of 1896. I found in the Fourth district there was an estimated vote of 42,647. There were votes cast for all the candidates, Democrats, Republicans, Populists, Free-soldiers, hottentots, and everybody else, 11,737.

In the Fifth district the estimated vote is 44,923, and there were 13,700 votes cast for all candidates.

In the Sixth district there were 33,882 votes estimated and there were cast nobody knows how many. Here is the note in the Directory:

Elected as a Democrat, practically without opposition, to fill out an unexpired term--and so forth. Practically without opposition!

In the Seventh district the estimated vote is 37,338, and there were cast 8,647 votes.

The total vote cast for Congressmen in the State of Mississippi in the year 1896, leaving out the Second and Sixth districts, where the vote is not given, was 45,867 out of a total vote of between 250,000 and 300,000.

Mr. BRUCKER. Was that at the Presidential election?

Mr. WHITE of North Carolina. That was at the Presidential election in the year 1896. These were the votes cast for Congressmen as they themselves have given them in the Congressional Directory. Here they are. Where are the others? Echo answers "Where?" White supremacy to get rid of negro domination? I do not know whether the negroes ever dominated in Mississippi or not. If they did, it is the only State outside of South Carolina for a while that they ever did dominate. They certainly never dominated the State wherein I live. We have no ambition to dominate, but we would like to be given a chance by the side of other men to work out our destiny and paddle our own canoe.

I find in the State of South Carolina, adjoining the State that I hail from, a similar situation of affairs. I suppose I might give these facts and figures, because the public would like to know 00089these things, and everyone can not get hold of a Congressional Directory.

In the First district of South Carolina the estimated vote is 34,664; the vote cast 7,303. In the second district the estimated vote is 29,265; the vote cast, 8,634. In the Third district the estimated vote is 30,412 and the votes cast 10,536, or about one-third.

In the Fourth district the estimated vote is 40,000; the vote cast, 12,180. In the Fifth district the estimated vote is 28,350, and the vote cast is 8,833.

In the Sixth district the estimated vote is 30,770, and we have this entry, no figures being given at all:

Elected as a Democrat without opposition, having received the entire vote cast.

A popular man! In the Seventh district the estimated vote is 35,736, while the vote cast was 9,407. The total vote cast, leaving out those two districts where the gentlemen did not give the public the benefit of the votes cast for them--the total vote cast for Congressmen in that State in that election was 56,953, while the estimated vote of the State of South Carolina is about 250,000, about one-fifth of the entire voting population having actually voted.

Now, I am not going to grumble about the number of votes that you cast down there in South Carolina, but I want to say to the Congress of the United States, and through Congress to the people of the United States, that South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and every other State in this Union ought to have the benefit of the votes that are allowed to be cast in their representation on this floor, and no more.

It is not fair to the other States of the Union to say that one gentleman shall come here from a district giving 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, or even 60,000 votes, and that a district in Mississippi or a district in Louisiana or a district in South Carolina, or possibly pretty soon a district in North Carolina, shall come here with a like population with only five or six thousand votes cast, with the others disfranchised and not allowed to vote. If we are unworthy of suffrage, if it is necessary to maintain white supremacy, if it is necessary for the Anglo-Saxon to sway the scepter in those States, then you ought to have the benefit only to those who are allowed 000910to vote, and the poor men, whether they be black or white, who are disfranchised ought not to go into the representation of the district or the State. It is a question that this House must deal with some time, sooner or later.

It may seem a little strange to hear me speak, but nobody else has tackled this question because the boot does not pinch anybody else as it does me and my race. But it will come home to you. You will have to meet it. You have got this problem to settle, and the sooner it is settled the better it will be for all parties concerned. I speak this in all charity. I speak this with no hostility. I am not a pessimist. I take rather the other view. I am optimistic in my views and believe that these problems will adjust themselves one day. I believe that the negro problem in less than fifty years will be a thing of the past.

When it is recalled that thirty-three years ago, one generation ago, four and a half millions of these people were liberated on the plantations of their former masters, and that right by their side they have worked out their destiny thus far, have arisen from poverty to a taxation of four hundred millions of property in the United States; when it is remembered that they have arisen from no homes to the purchase, in many instances, of decent tracts of land, with splendid homes and good property, I think I am justified in saying that this problem will work itself out. Many of them have acquired professions. We are ramifying and stretching out as best we can in all departments of life, with a view to making ourselves good citizens.

And my plea is not against Mississippi, not against South Carolina, not against Louisiana, but for justice--simple justice. Unmitigated justice is what we ask. You are not afraid of the black man overriding and overawing you. He is your neighbor. He is your friend. The chord that exists between some of the whites and the blacks of the South can not be severed by all of the bloody assassins of the world. But you have got the wrong conception. You have got the idea that any means that will disfranchise him and prevent him from exercising the rights which are given him under the Constitution is legitimate, that the end justifies the means. It is a wrong conception of a civilized government. It is the wrong conception of American citizenship, and the sooner 001011we all reach the conclusion that we are here together, here to live and here to die, the better for all concerned, because the black man is here to stay for all time to come.

The Indian has been driven to the West. He has been driven to the little reservations, and he numbers now only a few hundred thousand. He has died and has been killed and his numbers reduced to a minimum, and in a hundred years hence a few mummies in the Smithsonian Institution or somewhere else will represent an extinct race that was once very distinct in the United States. Not so with the negro; never. He did not come to this country of his own motion; he is not here of his own act; but being here, and his planting upon this soil being coequal with his white neighbor, he is here to stay from now henceforth and forever. He will not die out. I know that some of our friends have consulted the statistics and find that the mortality of the negro in some large cities is very great, and they think he will soon die out. They forget that the bulk of the negro race have never seen a large city, but are healthy and hearty and prolific on the plantations throughout the country.

Yes, we are on the increase. The war emancipated four and a half millions. The census of next year will register ten millions. The proportion that we occupy with reference to the white people will never increase, but will gradually diminish; but the number of negroes in this country will continually increase.

I say it will never increase, because we do not import negroes into the United States. It is an evident fact that the "riffraff" of all the nations of the earth enter this country except negroes. And, strange to say, they find open doors and find open hearts, and soon mingle and commingle with all the people of this country and are lost in the great civilization of this country. We do not ask to be assimilated; we do ask to be amalgamated; we do not ask for anything but to remain a distinct and separate race as we are, and to be permitted to work out our own manhood and womanhood. We do not except anything else.

Now, gentlemen, what are you going to do with this problem, with this question? I believe the time is coming very soon when the color of a man's skin, so far as business relations are concerned, so far as citizenship is concerned, will cut no figure at all. A man 001112will be regarded as a man whether wrapped in a white or a black skin. I believe the time will come when we will have no more riots in the South on account of color, when civilization will so develop all over this nation that there will be no more lynchings and barbarity and mobocracy, now so prevalent in some portions of this country.

When the black man, through toil and economy, shall have acquired property and wealth and all those things that make a good American citizen, and when all the barriers of legislation now in the way shall disappear, he will be taken by the hand as a man. I believe the time will come-yes, soon-when the condition that prevails to-day in Boston, in grand old Massachusetts, where all are recognized, both black and white, will prevail in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We can not live on the dead ashes of the past. Slavery and its institutions, racial distinctions and wrongs will come to an end. We are going forward; we are looking out; we are stretching out our arms all over the United States. The nation must care for those at home as well as those abroad.

Our ratio of representation is poor. We are taunted with being uppish; we are told to be still; to keep quiet. How long must we keep quiet? We have kept quiet while numerically and justly we are entitled to 51 members of this House; and I am the only one left. We kept quiet when numerically we are entitled to a member of the Supreme Court. We have never had a member and probably never will; but we have kept quiet. We have kept quiet while numerically and justly, according to our population as compared with all the other races of the world, so far as the United States are concerned, we should have the recognition of a place in the President's Cabinet; but we have not had it. Still we have kept quiet, and are making no noise about it.

We are entitled to 13 United States Senators, according to justice and according to our numerical strength, but we have not one, and possibly never will get another; and yet we keep quiet. We have kept quiet while hundreds and thousands of our race have been strung up by the neck unjustly by mobs of murderers. If a man commits a crime he will never find an apologist in me because his face is black. He ought to be punished, but he ought to 001213be punished according to the law as administered in a court of justice. But we keep quiet; do not say it, do not talk about it. How long must we keep quiet, constantly sitting down and seeing our rights one by one taken away from us? As slaves it was to be expected; as slaves we were docile and easily managed; but as citizens we want and we have a right to expect all that the law guarantees to us.

We are passing, as we trust, from ignorance to intelligence. The process may be slow; we may be impatient; you may be discouraged; public sentiment may be against us because we have not done better, but we are making progress. Do you recollect in history any race of people placed in like circumstances who have done any better than we have? Give us a chance, and we will do more. We plead to all of those whom are here legislating for the nation that while your sympathy goes out to Cuba--and we are legislating for Cuba--while your hearts burst forth with great love for humanity abroad; remember those who are at our own door. Remember those who have worked for you; remember those who have loved you, who have held up your hands, who have felled your forests, have digged your ditches, who have filled up your valleys and have lowered the mountains, and have helped to make the great Southland what it is to-day. We are entitled to your recognition. We do not ask for domination. We ask and except a chance in legislation, and we will be content with nothing else.

In the language of another, who has put it possibly very much better than I can:

We are passing from the ignorance and superstition fostered by years of thraldom to the intelligence which freedom predicates; from the immorality of two hundred and forty years to the higher standard of morality which ever characterizes the daily life to the highest social and scholastic circles; from the muscle and sinew power of the past to the multitudinous appliances of the improved machinery of the present.

We are living in a grand and awful time. We are measured not by the number of pounds which we are able to lift from the earth, but by that other power which is required to move the world.

Man's importance has been most beautifully delineated by Dr. Watts, who says: "Were I so tall to reach the pole,Or mete the ocean with my span,I must be measured by my soul:The mind's the standard of the man."

It is that standard, it is that measurement that we are willing to be measured by. It is by that standard we would like you to gauge us, and not the texture of our hair, not the color of our skin, not our flat noses, but the standard of the man that we would like to be measured by. This broad problem of giving us a man's chance confronts us; it is one well worthy of you.

I was up in Saratoga a few years ago, and in conversation with a gentleman there inquired how the people got along. I went before the season opened. Everything looked barren and bleak. He said, "Well, in the summer we live by skinning the visitors who have come here." I said, "I can very well understand that; but how do you get along in the winter?" "Then," said he, "we skin each other." [Laughter.] Gentleman, the process of skinning the negro is nearly over. You have about completed the job. Gentlemen of the North, of the East, and of the West, yes, and you of the South, when that is done you have got to have somebody to skin, and you will turn on each other, and then possibly the negro will get his just deserts. [Laughter.]

It is well to stop and consider; you can not always keep a free man down. When he is once made free, it will be difficult to ever enslave him again, either physically or intellectually. Physical slavery is a thing nobody wants. The most ignorant of our Southern sand lappers out in the woods do not want actual slavery again; but there is a slavery that is even worse than manual slavery--the slavery of the mind, the beclouded intellect. It is there that we ask you to help lift the curtain of darkness, the curtain of ignorance, the curtain of vice that you helped to nail and foist upon us, to help break the shackles, that we may look forth in the noonday of life, in the tide of progress and beauty, that we may go up the hill with you, that we may leave the miasmatic valley of vice and degradation and climb to the top of the mount, where we can breathe God's pure air as American citizens.

Recognize your citizen at home, recognize those at your door, give them the encouragement, give them the rights that they are justly entitled to, and then take hold of the people of Cuba and help establish a stable and fixed government among them; take hold of the Porto Ricans, establish the government there that wisdom 001415predicated, which justice may dictate. Take hold of the Philippine Islands, take hold of the Hawaiian Islands, there let the Christian civilization go out and magnify and make happy those poor, half-civilized people; and then the black man, the white man--yes, all the riff-raff of the earth that are coming to our shores--will rejoice with you in that we have done God's service and done that which will elevate us in the eyes of the world.

[Prolonged applause.]