the whole pro-slavery press.”  Finally the convention insisted that any such things as the right to own real estate, to testify in courts of law, and to sue and be sued, were mere privileges so long as general political liberty was withheld, and asked frankly not only for the formal and complete abolition of slavery in the United States, but also for the elective franchise in all the states then in the Union and in all that might come into the Union thereafter.  On the whole this representative gathering showed a very clear conception of the problems facing the Negro and the country in 1864.  Its reference to well-known anti-slavery publications shows not only the increasing race consciousness that came through this as through all other wars in which the country has engaged, but also the great drift toward conservatism that had taken place in the North within thirty years.

[Footnote 1:  See Proceedings of the National Convention of Colored Men, held in the city of Syracuse, N.Y., October 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1864, with the Bill of Wrongs and Rights, and the Address to the American People.  Boston, 1864.]

Whatever might be the questions of the moment, however, about the supreme blessing of freedom there could at last be no doubt.  It had been long delayed and had finally come merely as an incident to the war; nevertheless a whole race of people had passed from death unto life.  Then, as before and since, they found a parallel for their experiences in the story of the Jews in the Old Testament.  They, too, had sojourned in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea.  What they could not then see, or only dimly realize, was that they needed faith—­faith in God and faith in themselves—­for the forty years in the wilderness.  They did not yet fully know that He who guided the children of Israel and drove out before them the Amorite and the Hittite, would bring them also to the Promised Land.

* * * * *

To those who led the Negro in these wonderful years—­to Robert Gould Shaw, the young colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, who died leading his men at Fort Wagner; to Norwood Penrose Hallowell, lieutenant-colonel of the Fifty-Fourth and then colonel of the Fifty-Fifth; to his brother, Edward N. Hallowell, who succeeded Shaw when he fell; and to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who commanded the first regiment of freed slaves—­no ordinary eulogy can apply.  Their names are written in letters of flame and their deeds live after them.  On the Shaw Monument in Boston are written these words: 

    The White Officers

Taking Life and Honor in their Hands—­Cast their lot with Men of a Despised Race Unproved in War—­and Risked Death as Inciters of a Servile Insurrection if Taken Prisoners, Besides Encountering all the Common Perils of Camp, March, and Battle.

    The Black Rank and File

Volunteered when Disaster Clouded the Union Cause—­Served without Pay for Eighteen Months till Given that of White Troops—­Faced Threatened Enslavement if Captured—­Were Brave in Action—­Patient under Dangerous and Heavy Labors and Cheerful amid Hardships and Privations.

    Together