While Greeley was in Richmond he accepted an invitation to deliver an address in the African Church, in which he made an earnest plea for good — will and reconciliation. He pointed out objections to some of the laws passed by the Southern State governments established under military rule-such as the prohibition against negroes bearing arms or testifying against whites in the courtscall-ing them “unnecessary, invidious, and degrading.” Urging the obligation of the South as well as the North to the blacks, he said: “Their equal rights as citizens are to be secured now or not at all. I insist, then, in the name of justice and humanity, in the name of our country, and of every righteous interest and section of that country, that the rights of all the American people-native or naturalized, born such or made such-shall be guaranteed in the State Constitutions first, and in the Federal Constitution as soon as possible; that we make it a fundamental condition of American law and policy that every citizen shall have, in the eye of the law, every right of every other citizen. I would make the equal rights of the colored people of the country, under the laws and the Constitution ”
