Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 59

10. Thomas A. Davies, Speech by Major-Gen. Thomas A. Davies, of New York. Delivered in Watertown, Conn., April 4th, 1868 (N.p., [1868?]). 24 p.)

Speech concerning the extension of suffrage to former slaves in the South. The speaker frames his speech with this sentence. “The controlling and central idea which divides political parties of to-day, is the question whether the white people of this country shall give away sufficient of their political power to the negroes to be governed and ruled by them” (emphasis in original). On the next page the speaker debunks the argument that the issue applies only to the Southern states. “There are many who think that this is all very well for the Southern whites, and serves them right, but they do not remember that political lightning falling from the Southern end of this black cloud will fall in the balancing shock with equal force from the Northern end upon us” (emphasis in original).