8.9 A Plea to the President: How Can Citizens Affect Change?

Pre-Visit
Students read the following passage, an address that a delegation of African Americans made before the president of the United States in June 1865. President Lincoln had imposed martial law during the Civil War, and under martial law the army acted to help protect slaves and free blacks. Because the state was a Union state, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in Kentucky. Following Lincoln’s assassination, many feared that President Andrew Johnson might lift martial law. This delegation traveled to Washington, D. C., to describe the conditions that blacks in Kentucky were facing and to ask Johnson’s support. Johnson extended martial law until October 1865; slaves in Kentucky were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment in December of that year.

Students read the passage and discuss the key points the delegation made.

• Identify the elements of persuasion in their address and highlight or underline the words and phrases that are emotional and moving.

• Connect their points of argument to Kentucky laws and circumstances of the time.

• After analyzing the meaning of their arguments, rewrite the address, using your own words. (Teachers may want to divide the text into sections, assigning only portions of the text to each student.)

• Correct all spelling and grammatical errors (typical of all writing of this period) and restate the delegation’s arguments in your own words, keeping the text passionate and persuasive like the original.

President Abraham Lincoln

Washington, D.C. late June, 1865

Petition of the Colored Delegation to President Andrew Johnson:

M’ President Haveing been delegated by the Colored People of Kentuckey to wait upon you and State their greiveances and the terrible uncertainty of their future, we beg to do so in as respectfull and concise a manner as Posible—

First then, we would call your attention to the fact that Kentuckey is the only Spot within all the bounds of these United States, where the People of colour Have No rights whatever Either in Law or in fact—and were the Strong arm of Millitary Power no longer to curb her—Her Jails and workhouses would Groan with the Numbers of our people immured within their walls—

Her Stattutes are disgraced by laws in regard to us, too barbarous Even for a community of Savages to Have Perpetrated. Not one of those laws have Even yet become obsolete, all Have been Executed Promptly and Rigoursly up to the time the government intervened—and will be again Executed in the Most remorseless Manner and with four fold the Venom and Malignanty they were Ever Heretofore Enforced—the Very Moment the Government ceases to Shield us with the broad aegeis of her Power—

Not only that—but the brutal instincts of the Mob So Long restrained will Set no bounds to its ferocity but like an uncaged wild beast will rage fiercely among us—Evidence of which is the fact that a member of the present common council of the city of Louisville who when formerly Provost Marshall of that city caused his guards to carry bull whips and upon meeting colored men, women or children in the Public High ways any time after dark to surround them and flay them alive in the public Streets) is allready a petitioner to Gen’ Palmer to remove the Millitary Restrictions that he and others May again renew the brutaleties that Shocked Humanity during that Sad Period—therefore to Prevent all the Horrible calamities that would befall us and to shut out all the terrors that So fiercely Menace us in the immediate future—we Most Humbly Petition and Pray you that you will Not Remove Marshall Law from the State of KentuckeyNor her Noble Millitary commander under whose Protection we have allmost learned to Realise the Blessings of a Home under the Safeguard and Sanction of law for in him and him alone do we find our Safety— we would Most Respectfully call your attention to a few of the laws that bear Most cruelly upon us—

1st we have No Oath

2nd we have no right of domicil

3rd we have no right of Locomotion

4th we have no right of Self defence

5th a Stattute law of Kentuckey makes it a penal crime with imprisonment in the Penitentiary for one year for any free man of colour under any Sircumstances whatever to pass into a free State Even although but for a Moment any free man Not a Native found within her Borders is Subject to the Same penalty and for the Second offence Shall be sold a slave for life—the State of Kentucky Has contributed of her colored Sons over thirty thousand Soldiers who have illustrated their courage and devotion on Many battle fields and Have Poured out their blood Lavishly in defence of their Country and their Country’s flag and we confidently hope this Blood will be carried to our credit in any Political Settlement of our Native State— yet if the government Should give up the State to the control of her civil authorities there is not one of these Soldiers who will Not Suffer all the grinding oppression of her inhuman laws if not in their own persons yet in the persons of their wives their children and their mothers—

Therefore your Excellency We Most Earnestly Petition and pray you that you will give us Some security for the future or if that be impracticable at least give us timely warning that we may fly to other States where law and Christian Sentiment will Protect us and our little ones from Violence and wrong.

Chas A Roxborough
Jerre Meninettee
R M Johnson
Henry H. White
Thomas James
Wm F. Butler

In the Museum
Students find exhibits that tie directly into many of the points the delegates made. Students locate these ideas in the Center and discuss them.

Paragraph 2: “Kentuckey is the only Spot within all the bounds of these United States, where the People of colour Have No rights whatever Either in Law or in fact” Students locate information in the museum to support this statement.

Paragraph 4: The delegation mentions General John Palmer as a protector of blacks in Kentucky. Locate his story in the museum. At the end of this paragraph, the unequal laws imposed upon blacks are listed. Students locate some reference to one or more of these laws in the exhibits.

Paragraph 5: Students locate the exhibit that can provide more information about this statement, “These Soldiers who will Not Suffer all the grinding oppression of her inhuman laws if not in their own persons yet in the persons of their wives their children and their mothers.”

Post-Visit
Drawing on previous classroom work and the visit to the Center, students perform and/or videotape the address (either the original or the student rewrite) as a monologue or parts for several students. After the performance, students discuss, then write, a portfolio entry about the significance of this address and the impact such actions by citizens can have in a democratic society. Students may write an outline of the main points of the delegation, using a sentence or topic outline.