Address to the Colored People of the United States

By Thomas Wentworth Higgison, William Lloyd Garrison, and George S. Boutwell

September 26, 1900.

We, the undersigned, address you at one of the most important points in your history. If ever there was a war of races in this

world, the war now going on in the Philippine Islands is precisely that. Yet, if there is anything which the colored race in this

country has to dread, and the white race also, it is just such a war. Every day in the Philippines is already training our young

American soldiers to the habit of thinking that the white man, as such, is the rightful ruler of all other men. This is seen, for

instance, in the fact that these very soldiers, in writing home letters from the seat of war, describe the inhabitants of the

Philippines, more and more constantly, as "niggers"; thus giving a new lease of life to a word which was previously dying out

among us. Every defender of the war in congress sustains the contest on the assumed ground that the Filipinos are unfit for

freedom, although Admiral Dewey at first described them as more fit for it than the Cubans; and Senator Hoar declares them to

be probably better fitted than any race on the two American continents, south of ourselves.

In other words, freedom is to become, for the new Republican party, a matter of complexion. If this doctrine is to prevail, what

hope is there for the colored race in the United States? The answer is easy; there is in that case no hope at all. In the name of the

old anti-slavery sentiment, we call on you to resist this great danger, even if you have, for that purpose, to turn your backs on

the party you once had reason to love.

This danger can evidently not be resisted by any farther voting for the Republican party. In other days that party freed the slaves

and passed amendments to the United States constitution for the protection of those who had been slaves. These amendments are

now being steadily set aside, and the Republican party shows no signs of raising a finger in their defense. There have been far

more outrages on the American Negro during one term of McKinley than under two terms of Cleveland. On the other hand the

southern Democrats are at least doing the colored race this service, that they, as a rule, oppose the national policy of imperialism.

This may seem an inconsistency, but is in reality very simple. The very fact of their unwillingness to give equal political rights to

the American Negro makes them unwilling to undertake the government of ten millions more belonging to the colored race. Thus

much, at least, experience has taught them. Thus far, at any rate, they are on your side.

The undersigned, trained from youth in the strictest school of anti-slavery convictions, are following out the same early opinions

when they now write to you. We wish to warn you that the imperialistic Republican party of today is not the liberty-loving party

of that name which set the American Negro free forty years ago. The time is past when you can safely give to it, as heretofore,

your implicit support. We warn you that the American Negro must henceforth think for himself and must cut adrift from every

organization which wars on darker races, as such, and begins to talk again of "the natural supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon." We

fought through a four years' war to get rid of that doctrine, and enlisted nearly 200,000 black soldiers for the purpose. It is too

soon to see such a theory brought up again. It rests with you to make it impossible.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

William Lloyd Garrison

George S. Boutwell

Boston, Mass., September 26, 1900

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was an active vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League from 1899 to 1908. He

was a political associate of Wendell Phillips, a supporter of John Brown, and captain in the Fifty-first Massachusetts regiment of

colored troops during the Civil War. He supported William Jennings Bryan during the 1900 presidential campaign, but opposed

his position on race issues shortly afterward. He resigned from the League in 1908 when it supported Bryan's next presidential

campaign.

William Lloyd Garrison (1838-1909) was a vice president of the New England Anti-Imperialist League (1899-1904) and a

member of the executive committee of the reorganized national Anti-Imperialist League (1904-1909). Son of the famous

abolitionist, Garrison devoted his life to numerous reforms, including cicil rights for African Americans, women and

immigrants, the single tax, and peace.

George S. Boutwell (1818-1905) was the first president of the Anti-Imperialist League (1898-1905). He was a co-founder of the

Republican Party and, with Horace Greely, pressured Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Preferred citation: Higgison, Thomas Wentworth, William Lloyd Garrison, and George S. Boutwell. "Address to the Colored

People of the United States." Voice of Missions 8 (Nov. 1, 1900). http://home.ican.net/~fjzwick/ailtexts/adcol926.html In Jim

Zwick, ed., Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935. http://home.ican.net/~fjzwick/ail98-35.html (June 1996).