Albion W. Tourgée to Charles W. Chesnutt, 15 October 1893
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HEADQUARTERS
National Citizens' Rights Association.
MAYVILLE, N. Y.,
OCT. 15th, 1893.
DEAR SIR:-
The discontinuance of "A Bystander's Notes" by the Chicago INTER OCEAN, leaves the Association without any regular medium of expression and the cause of equal rights without any recognized exponent in American journalism.
The rights of free speech, public assemblage and public discussion are denied to all citizens of the United States except of those of one political faith, in one third of the States of the Union. One eighth of our population, eight millions of citizens, are denied their personal as well as political rights, trial by jury and protection by the law. Lynchings are of daily occurence; burnings at the stake are not infrequent. Caste has taken the place of slavery, and seeks to entrench itself behind the same dogma of "state-rights." The life of a colored citizen is today much more insecure than when he was a slave. The white man who advocates equal rights for all is no more protected by the law than was he who advocated the abolotion of slavery forty years ago. The "stars and stripes" offer no protection to the citizens of the United States except when he stands on foreign soil. The colored man whom the country gave half a million lives to make a citizen, is being degraded into a serf, by the same forces and with the same motive that once sought to destroy the Union to perpetuate slavery.
This state of affairs, together with other perilous conditions, exists and is perpetuated through a lack of general knowledge and conviction with regard to the rights, duties, privileges, and powers of the National Citizen. Yet there is now no journal of national importance or general circulation which makes a special study of or is persistently devoted to the consideration of questions pertaining to citizenship. "A government by the people" can never be "a government for the people," unless the people devote themselves to a careful study of the personal rights and duties of the citizen, and the correlative duties of the government. A people can no more govern wisely without the study of these things, than a king without knowledge of his powers and functions.
- 1.—That its memebers are merely "cranks" who do not care enough about the principles they profess, to support an organ or make themselves a significant figure on the action of any party.
- 2.—That there is no consideration of the white people of the United States who desire the colored citizen to enjoy equal rights with the whites or who have any serious objection to the repeal of the XIVth and XVth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
- 3.—That, as claimed by a Southern newspaper, "the discontinuance of 'A Bystander's Notes,' by the Chicago INTER OCEAN, indicates that people of the North are willing to allow the whites of the South to manage the Negro in their own way." What that way is every one knows.
- 4.—That the people of the country are willing to see the government of the United States, rest supinely on the old fallacy of consitutional limitation, while anarchy establishes everywhere the power of the mob, as "whitecapism" now terrorizes the States of Louisana and Mississippi.
There is no means of establishing the truth or falsity of these declarations except by asking each member to testify in regard to them. In order to do this effectually and practically, the President of the Association has secured the co-operation of responsible parties who will establish THE NATIONAL CITIZEN, under his editorial control, if the responses of the members shall indicate a purpose on their part to give it substantial and reliable support.
It will be a twelve-page weekly which it is hoped soon to enlarge to sixteen or twenty pages. Its literary and political character is, perhaps sufficiently avouched by the fact that the President of the National Citizens' Rights Association will be its editor. "A Bystander's Notes" will appear only in its columns. It will contain a monthly Lesson Leaf on the duties of the Citizen, and a monthly record of outrages upon the citizen.
It will give no premium for clubs or prizes for subscriptions, but will offer the most liberal terms for the best thought on the most important questions of the day. In short, it will aim to give the fullest exposition of all questions touching the rights, privileges and functions of the citizen; to freely discuss all political, economic and social questions touching the rights, privileges and functions of the citizen; to freely discuss all political, economic and social questions in regard to which citizen is called to act.
It is of no use to establish such a journal unless it stands on a secure foundation and is of a character to command the attention and respect of its readers, of other journals and of all parties. In order that it may do so, it must have the hearty support of enough of the lovers of liberty throughout the country to enable it to maintain an independent position from the first.
Tbe terms of subscription will be $1.50 per annum, payble on receipt of the first number. If one-tenth of the members of the National Citizens' Rights Association will give THE NATIONAL CITIZEN their support, we will make it easily worth many times that sum in every home it enters. Public opinion rules the country; the only question is whether it shall be a good public opinion or a bad one; an honest public opinion or a corrupt one; a just public opinion or an unjust one; a free public opinion or a terrorized one; the will of the people or the will of the mob.
Hundreds of members of the Association have written during the past year begging the undersigned to establish a journal which shall represent its principles. While entirely willing to devote himself to this work he is one of the great army laborers, depending upon his daily toll for the support of his family and can only do so for a limited time without compensation. He has no money to put into such an undertaking and cannot honorably advise another to
invest in it unless he has positive assurance from the members themselves of their substantial co-operation and support. Given that THE NATIONAL CITIZEN will soon be an accomplished fact.
- 1.—By subscribing, yourself, to THE NATIONAL CITIZEN, for one or two years.
- 2.—By taking one or more copies for friends.
- 3.—By securing subscriptions from others.
Every one knows that the expenses of such an undertaking are very considerable. Parties stand ready to supply whatever sum may be necessary, if the responses to this Circular are such as to indicate that the members of the Association believe in liberty and equal rights for all and are willing to support a journal devoted to the advocacy of such principles. Should such response be received, the first number of THE NATIONAL CITIZEN will be issued about the 1st of December next. Should there be no such response from those to whom this circular is addressed, the writer will be forced to admit that the judgement of our opponents, that no considerable number of the American people care enough about the rights of the citizens to exert themselves, even a very little to create public opinion in favor of their maintenance, is correct, and will turn his energies into other channels. He believes this opinion is false and a libel upon the intelligence of the American people, who cannot but realize where present tendencies must end and understand that the only hope of escape from the evils threatened is through the enlightened conscience of the citizen kings of the Republic. If they are not willing to aid in shaping and establishing public opinion upon these most important of all questions of the present, it is not to be supposed that others will take any considerable interest in them.
One man subscribing for fifty copies says: "I am not rich, but I want just such a journal of political righteousness and applied Christianity as I know THE NATIONAL CITIZEN will be, and with a little exertion I shall find people who will be glad to take forty-nine of these copies off my hands, before it has been published a month."
How many will imitate this example? How many will take ten copies? How many five? How many two? How many one?
Do you say "These are hard times?" What makes them "hard?" The misuse of power of the voter! It matters not what view may be taken out of immediate cause, this is the ultimate one.
THE NATIONAL CITIZEN is intended to prevent national evils by providing their only safeguard—the intelligent, persistent, and systematic study of the citizen's duty. Peoples smart for their own folly and the sting should incline them to apply the remedy. Justice, liberty and prosperity, in a republic, must alike depend on a knowledge of the citizen's needs, and the effectual performance of the citizen's duty. To promote this is the object of THE NATIONAL CITIZEN. Are you willing to help in such work? If so—DO IT NOW!
Address all communications to: ALBION W. TOURGEE, Pres. National Citizens' Rights Association, MAYVILLE-ON-THE-CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y.Correspondent: Albion Winegar Tourgée (1838–1905) was a White activist, author, and judge. During Reconstruction, he settled in North Carolina and became an advocate for racial equality. Tourgée wrote his bestselling autobiographical novel, A Fool's Errand (1879), before moving to Mayville, New York, in 1881. He published fifteen more novels in the next seventeen years, and several times attempted to found magazines, often inviting Chesnutt to serve as editor. In 1891, he founded the National Citizens' Rights Association, an organization devoted to equality for African-American citizens, and in 1896 served as Homer Plessy's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
