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Like many of the postwar black conventions, the Raleigh conclave came to be dominated by those who thought it more expedient to request than to demand and who preferred to take their stand on the more abstract and less controversial principle of equality before the law rather than immediate admission to all political privileges. The effect of speeches such as those of Hood and Harris not only blunted the radicalism symbolized by Galloway but did much, said one relieved reporter, to disabuse the minds of fearful whites about the intent of these unprecedented and only recently prohibited meetings. Nevertheless, the delegates sometimes took a position at variance with this deliberately cultivated tone of moderation. The resolution revering the memory of John Brown would hardly have endeared them to the great mass of southern whites. Nor would native whites have appreciated the resolution praising the efforts of “that portion of the Republican party of which Messrs. Chase and Sumner and Stevens and Greeley are the heads” to secure blacks their rights through congressional action. And even as James Hood made his plea for conciliation, he rejected any return to the old days of subserviency, declared that blacks had waited long enough for their rights, and scoffed at the notion that they were unprepared to exercise those rights.

People used to say it was not the time to abolish slavery, and used to tell us to wait until the proper time arrived; but it would only seem reasonable that the more slaves there were, the more difficult it would be to set them free. The best way is to give the colored man rights at once, and then they will practice them and the sooner know how to use them.

Nor did he hesitate to enumerate the rights which properly belonged to black people, as much as to their white fellow citizens.

First, the right to testify in courts of justice, in order that we may defend our property and our rights. Secondly, representation in the jury box. It is the right of every man accused of any offence, to be tried by a jury of his peers.… Thirdly and finally, the black man should have the right to carry his ballot to the ballot box. These are the rights that we want—that we will contend for—and that, by the help of God, we will have, God being our defender.

That could hardly have been clearer. But the Appeals, Addresses, and Petitions adopted by the convention, and intended largely for white audiences, often failed to reflect the aggressive spirit with which individual blacks pressed their demands in speeches intended for their fellow delegates and the black spectators. With the Constitutional Convention meeting nearby, the Freedmen’s Convention drew up an Address to that body which was the very model of circumspection—“moderate in tone,” a white reporter wrote of it, and “unexceptionable in its phraseology and demands.” Avoiding the issues of testimony in the courts, representation on juries, and suffrage, the Address acknowledged instead the powerlessness of the freedmen, their dependence upon “moral appeals to the hearts and consciences of the people,” and their confidence in the “justice, wisdom, and patriotism” of the Constitutional Convention. Surely, that body would protect the interests of “all classes,” including a people who were now “helpless” after 250 years of slavery, who had been raised in intimate association with the dominant race, and who in the Civil War had “remained throughout obedient and passive.” Although they had no wish to return to slavery, they chose to emphasize the positive side of that sense of mutual obligations which had bound the masters and the slaves together. Rather than look to the North for protection and sympathy, they preferred to win their rights by “industry, sobriety and respectful demeanor.” But whites needed to reciprocate this commitment by compensating them properly for their labor, by respecting the sanctity of their family relations, by providing for the education of their children, and by abolishing “oppressive laws” which made racial distinctions. “Is this asking