THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.                  411

will gladly send instructions. The  "Equal Rights Association"
is strong already; it numbers hundreds of thousands from the
ranks of the most just, humane, most civilized and intelligent
citizens of this republic.  No fees nor charges required to join,
only the knowledge that one more strong right arm is enlisted
on the side of right and justice against the enemies of liberty,
progress and freedom.
   Is the South wronged by such an appellation ? But is it not
borne out by the facts? Do not the proscriptive laws of the
Southern States against black skins prove that they do not com-
prehend the spirit of our age ? Can these States, trammeled by
such accursed doctrines as the separate coach line enunciates,
ever reach the grandeur and glory, the mission and destiny of
the remainder of the republic? The courts of history will record
that the case of Civilization vs. Barbarism came up for trial again
and again, and also that wealth and intelligence, coupled with
 malignant prejudice, secured the defendants many a new hearing;
but the courts of heaven will never sustain a verdict for the de-
 fendant against right and reason, human and divine laws.
   Washington, D.C.


                              VIII.
        THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

                   BY REV. JOSHUA A. BROCKETT.

  Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Committee, Ladies and Gentle-
men:--As I stand before this presence, I desire to congratulate
your efforts in securing this vast assemblage in honor of, and to
celebrate, the twenty-eighth anniversary of the issuance of the
Decree of Emancipation in America. This decree was pro-
claimed by Abraham Lincoln on the first day of January, 1863,
or twenty-nine years ago to-day. In honor of the man who gave
this day of tremendous significance to the Negro we come.*
  In the celebration of the emancipation of the Negro from
bondage in America, and the importance of the proclamation of
emancipation by the Negro's friend, the then President of the
United States, Abraham Lincoln, and its moral influence upon
the life of all nations, and particularly this nation, it were well
for us briefly to consider the various circumstances and events
leading to such an issue.
  I shall therefore discuss the advent of the three classes who
first became permanent inhabitants of this country after its dis-
covery by Columbus.

 * Delivered at the Metropolitan Hall, at the celebration of the twenty-ninth anni-
versary of the Emancipation by the citizens of Raleigh, N. C., January 1, 1892.
     27




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, [Vol.08, Num. 4]

Emancipation Proclamation

A.

Volume:  08
Issue Number:  04
Page Number:  411
Date:  04/1892