Judge Foraker then addressed the Convention, speaking in substance as follows:

If the convention will allow me, I want here and now to ratify the nomination for the Lieutenant Governorship. It is a fact of which General Kennedy may not be aware, but nevertheless a fact, that this is not the first time that he and I have been engaged together in the public service. There was another time, twenty-five years ago, and it was in the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Fourteenth Army Corps. We made a good job of it then, and I believe we shall make a good job of it now. (Applause.)

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1885.

HE campaign that followed was opened at a ratifica

THE

tion meeting held in Springfield the evening of the day of the nomination. I spoke almost every day from that time on until the election, and some days two or three times. In this way I covered pretty thoroughly the whole State. Because of the defeat of Mr. Blaine the results of the suppression of the colored vote in the Southern States was brought home to our minds with special emphasis. Had it not been for the solid South Mr. Blaine would have been elected easily without New York and other States, which he lost by small pluralities, and under aggravating circumstances. It was for this reason that the first plank of our platform demanded a free ballot and a fair count, and the discussion of the Southern question was more thorough in the State of Ohio in the campaign of 1885 than it ever had been before. While, therefore, the policy of protection was upheld and discussed and all other national questions then under consideration were dealt with, first place was given to the right of suffrage and the status of the negro. I first spoke at length on this general subject at Wilberforce University a few days after I had been nominated.

I recall this address and the Commencement Day occasion as among the most interesting of all such experiences. The presiding officer was the venerable Bishop Campbell. He had been a slave who was liberated by the Civil War. Many others were present who had similar records in that respect. I never saw a happier audience and but few larger or more appreciative.

After speaking in a general way about the advantages of education and entering a protest against carrying too

far the so-called utilitarian idea according to which a student was to study only those branches that had some reference to his future vocation, as though he knew certainly what that vocation would be, and pointing out that it was not so much the knowledge one acquires as a student from his text books as the discipline and mental development and increase of general intellectual force that are of value, and that nothing was so well calculated in my opinion to strengthen the mind and give one the power of analysis and logical arrangement of thought and argument as a study of the ancient languages, I said:

Well, now, there is one other thing of a special character of which I think. I said the students who graduated here would be citizens. This is so because colored people of this country, from one end to the other, have been made citizens. It was not always so. We once had slavery in this country—and a great crime and burning disgrace it was (loud applause)—slavery that not only held human beings in bondage, but what was infinitely worse, if anything could be worse, deliberately, by legislative enactment and by enforcement of law, undertook to chain and bind its victims in ignorance and degradation as well. (Cries of "Shame!") Yes, a burning shame! It seems incredible to us, in this year of 1885, meeting here under this tabernacle in this beautiful campus, that such a grand old hero, such a distinguished divine as Bishop Campbell-who did me the honor to introduce me-should have been once held in slavery as the property of somebody. (Cries of "Shame!") Shame! Yes, but a more infamous shame that such grand intellects as those of Bishop Campbell and Bishop Turner and these other great men about me here, should be by legislative enactments, under the pains and penalties of imprisonment in the penitentiary, as by the statute books of Georgia and South Carolina and other States it was provided, forbidden to learn their a, b, c's! Do you remember? (A storm of "Yes, yes!") The American people can easily forget, but Bishop Campbell will never forget. ("No, no! Never!") But now, speaking about Georgia, there was once on the statute books of that State not only a law against colored men learning their a, b, c's, but also a joint resolution, I believe it was, adopted by the Legislature, offering a reward of $5,000 for the delivery anywhere within the borders of the State, of that grand old humanitarian, William Lloyd Garrison. (Hisses.) Not only that, but Georgia, and probably all the other slave States, forbade by law the ordinance of baptism and the ordinance of marriage. As to slaves, they would not allow colored men to get an education while they lived, and manifestly did not want them to go to heaven when they died. (Great laughter and applause.) Well, they are going to heaven all the same. (Renewed laughter, and cries of "That's so!")

Why do I refer to these things? I do so in order that I may supplement the reference with this statement: That it is no wonder that the colored people of the South, having been held in bondage for 250 years, and having been so degraded and debased, should be in the condition they are today; it is no wonder that only about twenty-five per cent. of them can read and write. Think of it, my colored friendsseventy-five per cent. of the six millions of your race, all American citizens, unable to read or write! What a grand field it is for Wilberforce University to work in! What a grand inspiration for an institution that comes up to the measure set by George Washingtonknowledge and morality! Go on with your grand work! (Voices, "We'll do it!")

I have already spoken of some things that ought to suggest great encouragement to you—great encouragement because of the change of sentiment which they indicate in your favor. Slavery being abolished, the people of the South themselves have come to see the day when they would not have it restored for anything you could name. Slavery abolished, and the people of the South glad of it! There is a march of progress! We want that march to go on. You have that improved public sentiment down there to encourage you, and you have got improved public sentiment at home to encourage you. Do you remember, my fellow citizens, that for forty-five years-from 1805 to 1850we had on the statute books of Ohio a blot and disgrace known as the "Black Laws of Ohio"? I expect you have forgotten what the black laws were. Well, some of you haven't, for I see you shaking your heads. Let me tell these young people what they were. The "Black Laws" were statutes which, among other things, forbade any colored man to testify in any case in court in which a white man was a party. Not only that, but these black laws provided that no white man should hire a colored man to do a day's work, or any part of a day's work, unless the colored man would first enter into a bond in the sum of $500, to be filed in the court house, with approved security, that he would keep the peace and would not be a public charge. That was encouraging labor, you know. (Laughter.) I remember hearing of a case that happened in the part of the State, where I lived, where a poor colored man traveling along the road, wearied and worn out, applied at a farmer's house for his dinner, offering to chop enough wood to pay for it. The farmer accepted the proposition and the colored man got his dinner and chopped enough wood to pay for it. I should explain that the black laws provided that the penalty for a violation of them by a white man should be a fine of $100, half of which should be paid to the informer to insure prosecution. And that old farmer was promptly arrested and duly prosecuted for a violation of the laws of the great State of Ohio. Now I say, it seems incredible that there could have been a public sentiment in Ohio of which such infamous laws were the reflection. And yet all these old men around me remember these laws. But they're all swept away now. They're swept away forever, swept away to the credit of the people of Ohio and to the credit of the age in which we live, swept

away never to come again! There is encouragement in that fact for you.

And now, my friends, if I were not a candidate, and if this were not a non-political occasion, I would go on and point out to you something else by way of encouragement as an indication of change of public sentiment in Ohio in favor of the colored man. I would like to read you some resolutions of one of the great political parties of Ohio with respect to the rights of the colored man. I am not going to tell you to which political party I refer. (Laughter.) I am not going to let anybody say that I came here and made a political speech-but I will say that it was not my party. They commenced "resoluting" about this thing away back in 1858, and they kept it up until 1875. They resolved, among other things, that slavery in the first place ought not to be abolished, because the result of that would be to increase the number of free blacks in Ohio, and that if such a thing should come to pass, they resolved it would be "an unbearable nuisance." That is their language "an unbearable nuisance,”—to have free black people in the State of Ohio.

They resolved, also, after the war, that this was a white man's government, and that colored men should not be allowed to have any part or parcel in it. Now did you ever hear anything more barbarous than that? But that, too, is all passed away. The people who passed such resolutions ten and fifteen years ago are all dead, I guess. At least they are not any more proclaiming such inhuman sentiments. There has been progress in Ohio. Any party that would declare for any such infamous doctrine in Ohio today would have no more chance of carrying the State than a certain party I know of has of carrying it this year. And that party has no chance at all. And the party I refer to now is not my party either. (Laughter.)

A race that can produce such men as Fred Douglass, Dr. Derrick, Bishop Campbell, Bishop Payne, Bishop Turner and such men as our worthy friend, Brother Arnett, who is to be the next Representative in the Legislature from this county (loud applause), and a gloriously good one he will be he will be loyal, I warrant you, to all of the highest and best interests of the State and of the colored and also of the white people-a race, I say, that can produce such men as these, men of such intellect, men of such character, is deserving of the highest encouragement and must be successful and triumphant in all it undertakes. (Applause.)

The right of suffrage was put to the front in our platform and in the campaign, not only because of its nature and the outrages that had been perpetrated in the South, but also because of similar outrages then recently perpetrated in Ohio, especially at the national election of 1884, when 152 colored voters of Cincinnati were arrested the night before election, thrown into prison and kept there