Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1870 — And the Colored Troops Fought Nobly. [ARTICLE]

And the Colored Troops Fought Nobly.

Tub celebration at Chicago, on yesterday, by the colored people, of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, was an event. worthy of note on many accounts. It is certainly true that the procession during the day was.a marked success. The thousands who witnessed it will agree that there have been few more imposing displays in Chicago. Everything that ought to have been done was done, so far as the public could perceive. Nothing seemed to be lacking. The civic display and the military display were exceedingly well got up, • and appropriate to the occasion. If those forming the procession had been white men, they could not have done better than was done; and white men have frequently, on like jubilant occasions, done a great deal worse. Of the proceedings at the hall we need not speak at length. They were creditable throughout The negroes did their part with great and acknowledged success, and even edat. The meeting, last evening, was a great deal more interesting, instructive, and orderly than any Democratic meeting of the pastfiflcen years which we can now recall to mind. But the. particular point in this celebration by the negroes to which we desire to call the special attention of the public is theiiact that good order and perfect sobriety characterized the day, so far as those engaged in the celebration were conqerped. There was no more drunkenness in Chicago on the negroes’ Fourth of July tlian on any other day. If men will recall ,th* last “great day” the Chicago Dqmoomcy have had—the day of Horatio SCTfflOtfrs speech in 1808—and compare thiskviih Ufai, they will form a very favorabte oVlhfon of the good conduct of the newly enfranchised pjtizens. If there evfflMvas an occasion—which there ncter men would be. justifiable for lislarious and extravagant l»ehavior resulting from th*Jdyinking of healths, It was this when the. negroes celebrated their exodu* tbe ,wui of P° Uti cal bondage, and their safe arrival in a sphere so much and brighter that they might seem 1 *-■

to have taken on a new nature, with renewed capacity for progress, influence, and happineaa. If there waa any intoxication, it waa very different indeed from that of drunken new; aa far removed from it aa the Inapirationa of the poet from the hallncinatione of a lupatlc Seeing what other* do on such occaaiona, the sobriety, and orderly, dignified behavior of the colored people on the occasion Of a celebration so justly Joyous to them, must be set down as greatly to their credit. They behaved nobly. It is a matter in which the intelligent public may well and heartily rejoice, that the negroes held this celebration of their practical emancipation from injustice add oppression. It was an opportunity for the public to judge of the men whom the public had long condemned, and the result of the good and cfeditablc conduct of the negroes la that they have won the respect of thousands who never respected them before. There are thousands in Chicago, hundreds of thousands in the country who have witnessed similar celebrations, who at last firmly believe that the blacks have rights which the while men are bound to respect, and who now, if never befpre, stoutly affirm that the colored troops fought nobly. That they will continue to fight nobly in the discharge of the duties of citizenship in, this great republic, they alone can doubt who doubt the beneficence of freedom and the goodness and wisdom of Him who hath made of one blood all nations of men.— Chicago Post, April s.