I have advocated the cause of universal emancipation in
Maryland, and throughout the country, because I believed it
to be a measure of duty, as well as urgent State necessity.
But I could not justify myself to the people of Maryland, if I
should give countenance to the effort now making by some
impulsive men, no doubt sincere and honest in their convic-
tions, to confer universal suffrage upon the negro race. I
cordially accept the views of President Johnson in reference
to the only practicable mode of adjustment between these con-
flieting interests. I am willing to do the colored race full
justice. If they prefer to remain with us, upon terms riot in-
consistent with our claim to exclusive control in the govern-
ment of the State, I am willing to try the experiment, with-
out prejudice, and to the fullest extent. But I am not at lib-
erty to withhold opinions, which were foreshadowed by me,
on taking the oath of office under your New Constitution,
whose provisions denied the right of suffrage to the negro,
that his manifest destiny assigns him, sooner or later—not as
the result of legislative compulsion, but of his own voluntary
motion—to some more congenial locality, where his distinc-
tive characteristics will furnish no barrier to his enjoyment of
social and political rights, and where, under a government
of his own free choice, he can pursue and fulfill the measure
of his appointed usefulness. In this deliberate judgment I
am supported by some of the wisest men of the country.
The right of suffrage, by which it is proposed to elevate his
condition, and bring him at once upon terms of social and
political equality with the white race, will not postpone the
solution of the problem which has been so long hanging over
us. Should the time ever come, as come it may, when the
freedman, under the guidance, as I believe, of unwise coun-
sels, shall insist upon equality in your governmental affairs,
in your workshops, in all the varied competitions of labor
and industry, I trust that I may not over-estimate the con-
sequences of the irrepressible conflict, which is certain to en-
sue, when the two races, from causes however trivial, shall
stand in accepted antagonism towards each other.
These views are presented in the interest of the African
race, and with reference to the warnings of an unmistaka-
ble future. I may be in error, but I trust that the sincerity
and earnestness of my convictions, never more deliberately
expressed, may save me from the suspicion of prejudice, in
treating upon a subject of such grave magnitude, both in its
bearing upon the harmonious working of our government,
and the welfare of four millions of degraded and down-trod-
den people, who have been made free by the results of this
rebellion. If I have not been controlled by the impulses of
mistaken philanthropy, or the still more exacting claims of
party obligation, I yield to no one in my desire to improve