A CALL FOR A NATIONAL CONVENTION OF COLORED CITIZENS
OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fellow-Citizens: The present state of our country, together with the claims of humanity and universal freedom, and the favorable development of the Providence of God, pointing to the liberation and enfranchisement of our race, demand of us to be united in council, labor and faith.
The nation and the age have adjudged that the extinction of slavery is necessary to the preservation of liberty and republicanism, and that the existence of the Government itself if contingent upon the total overthrow of the slaveholders’ oligarch and the annihilation of the despotism which is inseparably connected with it.
Brethren, the present time is immeasurably more favorable than any other period in our history to unite and act for our own most vital interests. If we are to live and grow, and prove ourselves to be equal to the exigencies of the times, we must meet in council, and labor together for the general welfare of the people. Sound morality must be encouraged; education must be promoted; temperance and frugality must be exemplified, and industry, and thrift, and everything that pertains to well-ordered and dignified life, must be exhibited to the nation and the world. Therefore, the strong men of our people, the faithful and the true, are invited to meet in a National Convention, for the advancement of these objects and principles, on Tuesdsay, the 4th day of October, A.D. 1864, at 7 o’clock P.M.. (place will be named at an early day,) in the city of New York.
Signed by Henry Highland Garnet, …and many other representative colored men in the various States.
(Liberator, September 9, 1864, pg 3)
