Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 28

1. J. M. Langston, “Equality before the Law.” Oration Delivered by Prof. J. M. Langston, of Howard University, Washington, D. C., at the Fifteenth Amendment Celebration, Held in Oberlin, Ohio, Thursday, May 14th, 1874 (Oberlin, OH: Pratt & Battle, 1874). (8 p.)

Speech celebrating emancipation and black civil rights. The speaker begins with these words. “Within less than a quarter of a century—within the last fifteen years, the colored American has been raised from the condition of four-footed beasts and creeping things, to the level of enfranchised manhood. Within this period the Slave Oligarchy of the land has been overthrown, and the nation itself emancipated from its barbarous rule. The compromise measures of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave law, together with the whole body of law enacted in the interest of slavery, then accepted as finalities, and the power of leading political parties pledged to their maintenance, have, with those parties, been utterly nullified and destroyed. In their stead we have a purified constitution, and legislation no longer construed and enforced to sanction and support inhumanity and crime, but to sustain and perpetuate the freedom and rights of us all.”