for, in the first place, I don't think there ever was 'a white boy in like circumstances,' certainly not while Iwas at the Academy, and if there ever were a white boy so placed, we are pretty safe in concluding, from the general treatment of white boys, that the secretary was not so frank in his remarks nor so decided in his action.
"'I want another cadet to represent your district at West Point, and I have already sent to Mr. Elliott to appoint one,' means something more than fair dealing (or, as the Chronicle would imply, partiality) toward the colored cadet. It means that the gentleman was pleasing himself in the choice of a cadet from the Third Congressional District of South Carolina, and that he did not recognize the rights of the people of that district to choose for themselves. 'You are out of the service and will stay out,' for 'the Academic Board will not recommend you to come back under any circumstances,' shows that it is the Academic Board That must choose our representative, and not we ourselves, and that our wishes are only secondary in comparison with those of the service and the Academic Board. We are no longer free citizens of a sovereign State, and of the United States, with the right to choose for ourselves those who shall represent us; but we must be subordinate to the Secretary of War and the Academic Board, and must make our wishes subservient to those of the above-named powers, and unless we do that we are pronounced to be 'naturally bad'--as remarked the Adjutant of the Academy, Captain R. H. Hall, to a Sun reporter--and must have done for us 'what had never been done for a white boy in like circumstances.' Now, sir, let us see what has 'been done for a white boy in like circumstances.' In July, 1870, the President was in Hartford, Ct., and in a conversation with my friend the Hon. David Clark, in reference to my treatment at West Point, he said: 'Don't take him away now; the battle might just as well be fought now as at any other time,'
and gave him to understand that he would see me protected in my rights; while his son Fred, who was then a cadet, said to the same gentleman, and in the presence of his father, that 'the time had not come to send colored boys to West Point.' Mr. Clark said if the time had come for them to be in the United States Senate, it had surely come for them to be at West Point, and that he would do all in his power to have me protected. Fred Grant then said: 'Well, no d--d nigger will ever graduate from West Point.' This same young gentleman, with other members of his class, entered the rooms of three cadets, members of the fourth class, on the night of January 3, 1871, took those cadets out, and drove them away from the 'Point,'
with nothing on but the light summer suits that they wore when they reported there the previous summer. Here was a most outrageous example of Lynch law, disgraceful alike to the first class, who were the executors of it, the corps of cadets, who were the abettors of it, and the authorities of the Academy, who were afraid to punish the perpetrators because the President's son was implicated, or, at least, one of the prime movers of the affair.
Congress took the matter in hand, and instructed the Secretary of War to dismiss all the members of the class who were implicated, but the latter gentleman 'was extremely liberal in his interpretation of the regulations,' and declined to be influenced by the action of Congress, and let the matter drop.
"Again, when a Court of Inquiry, appointed by Congress to investigate complaints that I had made of my treatment, reported in favor of a trial by court-martial of General Gillmore's son, General Dyer's son, the nephew of the Secretary of War, and some other lesser lights of America's aristocracy, the secretary decided that a reprimand was sufficient for the offence; yet 'he did for me what had never been done for a white boy in like circumstances.'
Now, sir, by consulting my Register of the Academy, issued in 1871, I find that three cadets of the fourth class were declared 'deficient ' in mathematics--Reid, Boyle, and Walker--and that the first named was turned back to join the next class, while the other two were dismissed. Now Reid is the Secretary's nephew, so that is the reason for his doing 'for him what had never been done for a white boy in like circumstances.'
"Mr. Editor, I have no objection whatever to any favoritism that may be shown 'any member of the Royal.
Family, so long as it does not infringe upon any right of my race or myself; but when any paper tries to show that I have received such impartial treatment at the hands of 'the powers that be,' and even go so far, in their zealous endeavors to shield any one from charges founded upon facts, as to try to make it appear that Iwas a favorite, a pet lamb, or any other kind of a pet, at West Point, I think it my duty to point out any errors that may accidentally (?) creep into such statements.
