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Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave by Frederick Douglass
page 24 of 25 (96%)
and impositions, and supplanted by true and legitimate governments,
in the formation of which loyal men, black and white, shall participate.

It is not, however, within the scope of this paper to point out
the precise steps to be taken, and the means to be employed.
The people are less concerned about these than the grand end to be attained.
They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end to the present anarchical
state of things in the late rebellious States,--where frightful murders and
wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very presence of Federal soldiers.
This horrible business they require shall cease. They want a reconstruction
such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in their persons and property;
such a one as will cause Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern
civilization to flow into the South, and make a man from New England
as much at home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic.
No Chinese wall can now be tolerated. The South must be opened
to the light of law and liberty, and this session of Congress
is relied upon to accomplish this important work.

The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated
at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law,
one government, one administration of justice, one condition
to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races
and colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly
by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both.
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.

Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion;
but it is no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in
conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States,
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