Declaration Project

Editor’s Note: Crafted and issued on February 28, 1876 by the National Independent Political Union, headed by Garland H. White, a Baptist Minister and political activist from Weldon, North Carolina, this declaration was printed as a four-age leaflet in the immediate post-Civil War aftermath at a time when Black Americans were already becoming increasingly embittered and disillusioned by their pervasively abysmal treatment.

NEGRO DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Republican Faithlessness and Corruptions
Exposed and Scathingly
Denounced by Colored Men.

THEY ARE TIRED OF PARTY YOKE, AND WILL COMBINE TO RECONCILE THE SECTIONS, AND MAINTAIN LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT.

At a largely attended meeting of the colored citizens of the different States, held in the City of Washington, on February 28th, 1876, the following was unanimously adopted and, on motion, it was ordered that the document be printed in circular form for distribution throughout the United States–

We, colored men, representing nearly all the States and Territories of the United States, believing with the fathers, that the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, and taking into consideration the unhappy condition now existing, growing out of the prostration of business, the decrease of commerce and the heavy taxes forced from an impoverished people to carry out the extravagancies of an administration become infatuated by sordid ambition, and taking into consideration the duplicity, want of faith, corruption, vacilating policy and selfish motives of the Republican party to which we have been allied since we became citizens, and for which we have sacrificed so much, do hereby denounce it as being the primary cause of all the wrongs committed against us, the impeader of the progress and prosperity of the country, because it has never ceased to use us as a cover for its base designs, usurpations and encroachments upon the liberties of the people of the South, and, therefore, we sever all connections with that infamously and tyrannically administered organization, for the following reasons:

For its palpable violation of the principles upon which it is founded: for its failure to fulfill its solemn promises made in National and State Platforms; for the political serfdom in which it has kept our Southern Brethren whose impolitic banding together has perpetuated its supremacy to the detriment of the material prosperity and tranquility of the States in which they live; for establishing a bank, ostensibly for the benefit of the Freedmen, but actually for the pecuniary advancement of knavish bankrupts, favorites of the administration, and appointing men of speculative ability and doubtful characters to control it, who have not only mismanaged, but stolen millions of our hard earnings, thereby reducing us to abject want, and for persistently refusing to pass any legislative measure for the relief of the ignorant, but confiding men and women who deposited their all in that pseudo philanthropic, but ruinous receptacle, only because of its Republican character; for ignoring intelligent colored men of undoubted integrity in the distribution of the patronage, and appointing either ignorant blacks who were used as administration tools, or infamous whites who depleted the treasuries, and prostituted the offices for political preference, even in States where the overwhelming numerical strength of the blacks make Republican ascendency possible; for banding ignorant colored men against their white fellow citizens, in order that greedy and unscrupulous cormorants from the North may ride into office and then leave them, after amassing fortunes and attaining honor and fame, the enemies of those who would have otherwise befriended and protected them; for conniving with white men inimical to our best interests and relentlessly bent on engendering class hatred for party ends, whose plundering and coersive legislative measures and insatiable thirst for gain have made of the fair fields of the South a howling wilderness, and palsied the very energies of the people; for ravaging treasuries, ruining whole communities by oppressive taxation, increasing the state debts to fabulous amounts, and goading the people to desperation; for usurping powers not delegated to the general government; for throttling state legislatures and expelling the people’s representatives from State Capitols by force and arms, thereby substituting military despotism for civil authority; for disgracing the American name and character abroad by the appointment of gamblers, stock jobbers, swindlers, and men whose villainous characters were known to the appointing power as Ambassadors, Consuls and Diplomatic Agents, for speculating with the finances of the country; for aiding and abetting conspirators to defraud the public treasury; for unprecedented extravagance in the administration of the government; for sustaining the Executive in the practice of nepotism and in the appointment of persons to office to whom he was indebted for favors received, and many unconstitutional measures, such as the appointment of a military Satrap to negotiate a treaty without being confirmed by the Senate; for using the public revenues to carry elections; for creating and maintaining a Board of Public Works, a Board of Audit and a Board of Commissioners, who have, in violation of law, prostituted the credit of the United States, piled up an enormous debt on the people of the District of Columbia, subsidized presses and paid lawyer’s fees for personal defence with public money, corrupted corrupt contractors for personal gain, fraudulently issued bonds and certificates, and left the city bankrupt with unfinished streets and sewers; for packing the Supreme Court of the United States in order to obtain a decision favorable to the policy of the administration, and tampering with the judiciary of states to the detriment of the rights and liberties of the people; for prostituting the civil service for the promotion of favorites, brothers-in-law and other relatives to high offices of trust and emolument; for appointing incompetent and infamous knaves to judicial positions in Southern States, notwithstanding the solemn protests of the most respectable and enlightened citizens of said section; for cheating labor in defiance of the eight hour law which guaranteed two dollars per diem, to all laborers on government work, by paying them one dollar and seventy-five cents per diem and forcing them to work ten hours; for removing faithful officials for no cause, other than that they would not screen guilty friends of persons in high office, and violators of law, because of their social and political affiliation with the Executive.

For these and other reasons too numerous for enumeration, we feel justified in severing all connection with this profligate party, teeming with the most loathsome corruption, and deeming the time auspicious when past differences should be buried, and reconciliation and good feeling between the races pervade the land, we hereby pledge our hearty support, zeal and devotion to all those whose fidelity to the constitution as it was, will prompt them to faithfully adhere to the Constitution as it is, and we ask nothing but FULL AND EQUAL JUSTICE BEFORE THE LAW, PROTECTION FOR OUR LIVES AND PROPERTY AGAINST LAWLESSNESS AND MOB VIOLENCE, AND EQUITABLE RECOGNITION IN THE SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT, BASED UPON OUR INTELLIGENCE AND INTEGRITY.

We are tired of our self-imposed party yoke, its injustice to us, and its flagrant violations of the Constitution, in order to trample out local self government, and iusult our brave and well disposed fellow citizens of the South, and earnestly believe that a division of the solid phalanx of colored voters, will act beneficially upon the two great parties, and, therefore, we propose to stand by principles, and will support only those men who will do the most for us. This policy we believe, will enure to the lasting tranquility of the country, and a speedy return to good feeling between the late master and now FREE CITIZEN will follow.

We invoke the blessing of Almighty God upon this carefully considered departure, and invite the hearty and cordial co-operation of the colored people of the whole country, who, like us, have cause for well grounded complaint, to organize to the end that their ballots may subserve the peace of the country, the fraternization of all the people, and the prosperity and unification of all the sections of our undivisible Republic.

Committee on Resolutions:

Rev. GARLAND H. WHITE, of North Carolina.
HOWARD L. SMITH, of Virginia.
ROBERT D. MORTIMER, Rhode Island.
A. ALEX. JONES, of Massachusetts.
N. J. BOOKER, of Pennsylvania.
DANIEL LEWIS, of District of Columbia.
Dr. RILEY, of Arkansas.
C. L. VINCENT, of Illinois.
All persons in favor of the movement desiring information will please address,

Rev. GARLAND H. WHITE, President,
No. 1013 18th Street,
Washington, D. C.

Or, HOWARD L. SMITH,
Secretary, National Independent Political Union.
Post Office, Washington, D.

Source: http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2010/02/national-independent-political-union.html

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Further reading:

American Protest Literature, Zoe Trodd, Ed., Belknap Press, The John Harvard Library, 2008