Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

LC Subject Headings:

• African Americans -- Biography.
• Blacks -- Biography.
• Black race.
• Slavery -- United States -- History.
• Antislavery movements -- United States -- History.

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GOD'S IMAGE IN EBONY:
BEING A SERIES OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, FACTS,
ANECDOTES, ETC.,
DEMONSTRATIVE OF
THE MENTAL POWERS AND INTELLECTUAL
CAPACITIES OF THE NEGRO RACE.

EDITED BY

H. G. ADAMS;

WITH A
BRIEF SKETCH OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT IN AMERICA,
BY F. W. CHESSON
AND A
CONCLUDING CHAPTER OF ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE, COMMUNICATED
BY WILSON ARMISTEAD, ESQ.

LONDON:
PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, 34, PATERNOSTER ROW,
AND 70 EDGWARE ROAD.
M DCCC LIV

TO
MRS. H. B. STOWE,
AS A TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION FOR
HER GENIUS,
AND OF THAT PURE PHILANTHROPY, WHICH HAS IMPELLED
HER TO DEVOTE HER POWERS AND ENERGIES
TO THE CAUSE OF
THE OPPRESSED AND DOWN-TRODDEN NEGRO,
THIS VOLUME
IS, BY PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
THE EDITOR.

PREFACE.

        AT the present juncture, when anti-slavery books are so rife, and, as it would appear, so acceptable to the reading public, it is scarcely necessary to apologize for the issue of a work like the present. It was projected, and partly written, some time prior to the appearance of that wonderful picture of "Life among the Lowly," by Mrs. Stowe; which has become a classic in almost every European language, and given such an impetus to the movement against Negro Slavery, as it, perhaps, never received before--never certainly from the operation of one mind and intellect. Other pressing engagements obliged the Editor to put his little work aside, from time to time, and at length to complete it more hastily than he could have wished. The subject is one which will amply repay a very careful and lengthened investigation--one which might well engage, to the full extent of its capacity, both the philosophic and philanthropic mind.

        To those who have had an opportunity of reading that costly and elaborate volume, entitled "A Tribute for the Negro" by Wilson Armistead, Esq., this book will afford little information that is fresh: as comparatively few, however, could have had this opportunity, it seems desirable to place before the public, in a cheap and easily accessible form, some of the most striking facts that could be collected, in refutation of the opinion, entertained, or at least urged, by some, that the Negro is essentially, and unalterably, an inferior being to those who

                         "Find him guilty of a darker skin."

and therefore deny him the right of freedom, which is inalienably his.

        One word as to the title of this book, to which we anticipate some objections. "God's Image cut, or carved in Ebony," was a phrase first used, we believe, by the English Church Historian, Fuller,--a sayer of sententious things; and assuredly this phrase is among the most striking of the graphic sentences which he stamped so deeply into the walls of the republic of letters. There it stands, this beautiful and appropriate piece of imagery, and there it will stand, as long as those walls endure: and although to some it may appear to border upon irreverence, yet, with all due respect for those who think so, we must defend it as a powerful conception of a vigorous mind, and a lively illustration, applied to a particular case, of the scripture declaration--"In the image of God created he him."

        It will be seen, then, that ours is an anti-slavery book, and something more; it aims at disabusing a certain portion of the public mind of what we conceive to be a pernicious error, by shewing that the Negro is morally and intellectually, as well as physically, the equal of the white man. If it be urged that our examples are mere isolated cases, and prove nothing as to the capacities of the whole Negro race, we say that they are too numerous to be taken as such, and that if they were not half so numerous as they are, they would fully prove that our position is correct. For we are to look at the depressing circumstances out of which these black brothers and sisters of ours have arisen; at the almost insurmountable difficulties through which they have forced their way.

        But we are anticipating the arguments more fully urged in the introductory chapter, and other portions of our work, to which we invite the reader's serious attention. A few lines, suggested by the present aspect of the great anti-slavery struggle, may perhaps be here introduced as an appropriate conclusion of our Preface: --

WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Addressed to "The Anti-Slavery Watchman."

                         WHAT of the night, Watchman, what of the night --
                         The black night of Slavery? Wanes it apace?
                         Do you see in the East the faint dawnings of light,
                         Which tell that the darkness to day will give place?
                         Do you hear the trees rustle, awoke by the breeze?
                         Do you catch the faint prelude of music to come?
                         Are there voices that swell like the murmur of seas,
                         When the gale of the morning first scatters the foam?

                         And what of the fight, Watchman, what of the fight --
                         The battle for Freedom--how goeth it on?
                         Is there hope for the Truth--is there hope for the Right ?
                         Have Wrong and Oppression the victory won?
                         Through the long hours of darkness we've listened in fear,
                         To the sounds of the struggle, the groans and the cries,
                         Anon they were far, and anon they were near,
                         Now dying away, and now filling the skies.

                         Say, what of the night, Watchman, what of the fight?
                         Doth gloom yet the bright Sun of Freedom enshroud?
                         Are the strongholds of Slavery yet on the height?
                         Is the back of the Negro yet broken and bowed?
                         Then send forth a voice to nations around;
                         Bid the peoples arise, many millions as one,
                         And say--"This our brother no more shall be bound--
                         This wrong to God's children no more shall be done!"

WATCHMAN.

                         THE night is far spent and the day is at hand,
                         There's a flush in the East, though the West is yet dark;
                         Creation hath heard the Eternal command,
                         And light--glorious light--cometh on: Brothers, hark!
                         There's a jubilant sound, there's a myriad hum!
                         All nature is waking, and praising the Lord,
                         And the voices of men to the list'ning ear come.
                         Crying--"Up, Watchman! send the glad tidings abroad!"

                         In the dark Western valleys yet rageth the war,
                         And the heel of Oppression treads down the poor
                         But his eye sees the dawning of daylight afar,
                         And he knows there are hands stretched to succour
                         The Standard of Freedom, all bloody and torn,
                         And trampled, and hidden awhile from the view,
                         Upraised by the hand of a Woman, is borne
                         In the thick of the fight, and hope liveth anew.

                         Oh, joy to the Watchman! Whose eye can discern,
                         Through clouds and thick darkness, the breaking of day!
                         And, joy to the Negro! whose glances may turn
                         To the quarter whence cometh the life-giving ray.
                         It cometh--that Freedom for which we have striven!
                         We have seen the light gilding the hill-tops, and heard
                         The promise of ONE by whom fetters are riven:
                         'Tis is as sure as His high and immutable Word!

H. G. A.

CONTENTS.

• A short Sketch of the Past History and the Present Position of the Slavery Question in America . . . . . v
• CHAPTER I.
  INTRODUCTORY.--The Negro Race . . . . . 1
• CHAPTER II.
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.--Toussaint L'Overture. . . . . 15
• CHAPTER III.
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.--Jan Tzatzoe, Andreas Stoffles, etc. . . . . . 31
• CHAPTER IV.
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.--Testimony of the Abbè Gregoire.--Job Ben Solliman. Anthony William Amo. Geoffrey L'Islet. Capitien. Othello. James Derham. Attobah Cugoano. Benjamin Banneker. Francis Williams. Benoit the Black. Hannibal . . . . . 47
• CHAPTER V.
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.--Olaudah Equiano. . . . . 61
• CHAPTER VI.
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.--Phillis Wheatley. Thomas Jenkyns. Lott Cary. Paul Cuffee. The Amistad Captives. Ignatius Sancho. Zhinga. Placedo . . . . . 74

  ---

  Page ii

• CHAPTER VII.
  VOICES FROM THE PAST. . . . . 93
• CHAPTER VIII.
  LIVING WITNESSES.--Frederick Douglass. James W. C. Pennington, D. D. Josiah Henson. William Wells Brown. Henry Bibb. Henry Highland Garnett. Moses Roper. Samuel R. Ward. Alexander Crummell. . . . . 106
• CONCLUDING CHAPTER . . . . . 133
• ANTI-SLAVERY LINES, suggested by Baird's Picture, entitled 'A Scene on the Coast of Africa'. . . . . 163
• NOTES . . . . . 166

A SHORT SKETCH OF THE
PAST HISTORY AND THE PRESENT POSITION
OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN AMERICA.

        THE history of "the peculiar institution" in the United States of America since the Declaration of Independence, is one fraught with the most astounding wickedness. That a people who had engaged in a successful struggle for their political rights;--who had boasted throughout the long and exciting period of the Revolutionary War that their cause was that of universal Justice and Liberty; and who had asserted in their Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal;"--that such a people should legalise a slavery which reduces its victims to the condition of "chattels personal to all intents, purposes, and constructions whatsoever;" that, in after years, instead of seeking to abolish it, or to narrow its boundaries, they should be constantly aiming at, and in too many instances securing, its extension; and that they should be seeking to establish it on a permanent basis, and to prevent agitation against it by Compromise Measures and Fugitive Slave Laws; that, in short, they should thus perpetuate and strengthen a tyranny ten thousandfold worse than the British yoke which they burst asunder, is a national hypocrisy so terrible, that history fails to furnish a parallel; and is a depth of moral degradation lower than that into which any other country has fallen. Well may the poet Whittier, speaking of his native land, exclaim--

                         "Is this, the land our fathers loved,
                         The freedom which they toiled to win?
                         Is this the soil whereon they moved?
                         Are these the graves they slumber in?
                         Are we the sons by whom are borne
                         The mantles which the dead have worn?"

        There is no doubt that during, and immediately after, the Revolutionary era, the gradual emancipation of every

slave, on the soil of the new Republic, was regarded as an event which would not be delayed for many years. Public opinion was then, unquestionably, in favour of such a course; although, unfortunately for American honour and the cause of the down-trodden, the immediate emancipation doctrine of the revered Dr. Samuel Hopkins was entertained but by few. From the time of the first American Congress in 1774 until the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1789, several legislative bodies, and numerous associations, conventions, ecclesiastical organizations, and public meetings, reiterated the sentiments indorsed by the Virginian Convention of '74, which were, in substance, as follows:--"The Abolition of American Slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies." By an Act of Congress passed in 1787, Slavery was abolished in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa; and in the Convention that prepared the draft of the Constitution, the most thorough Anti-Slavery sentiments were freely expressed and cordially received. But, strange to say, notwithstanding these facts, and the testimonies given against Slavery by statesmen no less illustrious than Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Jay, the Federal Constitution provided for the reclamation of Fugitive Slaves, empowered the use of the United States army and navy to put down outbreaks of the Slaves, and bestowed three votes to the Slaveholder for every four Slaves he possesses. The subsequent history of "the peculiar institution" is most lamentable. True it was that in course of time Slavery ceased to exist in those States that are north of Mason and Dixon's line; but it has increased in strength at the South; it has been fortified by the recreant public opinion of the North; it has widely extended its boundaries; and it has added millions to its victims. With the exception of Cassius Clay, in Kentucky, a few Anti-Slavery Wesleyans in North Carolina, the National Era newspaper at Washington, and solitary individuals scattered here and there, where is to be heard the voice of Anti-Slavery truth on the Slavery-cursed soil of the South?

        And if we look at the North what do we see? We find the great political parties chained to the car of

Slavery: "The Union and Southern rights", is their battle-cry. To be an Abolitionist is to be a "traitor"--to talk of "the rights of the coloured race," is to speak in the language of "madmen"-- to deny that the Bible sanctions compulsory servitude, is to be unpardonably heterodox. Look, too, at the sordid, ambitious, never-satisfied desire of the Slaveholders for fresh soil upon which to plant the upas tree of Slavery. Their limits are being constantly widened; but still they ask for more territory, heeding not the coming day of retribution, nor the warning voice of a just God. Since the adoption of the Constitution, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisana, Alabama, Mississipi, Missouri, Arkansas, and, lastly, Texas (all Slave States) have been added to the Union to weaken the strength of Freedom, and to add fresh power to that institution which has somewhere been called "the corner-stone of the Republican edifice;" and while in 1776 the number of Slaves in the Southern States was but four hundred and fifty-six thousand, it is now more than three million two hundred thousand. But many earnest voices, and many brave hearts, were protesting against the Pro-Slavery course of American statesmen during the dark years to which we have hastily referred. Truth was not without its witnesses; men, and women too, who were ready not only to devote their lives to the Anti-Slavery work, despite the storm of obloquy to which they were exposed, but to meet death itself if such a testimony were needed. Among the early pioneers of the Anti-Slavery movement, none deserve more respectful mention than President Edwards, and Dr. Samuel Hopkins, men who in their day fought the battles of Freedom with holy faithfulness. Among the greatest of the heroes of the cause of Abolitionism, William Lloyd Garrison must ever hold a front rank. It was he who, at a time when his fellow-countrymen seemed to be wholly prostrate at the feet of the Slave power, stepped forward, and boldly grappled almost single-handed with the monster, and, in reply to the threats of his enemies, declared that he "would be heard;" he "would not be put down;" but would wage war against Slavery until either he or it perished in the conflict. The annals of history do not

present a brighter example of disinterested and self-denying devotion to a noble principle. Beautifully appropriate was the language of the great Anti-Slavery poet adressed to him:--

                         "Champion of those who groan beneath
                         Oppression's iron hand,
                         In view of penury, hate, and death,
                         I see thee fearless stand;
                         Still bearing up thy lofty brow
                         In the steadfast strength of truth,
                         In manhood sealing well the vow
                         And promise of thy youth."
Garrison was peculiarly the man for the times. Although one of the people, he possessed a rich and cultivated intellect, a vigorous and eloquent pen, that accustomed itself to write the truth with transparent clearness, and in language terribly just. His powers as an orator, although inferior to those of his brilliant colleague, the "golden-mouthed" Wendell Phillips, were of no mean order, and those who have heard him know how convincing is his logic, and how scathing is his invective; and above all he possessed that enthusiastic love of right principles, which eminently fitted him for the post of a great moral reformer. We have not space fully to trace the course of Mr. Garrison and his friends, since he became associated with Benjamin Lundy in the publication of The Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore. While occupying this important post, he was imprisoned for his energetic denunciations of a particular instance of Pro-Slavery wickedness, but, after fifty days confinement, he was released, through the generous aid of Mr. Arthur Tappan. In January, 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society commenced its important career; shortly afterwards other societies were organized, and the Anti-Slavery cause began to exhibit a vitality and a power that alarmed the Slaveholders and their abettors. Then came the time of trial and persecution, Rewards were offered for the heads of William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur Tappan, and other leaders of the Abolition movement. Riots took place in New York, and Tappan's house was sacked. Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston with a halter

round his neck. George Thompson was secreted that he might escape assassination. The devoted Lovejoy was murdered for editing an Anti-Slavery newspaper in Alton, Illinois. Pennsylvania Hall was burned down by an infuriated gang of Pro-Slavery ruffians. The coloured people of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other places, were shamefully maltreated. Then with regard to those who, from their high position, ought to have been the first to stem the torrent of popular passion, it is a fact that the legislatures of several Southern States passed resolutions similar to one adopted by the legislature of North Carolina, which was as follows:--"Resolved that our sister States are respectfully requested to enact penal laws, prohibiting the printing, within their respective limits, of all such publications as may have a tendency to make our Slaves discontented." To the disgrace of several of the Northern States, they assented to the propriety of these demands, which happily, however, were not enforced. An attempt was then made to prevent Anti-Slavery documents from being transmitted to the South by post. Then the right of the Abolitionists to petition Congress against Slavery was, for a time, successfully assailed; but, mainly through the labours of John Quincy Adams, in 1845 the right was restored. But, throughout these long years of the most unscrupulous opposition, the friends of the Slave stood by the cause they had taken in hand with unflinching courage. Some desertions, produced by ecclesiastical influences, political ambition, love of gain, or cowardice, have unquestionably taken place, but the Stantons have been but few in number, while the great mass of the Abolitionists, like Garrison, Jackson, Quincy, Mrs. Chapman, and others, have proved faithful always. The persecutions with which the Abolitionists were attacked, necessarily helped to increase their numbers and to strengthen their agitation, by rallying around them multitudes of thinking, right-minded persons, whose dormant consciences were awakened by the violence of the advocates of Slavery. Such is the aid that persecution ever renders to truth

        In 1848 and 1849, an exciting controversy agitated Congress on what is known as the Wilmot Proviso, which

proposed to prevent the existence of Slavery in any territories that might be annexed to the United States after it was passed. It was the time of an Anti-Slavery revival in the Free States; and no less than fourteen States "protested, through their legislatures, against any enlargement of the area of Slavery." This vigorous agitation caused the Pro-Slavery conspirators to plot mischief; and the result was an attempt to introduce into the Union the territory of California as a State, without Slavery being interdicted on its soil. This "non-intervention" policy met with the favour of all the great party leaders, as well as of the Cabinet, as it was confidently believed that a majority of the citizens of California would vote for the legalization of Slavery in the State. California was accordingly urged to apply for admission into the Confederacy; but, to the horror of the South, and the astonishment of the whole country, the Constitutional Convention determined that one of the articles of the new Constitution, should be as follows:--"Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, shall be tolerated in this State;" and this article was ratified by the votes of the people. A furious re-action took place at the South: with black inconsistency, the Pro- Slavery party in Congress, headed by that embodiment of despotism, John C. Calhoun, demanded that the application of California should be rejected! Then followed one of the fiercest struggles in American history. The writer was in the United States during this eventful era, and never shall he forget the intense excitement that prevailed.

        Inspired by the noble example of California, New Mexico framed an Anti-Slavery Constitution, and asked for admission into the Union. The advocates of the South then demanded a compromise--they required that the equilibrium of political power should be restored. They felt that their influence in the national councils was imperilled--that a spirit of freedom was being evoked which, if not speedily quelled, would endanger the very existence of Slavery itself. Then came the midnight time of the Anti-Slavery cause. A dissolution of the Union was threatened by the Slaveholders unless their demands were

complied with. Never was there a cry more unreal--never was empty bombast carried to a higher pitch; for if the Union were dissolved, the fugitive Slave would find the road to freedom some hundreds of miles shorter than it is now; no Fugitive Slave Law could then reach him in the Free States; Northern soldiers could no longer be employed to suppress Slave insurrections, or to extend the area of Slavery, as in the case of Texas; and how could thirty thousand Slaveholders put down a rising of their victims, who are numbered by millions, if they were unable to appeal to the North for aid? But the miserable cry of "disunion" answered its base purpose. Symptoms of treachery and cowardice, dressed up in the borrowed garb of patriotism, appeared at the North. "Our glorious Union is in danger;" "the Compromises of the Constitution must be fulfilled;" "the rights of our Southern brethren must be protected;" and similar cries were shouted by Northern merchants who held mortgages on slave-property; who dealt largely in the Southern markets; who had many Slaveholders among their best customers; or who had friends and relations possessing a large stake in the man-merchandise of the peculiar institution; and who for these and other reasons sold their souls, and allowed their consciences to be gagged.

        Henry Clay--the statesman who said that "a hundred years' legislation had sanctified Slavery"--early in 1850 successfully played his part in the national tragedy. He proposed a "Compromise." It was accepted, not, however, without a severe struggle on the part of a noble band of Free Soilers, who, in a spirit, and with a courage, more God-like than that of the ancient Spartans, defended "the Anti-Slavery Thermopylae" Their championship of freedom was in vain: Slavery again triumphed. By "the Compromise," California was received into the Union as a Free State. New Mexico and Utah, while they continued territories, and when they were formed into States, were to maintain or prohibit Slavery, as they pleased. The importation of Slaves into the District of Columbia for sale was interdicted. Such were the benefits conferred on the cause of freedom by "the Compromise:" but now

for the dark side of the picture. Ten millions of dollars were paid into the Treasury of Texas, and ninety thousand square miles of free soil were given to that State, upon which the accursed institution of Slavery was to be established; and the Fugitive Slave Law was granted to the South--a measure whose atrocity language utterly fails to depict; and whose manifestly flagrant violation of the first principles of justice was so great that, had not the Congress that passed it, and the President who sanctioned it, been utterly devoid of moral integrity and the common feelings of humanity, it would, from the first moment it was brought forward, have been treated as a proposal fit only to be entertained by a nation of savages. This law, which is supplementary to that of the law of 1793, gives extraordinary facilities for the reclamation of Fugitive Slaves who have found a refuge in the Free States. It vests all the powers of judge and jury in Commissioners, who, in the majority of instances, are appointed in consequence of their Pro-Slavery tendencies, and who receive ten dollars if they convict the supposed fugitive, while five dollars only is their fee if they declare him innocent of the crime of running away with himself; and, as the Hon. Horace Mann says, "the law provides that evidence taken in a Southern State, at any time or place which a claimant may select, without any notice, or any possibility of knowledge on the part of the person to be robbed and enslaved by it, may be clandestinely carried or sent to any place where it is to be used, and there spring upon its victim, as a wild beast springs from its jungle on the passer-by; and it provides that this evidence, thus surreptitiously taken and used, shall be conclusive proof of the facts, and of escape from slavery. It does not submit the sufficiency of the evidence to the judgment of the tribunal, but it arbitrarily makes it conclusive whether sufficient or not." The consequence was that four, out of the first eight persons who were enslaved under this law, were free men. We have it on the authority of the Hon. Horace Mann that, "in a case in Philadelphia, Commissioner Ingraham decided some points directly against law and authority; and when the

decision of a judge of the United States Court was brought against him, he coolly said he differed from the judge, made out the certificate, pocketed the ten dollars, and sent a human being to bondage. There could be no appeal from this iniquity, for the law allows none."

        The Fugitive Slave Law also renders all persons aiding in the escape of Slaves liable to a fine of two thousand dollars, and six months imprisonment. A re-action, however, took place. The arrests of Hamlet, Long, William and Ellen Crafts, and other Fugitive Slaves, caused an intense excitement in the Northern mind, which induced thousands to rally around the standard of liberty, who had never previously been identified with the cause of the oppressed. The Abolitionists everywhere openly avowed their intention to violate the law. Numerous mass meetings were held, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the measure in the fiercest language, The authorities in some towns refused to aid in its execution. Some, though not many, ministers, like Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Parker, advised their congregations to obey the "higher law,"and protect the fugitive even at the risk of imprisonment and death. The Slave-hunters wherever they went were the subjects of the most unmitigated public opprobrium and, contempt. A panic at first seized the coloured population, but their courage did not long fail them. They provided themselves with revolvers; and, hundreds, if not thousands, of Fugitive Slaves, armed to the teeth, fled into Canada to seek that security under the flag of Queen Victoria which was denied them in the model Republic. The re-action was so great that, in the language of the Fifteenth Report of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society,^* "the Fugitive Slave Law, though still in our statute books, is shorn of its terrors, and is fast falling into contempt." Except in some places where, the light of Anti-Slavery truth has not effected an entrance, the Fugitive Slave Law is almost a dead letter.^** The

        * An auxillary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the President of which is William Lloyd Garrison.

following statistics carefully prepared by the Rev. Edward Mathews, the excellent agent to the American Free Mission Baptists, show that Slavery has not gained much by the Fugitive Slave Law, while it has lost a great deal of its power in the North by the outrageous character of the enactment:--

        It will be seen that the total number of Slaves is 50; rescued, 6; shot, 1; purchased, 5; set free after trial, 5; now held in Slavery, 33.^*

        Although the Fugitive Slave Law has almost become a nullity, it does not necessarily follow that all who oppose it are equally arrayed against Slavery itself. On the contrary, we have great reason to believe that a very large proportion of those who have been strenuous in their hostility to a measure which converts the Free States into a hunting-ground on which Fugitive Slaves are to be pursued, do not take any decided action against the "peculiar institution,"but, on the contrary, are disposed to allow it to continue undisturbed within its present

        * Mr. Mathews, who prepared the above statistics, was mobbed in Kentucky in 1851, and barely escaped with his life.

boundaries. We have even heard a, New York audience cheer a Southern senator when he was boasting that he was the owner of the largest amount of slave-property in that part of the South in which he resided; and not a few meetings have we attended at which speeches in favour of maintaining the Compromise Measures and the Fugitive Slave Law were enthusiastically cheered by large assemblages of persons, in which all classes were represented, not even excepting the clergy. Everywhere, too, in the North is the foul prejudice against colour manifested. The most remote connexion by birth with the African race is sufficient to render a man an outcast from society; to prevent him from filling any office of trust or honour; to make him an object of degradation and contempt; and to place him in the Negro pew in the very church of God, so that he may not pollute by his touch the white believers in that Great Teacher (Himself dark-complexioned!) who said, "As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them."

        Such are some of the usages of society in the Free States; and they apply to such men even as Professor Allen, Frederick Douglas, Dr. Pennington, Charles L. Remond, and William Wells Brown, men who, by their characters and talents, would adorn any society, and who are infinitely elevated above their miserable oppressors in everything that constitutes true dignity and moral worth. It is sometimes imagined that universal suffrage exists in the Free States. This is entirely a mistake; for no coloured man is allowed the right to vote unless he possesses a certain amount of property, which varies in different States; and as every possible obstacle short of Slavery itself is placed in the way of his success in life it follows that if he enjoys the elective franchise he is one of the very few exceptions to the general rule. The Illinois Legislature has recently passed a law against coloured persons which is equal in its infamy to its accursed predecessor, the Fugitive Slave Law. This measure declares that any Negro or Mulatto entering the State, and remaining there a longer period than ten days, shall be fined; and if unable to pay the fine, he shall be

sold on an auction-block, and the proceeds shall be devoted to charitable purposes. What execrable villany! The money raised by the sale of MEN, created in the image of God, and endowed with noble intelligences and a still nobler immortality, to be appropriated to benevolent objects--perhaps to the conversion of the heathen! Judas Iscariot has many successors. An enactment somewhat similar was previously passed by the Legislature of Indiana; so that custom and law are alike the enemies of that unfortunate race--whose colour is made a crime-- in the Free States of a land boasting of her liberty, and of the number of her churches. And then, after having sought to keep them as low as possible in the social scale, hypocritical apologists for Slavery point, with malevolent exultation, to their backward condition as a proof that they are a very imperfect and degraded type of humanity!

        The mercantile influences existing at the North in favour of Slavery, or of neutrality on the question, are among its mightiest supporters. The cotton merchants and manufacturers are averse to any interference with "the exciting topic,"because it harmonises with their sordid interest to be on good terms with their "Southern brethren." "The agitation of Slavery at the North endangers the security of the Union," say they in effect. "It might provoke a civil war; it might lead to a general revolt of the Slaves; in short, twenty things prejudicial to trade might ensue. Let the South alone: she knows best what to do with her own institutions. And besides, are we not seeking to elevate the coloured race by our support of the Colonization Society? and may not Slavery, after all, be a Missionary Institution?"--(as the Rev. W. Hooker, of Philadelphia, says it is)--"the object of which is, through the Colonization Society, to evangelise the dark regions of Africa in due time." We are not now putting the case unfairly; we are giving the ideas which are almost daily expressed in that time-serving paper, the New York Journal of Commerce, the organ of the Pro-Slavery merchants of the North. We know not to what extent any of these individuals may be owners, or part

owners, of Southern cotton plantations; but we do know that many a Northern merchant, bearing a high character for piety, possesses mortgages on slave-estates, and does not scruple, if his sordid interests demand it, to bring them to the hammer; and, like a Theological Synod in North Carolina, who sold eight Slaves to assist in the education of some Presbyterian ministers, the merchants who thus dispose of the liberties of their fellow-creatures can, with the pride of a Pharisee, subscribe towards the conversion of the inhabitants of Madagascar, or talk of intervention by force of arms in the affairs Of Hungary against the Austrian oppressor, as did that creature of Slavery, General Cass.

        Never did these men of "property and standing" show their subserviency to the South more clearly than after the passing of the Compromise Measures. In New York, we remember, some thousands of them signed a requisition convening a meeting to consider those measures, and to adopt means for the due execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. We attended this meeting. Of course the Abolitionists were there regarded as most detestable characters, being especially the enemies of "the Union" and the Church. A "Union Safety Committee" was formed, and some thousands of dollars were subscribed to its funds; but, with the exception of publishing the names of all who signed the requisition, and endeavouring to effect the conviction of a few Fugitive Slaves, we believe that all their bluster has gone for nothing. The publication of the names of the requisitionists was a commercial speculation, inasmuch as Southern traders were advised not to do business with any merchant in New York whose name was not printed in the list; indeed at one time it was proposed that the names of all persons who refused to sign the document should be prominently published, so that their enmity to "Southern rights" might become more widely known, and their "stores" more generally shunned by the friends of "the Union." This was actually done in the case of Messrs. Bowen and Mc'Namee, the proprietors of that excellent journal, the New York Independent, and in one or

two other instances. But it was almost too disgraceful even for the depravity of New York Pro-Slavery morals. These facts serve to show what a powerful instrumentality in favour of Slavery the great commercial party of the North forms.

        As would be anticipated, the two chief political parties--the Whig and the Democratic--do not essentially differ from each other in their action on the Slavery question, excepting that perhaps the greatest number of "fillibusters," or annexationists, exist among the Democrats. The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore in June, 1850, declared that that party "will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise Measures settled by the last Congress--the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labour included--which act being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot with fidelity thereto be repealed, or so changed as to restore or impair its efficiency. Resolved that the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the Slavery question, under whatever shape or colour the attempts may be made." Shortly after the adoption of these principles by the Democratic party, the Whig Convention was held at Baltimore also, and a resolution was passed which, after approving of the Compromise Measures, declared that, "so far as the Fugitive Slave Law is concerned, we will maintain the same, and insist on its strict enforcement, until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of future legislation against evasion and abuse, but not impairing its present efficiency."

        Enough has been quoted to show that both parties are deeply involved in Pro-Slavery guilt; and yet many men professing Anti-Slavery principles (some of whom we could name,) blinded by party feeling, voted for Pierce, or Scott, as the case might be, although there was a Free Soil Candidate in the field in the person of John P. Hale. But although General Pierce is unquestionably as unsound on the Slavery question as a man can be, we cannot but rejoice at the defeat of the Candidature for the Presidency .in their respective party Conventions, of Webster, Cass,

and Douglass, men who had sought to raise themselves into the highest office of the State by their support of the Compromise measures. They utterly failed to secure the prize which had caused them to sacrifice their consciences, and to blast their characters for ever. The first died broken-hearted--miserably disappointed in the great object of his ambition just as he thought he had it within his grasp, and conscious that his fame was darkened with a stain that time could never obliterate. Thus does judgment sometimes descend on the statesman who, for the sake of power, dares to trifle with the sacred rights of humanity, and to act as if he were a God. But let us

                         "Revile him not--the Tempter hath
                         A snare for all;
                         And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
                         Befit his fall!

                         Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
                         When he who might
                         Have lighted up, and led his age,
                         Falls back in night.

                         Scorn! would the angels laugh to mark
                         A bright soul driven,
                         Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
                         From hope and Heaven?"

        Franklin Pierce, the present President of the United States, in his inaugural address, plainly described the policy on the Slavery question, that would guide him. He said "I believe that involuntary servitude as it exists, in different states in this confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the states where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the Constitutional Provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, are strictly constitutional, and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the constituted authorities of this Republic are bound to regard the rights of the South in this respect, as they would any other legal and constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be respected and

obeyed; not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully and according to the doctrines of the tribunals to which their expositions belong. Such have been and are my convictions, and upon them I shall act." It is well known that he is in favour of the annexation of Cuba, and of the conquest of Mexico.

        We have glanced at some of the causes of the retrogression of America as regards Slavery, and of the present powerful position of the Slaveholders; but we have not yet given that prominence to the primary cause which it deserves. We have no hesitation in pointing to the recreancy of the American Church as the principal reason why Slavery was not abolished years ago. Is not trading in human bodies and immortal souls justified in her pulpits, and sanctioned in her synods and assemblies? Do not Doctors of Divinity, like Moses Stuart and Gardiner Spring, blasphemously assert that the righteousness of American Slavery is proved by the Mosaic law, and allowed by the religion of Him who said "I come to break the bonds of the oppressor." And when the professed ministers of the Most High, speaking with all the authority of their sacred office, assert with the Reverend Doctor Joel Parker, (the threatened prosecutor of Mrs. Stowe,) that "Slavery is a good-- a great good," who can wonder that church members should prove false to the Slave; and that men whose God is Mammon, should sacrifice the rights of their fellow-man on its altars! To prove the guilt of the Southern Church, we need not quote from the sermons of its ministers, or the resolutions of its synods. The following figures, compiled with great care by the Rev. Edward Mathews, speak for themselves:--

Six hundred and sixty thousand five hundred and sixty- three Slaves held by members of Christian Churches in the South! How frightful is the iniquity perpetrated within the pale of what professes to be the Church of Christ! Comparing Slavery to a fearful fire that has been raging for a long time, Mrs. Stowe admirably remarks "The Church of Christ burns with that awful fire! Evermore burning, burning! Burning over church and altar; burning over senate-house and forum; burning up liberty, burning up religion! No earthly hands kindled that fire. From its sheeted flame and wreaths of sulphurous smoke glares out upon thee the eye of that enemy who was a murderer from the beginning. It is a fire that burns to the lowest hell!"

        But it would naturally be supposed that however the Southern Churches may have apostatised from the true faith, yet the religious bodies of the Free States would remain steadfast in supporting the cause of the oppressed. The ministers and churches of the South exist amid the contaminating influences of Slavery itself; but in the North the church of God can plead no such extenuating circumstances. How fearful, then, is the fact that many prominent ministers of the North, defend Slavery as a religious institution; that a still larger number support the Fugitive Slave Law; and that the leading ecclesiastical organizations either openly avow their Pro-Slavery predilections, or endeavour to take a neutral course; in which latter policy, however, they invariably fail, as silence on such a question is impossible. Since the Declaration of Independence, the action of the American Church on Slavery has more and more retrogressed. At that period the testimonies against Slavery, in the pulpit and the synod, were very general; but gradually they have become less and less in number and faithfulness. The Episcopalian Church in the North, admits Slaveholders within its pale; and its principal organ, the New York Churchman, is notorious for its hostility to the Abolitionists. An important body of Anti-Slavery men exists among the Congregationalists, but the vast majority are either Pro-Slavery, or they adopt a temporizing course. In 1851, Mr. Fisk, who

delivered a sermon in favour of the Fugitive Slave Law, was appointed by the Maine Congregational Conference, as a delegate to a kindred religious society. Many prominent divines of this denomination, (as, for example, Dr. Moses Stuart,) have distinguished themselves by their advocacy of Slavery. The Baptist Churches, by their general subserviency to the Slave power, as well as by the admission of Slaveholders into their Missionary Society, have earned a dark reputation. The Presbyterian and the Methodist Episcopal Churches, are notorious for their unblushing recreancy on the Slavery question.

        Dr. Gardiner Spring, an eminent Presbyterian minister, whose evangelical works are well known in this country, said, in a sermon which he preached in defence of the atrocious Fugitive Slave Act, in 1850, that "If by one prayer he could liberate every Slave in the world, he would not dare to offer it." We heard him offer up a prayer, just before an oration was delivered on General Washington, in which he dared to ask the Almighty to stop the mouths of the agitators--meaning, of course, the Abolitionists. The orator was no other than General Foote, then a Senator for the Slave State of Mississipi, who a few weeks before had pointed a loaded pistol at the breast of Colonel Benton, the Free Soil Senator for Missouri, on the floor of the Senate itself; and would, in all probability, have shot him, had not the deadly weapon been snatched from his grasp. Dr. Moses Stuart, the celebrated Professor of Andover College, Massachussets, says in relation to the Fugitive Slave Law, that "Though we may pity the fugitive, yet the Mosaic law does not authorize the rejection of the claims of the Slaveholders to their lost or strayed property." The Right Rev. Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, after having asked "What effect had the Gospel in doing away with Slavery?" answers to the satisfaction of his Pro- Slavery heart, "None whatever;" as if Christianity was responsible for the infamous deeds of her professed disciples!-- as if the glory of Christ should be tarnished by the dark teachings of an oppression-loving Bishop! The Rev. W. Hooker, in a pamphlet recently written, again presents Slavery in the aspect in

which Calhoun was wont to describe it:--"Allow it then," says he, "to be asked of the Christian who duly prizes this highest freedom, to consider of Southern Slavery as a Missionary institution for the conversion of the heathen. In this light let it be candidly looked on for a passing moment, and you cannot fail to contemplate it, for ever, hereafter, with other feelings than Abolitionism would excite in you." But similar quotations might be multiplied without end. The leading religious journals, with the exception of the New York Independent, and one or two others, indulge in a similar strain.

        Dr. Bond, the Editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal, the principal organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, recently described the Abolition movement as a "senseless agitation." The infamous character of the chief Presbyterian newspaper, the New York Observer, is well known. As the most virulent antagonist of Mrs. Stowe and the coarse and malignant traducer of the Abolitionists, this paper has obtained one of the darkest places in the foul Pro-Slavery literature of the day. At the recent meeting of the Presbyterian New School General Assembly, held at Buffalo, a letter was read from the Oswego Prebytery, in which that body refused to send a delegate to it until it took improved action with regard to Slavery. The Buffalo Christian Advocate says of this matter, "The Slavery question of course had to be disposed of, for whoever knew a body of Christian ministers to convene in latter times, when a fire-brand was not thrown into their midst in the form of this agitation."

        Slavery is an institution which its advocates cannot bear to be touched; it shuns the light of investigation. And why? Because its "deeds are evil." A severe rebuke was administered by the Assembly to its refractory auxiliary, and Dr. Cox talked very glibly about "kicking" the memorial under the table. Slaveholding, it was true, was declared an "offence;" but then it was not so if the Slaves were held from humane motives, or in trust for others, or if the law would not permit their emancipation; so that this resolution might just as well not have been passed at all. It was true also that a

Committee of Inquiry into the number and condition of the Slaves held by Presbyterians in the South was talked about; but the matter was left in the hands of the Slaveholding Presbyteries! the criminals were left to convict themselves! At the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held a short time ago, the committee appointed to report on the Slavery question, in reply to certain Anti-Slavery memorials, recommended that no action should be taken to keep Slaveholders out of the church. We think these facts show the guiltiness of the churches of the North in the frightful sin of Slavery; that both ministers and people have been fearfully unfaithful to the cause of the down-trodden. And how greatly is their criminality increased by the fact that if they had aided the Anti-Slavery cause as they might have done, the "peculiar institution" would now, in all probability, have ceased to exist; and at any rate Texas would not have been added to the area, and the Fugitive Slave Law to the power of Slavery.

        When William Lloyd Garrison and his coadjutors first commenced the Anti-Slavery movement, it was with the conviction that their cause would very soon be warmly espoused by the churches of the North; but their glowing anticipations quickly vanished. With some honourable exceptions, those churches, instead of helping the good work, gave nothing but opposition; and so they who ought to have been first to engage in the strife with Slavery, were foremost in the ranks of its friends. It is our pleasing duty, however, to present some gratifying facts in juxta-position to these unpleasant ones. In most of the churches a powerful Anti- Slavery minority exists, who are constantly agitating the question; but it is a great pity, and, as we think, a serious neglect of duty, that they do not at once and for ever come out from these perfidious religious denominations. There are, however, several important and growing secessions from the great Pro-Slavery churches. The Wesleyan Methodists, numbering upwards of twenty thousand members, have seceded from the Methodist Episcopal Church, and taken thoroughly Anti-Slavery ground. "No communion with

Slaveholders," is one of their fundamental principles; and their weekly organ, the Wesleyan, edited by the Rev. Lucius Matlack, is an able advocate of Abolitionism. The American Baptist Free Missionary Society is equally faithful. The Presbyterian Secession, the Friends, the Free Will Baptists, and a few other churches, are also conspicuous for their Anti- Slavery character.

        There are some ministers of commanding talents and influence, such as Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Parker, who are on the side of the Slave; but, generally speaking, the great men and the great churches are to be found in the ranks of his enemies. It is in what Theodore Parker calls the "little churches," where "the pulpits of commerce" do not exist, that the true Anti-Slavery spirit is commonly to be found, and as he truly says, "In little country towns, in the bye-ways and alleys of great cities, silently and unseen they are sowing the seeds of a piety, which will spring up justice, and bear philanthropic fruit." It is our happiness to know some of the members of these "little churches," and we can testify to the important assistance they are rendering to the enslaved. If a fugitive is to be tried, they are ever ready to assist him with a competent counsel, or, if necessary, to aid in his escape; nobody is better acquainted with the mysteries of "the underground railroad," than they; and in all practical operations for the Abolition of Slavery, they are always up to the mark. Would that the great bulk of their co-religionists would follow their example! If they did, the doom of Slavery would soon be scaled for ever.

        But what are the signs of the times in America?--what the prospects for the future? This is a question that proceeds from many lips, and few can solve the problem to their own satisfaction. This much, however, is gratifying, that the progress that has taken place since the American Anti- Slavery Society was first originated has been very great. The friends of freedom could then be numbered by scores only; but now they form a mighty host. Sorry are we that they are somewhat divided among themselves as to the proper course of action to be taken;

and still more deeply do we regret that in some instances these dissensions, which are sure to exist in every great movement, have assumed the form of personal animosities, which must have done injury to the cause. The Anti-Slavery movement should be essentially unsectarian: men of all creeds and parties, who are willing to subscribe to the doctrine of "immediate and unconditional emancipation," should be admitted to its fellowship. Such has been the course of the American Anti-Slavery Society^*, from its commencement. Those who have studied the history of bigotry can readily guess the consequence. A Pro-Slavery Church, with its usual disregard of the truth, has denounced this great institution as "infidel" in its character; and numerous timid Anti-Slavery persons, afraid to be associated with any but the strictly "orthodox," have refused to join its ranks, thus preferring to sacrifice the cause of the Slave at the shrine of a mistaken sectarianism. The cry of infidelity raised against the Abolitionists at home has, of course, been shouted abroad. Calumnies the most wicked, perversions of the truth the most scandalous, have been spread throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain against the men who are engaged in the very thickest of the fight with Slavery. The voice of slander has done its work; but the truth is now being everywhere known. Again and again have the enemies of the American Anti-Slavery Society been asked to prove that on any of its platforms Christianity has ever been treated with the slightest disrespect, but they have
* In addition to the American Anti-Slavery Society, there are two other Abolitionist movements, viz: the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the Liberty party. The operations of the first Society are very limited, although its Secretary, Mr. Lewis Tappan, fulfils the duties of his office with much energy. The Liberty party puts an Anti-Slavery interpretation on the American Constitution, and therefore takes political action. The Free Soilers are not properly Abolitionists, as they chiefly aim at the non-extension of Slavery, and the abolition of that institution in the District of Columbia. The American Anti-Slavery Society is the great movement; and we say this without in the least degree disparaging the valuable labours of such men as Charles Sumner, Horace Mann, William Jay, Gerritt Smith, John P. Hale, Mr. Giddings, Mr. Chase, Lewis Tappan, and their associates, who belong to other parties. The world knows their services; and the Slave has often felt the value of them.

utterly failed to do so. No; Christianity has not been attacked, and they know it full well; but a Church that professes to be the Christian Church, but which tramples under foot every precept of Christ--every law of God, has been denounced by that Society as false to its mission, and hypocritical in its course. And is not this true? The seven hundred thousand Slaveholders who are members of religious denominations in the Southern States, the Pro-Slavery action of most of the ecclesiastical assemblies of the North, the Negro pews that exist in almost every Church, and the sermons that have been preached in favour of Slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law from multitudes of pulpits, supply an answer in the affirmative terribly convincing in its truthfulness. What, then, is the duty of every honest Abolitionist--of every one, too, who has the interest of the Christian Church at heart? Is it not to pull down the unfaithful Church, and to raise in its stead a noble edifice in which, trumpet-tongued, the wickedness of Slavery shall be preached, and in which the nation shall be commanded to cease the practice of this great iniquity, not in mild, honied phrases, but with the same fidelity that characterized the Saviour's denunciations of Pharasaical hypocrisy? And if such a Church as this be raised, not less certainly will Slavery pass away, than did the darkness of the middle ages disappear before the light of advancing civilization.

        But it is urged against the American Anti-Slavery Society that it refuses to take political action: hence ensues the absurd charge that it is opposed to civil government altogether. The United States' Constitution consists of a foul compromise. It directly sanctions Slavery; it provides for the capture of Fugitive Slaves; it vests political power in the Slaveholder according to the amount of slave-property he possesses. True, the Liberty party hold that the Constitution is an Anti-Slavery instrument; but all the great American lawyers put an opposite construction upon it; and their view seems to us to be clearly proved. With this belief then, how can an Abolitionist by his vote sanction this Constitution; for be it remembered that every member of Congress is required to swear obedience

to it. Moral honesty requires of the thorough Abolitionist that he should abstain from declaring allegiance by his lips to a Pro-Slavery institution, which he spurns with indignant contempt and hatred in his heart. Then, again, it is said to the supposed disparagement of the American Anti-Slavery Society that it is in favour of a dissolution of the American Union. But if that Union can only be maintained by a gross sacrifice of principle, can it be honestly supported by the Abolitionist? Besides, is it not a disgraceful anomaly that States professing to love and to support freedom, should live under the same government with other States who are in the constant practice of an infamous slavery, and who claim the right to hunt down its fugitives who seek refuge on Northern soil? If the American Union is to be kept up on no other terms than those of subserviency to the slave-power, then we earnestly trust that the federal compact may be speedily torn in pieces and scattered to the winds. A Union based upon such a foundation is what Garrison termed it--"a covenant with death" and "an agreement hell;" and with him we would say, "Henceforth the watchword of every uncompromising Abolitionist, of every friend of God and liberty, must be, both in a religious and a political sense, 'No Union with Slaveholders.' "

        Meanwhile this Society is performing its work most vigorously, and with great success. Various attempts have been made to hold its Anniversary Meetings in New York, the great Northern centre of the cotton party; but hitherto, Pro-Slavery mobs have prevented them. This year, however, they were succcessful; and the magnificent oration of Wendell Phillips (grand as a master-piece of eloquence, but more admirable still for its Christ-like faithfulness) and the glowing speeches of William Lloyd Garrison, Edmund Quincy, Henry Ward Beecher, Frederic Douglas, and other apostles of the Anti- Slavery cause, were listened to with breathless attention by enthusiastic thousands. The Empire City is awaking; and we hope soon to hear that neither the power of party platforms, of the cotton pulpits and newspapers, or of Southern merchants and planters, can prevent the rapid progress

of genuine Anti-Slavery principles in its midst.

        There are other gleams of light to be seen just now besides those to which we have alluded. The next to political annihilation of the great Whig party must do good, as its members who are favourably disposed towards Anti-Slavery principles will not have the same temptation to continue their allegiance to it that they have hitherto had. And some Whig journals are even now speaking after the fashion of the Forest City, published in Cleveland, Ohio:--"We feel as Christian did in the Pilgrim's Progress, when the load of sin was taken off his back. We repudiate the Baltimore platform--spit upon it, and return to the Whig principles of 1847:--'No executive usurpation, no more Slave territory, no further extension of Slavery, no more Slave States, but free soil for free men.' "Such is the repudiation of the Baltimore platform, which we hope to see become general in the ranks of the Whigs. Similar action has been taken by the Loco-focos, or Democrats, in Ohio. At their late State Convention the former Anti-Slavery position of the party was resumed The important testimonies of Pro-Slavery journals as to the progress of Abolitionism is equally gratifying. A rabid Pro-Slavery paper called the New York Express said very recently, "That Abolitionism is recovering from the heavy blows struck at it both in the Whig and the Democratic Baltimore Conventions, we have not a doubt, as an evening contemporary intimates, and that it is about to present a formidable front in the moral and political field, we feel sure. The signs of the times all about us indicate this fact. The men that sustained the Compromise Bill in Congress in 1850, and so saved the Union from intestine strife, are struck down both North and South." "If the increase of Abolitionism goes on, we have no hesitation in saying no Northern public man can stand against it." The tone of the principal organs of the South is precisely similar. "The South," says the Charleston Mercury the ablest paper in that part of the country, "has no hope beyond itself--has no help out of its own dominions. The world is against it." Speaking of the Fugitive Slave

Law the Savannah Georgian says, "The only hope of enforcing this law, without an expense of time, money, and peace more valuable than the Slaves which will be captured, is to be found in a change, thorough and radical, of the principles and convictions of the Northern people in relation to Slavery. Is there any probability of such a change? None whatever." Another indication of progress exists in the fact that Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is doing so much to create a right public sentiment in the North, is being read very extensively in the South.

        Meanwhile the supporters of Slavery are also doing their best. Again are they turning their avaricious eyes towards Mexico, hoping to make the refusal of Santa Anna to permit the Americans to open the River Tehuantepic a pretext for war. That river is the nearest route to the Pacific; but it runs through the richest provinces of Mexico. With the fate of Texas before his eyes, it is no wonder that Santa Anna declines compliance with the request of the American Cabinet, Cuba is another object of slave-holding desire; and again do we hear of piratical expeditions to rob Spain of her wealthy colony. But she will lose it, and justly too, unless she at once takes steps to abolish the Slave-trade and emancipate the Slaves. The policy of the British Cabinet has been energetically directed in favour of such a result. This is held by a great Democratic writer as a sufficient reason why General Pierce should take the initiative by the immediate seizure of Cuba!

        Henry Clay, in the pride of his heart, imagined that his Compromise Measures would put down Abolitionism and give the country peace; but the great statesman was miserably mistaken. He acted as if he had forgotten that there was a God of Infinite Justice, who can, with a breath, blast the schemes of cabinets, and cause the most powerful to bow tremblingly before His authority. Clay did not perceive the power of an enlightened public opinion, guided by the finger of Him who is the foe of tyrants, and the hater of iniquity; and who said by His Son, eighteen centuries ago, that the Oppressed should go free. If he had done so, he never would have

proposed those measures which have gained him eternal infamy, without in the least degree benefitting the cause he sought to uphold. For they have awakened the conscience of the North from the deep sleep into which it had fallen; and by the blessing of God, that conscience shall never slumber again. They have aroused the Abolitionists to an activity unparalleled in their history. They have affected the Church, and the ministers of the God of liberty are increasing in number; and in short they show that the last struggles of the monster which has made the boasted liberty of the Great Republic a delusion and a lie, have at length come, and that the era of a glorious freedom is not far distant.

F. W. C.

GOD'S IMAGE IN EBONY.

CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY.

        "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.["]--GENESIS, i. 27.

        ETHNOLOGY, or the science of races, has of late years occupied much of the attention of the learned. Many books have been written on the subject, and many theories propounded, to account for the diversities observable in the physical and mental characteristics of the dwellers upon the various portions of the habitable globe. Some, in direct opposition to scripture, have asserted that these distinct tribes and nations, so diverse in stature, in colour, in language, and in physical conformation, could not all have descended from one common parent--that the peculiarities now observable in the structural anatomy of the different human races, have always existed, and separated those races as distinctly, as one tribe of animals is divided from another. Climate and circumstances are not believed to have had any influence in these matters, and yet the very author who advances this opinion,^* tells us afterwards that race is permanent, only so long "as the existing media and order of things prevail." What are we to understand by this, if not that climate and circumstances have power to effect changes in the human frame, and to produce all those diversities of character and conformation now observable in the great divisions of the family of man? We merely mention this to show the inconsistencies into which scientific men are often led, when in pursuit of a favourite theory, the more especially when that theory is at variance with revealed truth; and to show also that those who contend for a natural and unchangeable inferiority of race, are not altogether so perfect in their wisdom, that we should listen to them in preference to the word of God, who tells us that He hath "made of one blood all the nations of men, to dwell upon the face of the earth." Is it not plain from this declaration, that all men are brothers--children of one common parent, aye, of one earthly parent; for, if by this
* Dr. Knox, vide "The Races of Men."

is meant our Heavenly Creator only, then are we brothers with the soulless brutes also, and we look in vain for the symbol and pledge of our humanity; which, although fallen and degraded, has still lingering about it some faint traces of the god-like and divine.

        Those who contend that the Negro race is essentially and unalterably inferior to any other of the distinct races, to use the ethnologist's term, which occupy the different divisions of the globe, do so in the face of proofs to the contrary, which one would think ought to convince them of their error; some of these proofs it will presently be our task to adduce; just now we have a few more observations to offer upon the general bearing of our subject, and aspect of the slavery question.

        That slave-holders, and all who would trample on and oppress their weaker fellow-men, are advocates for this theory, is not to be wondered at, they find in it an excuse for their acts of cruelty and oppression; it places the slave upon the same low ground as that occupied by their dogs and horses, and, although the humane man (and we do not mean to deny that there are many such proprietors of human chattels) would not overtask or torture even these, yet, the consideration and respect which is due to every being with an immortal soul, is lost sight of, and so that the physical wants of his slaves are satisfied, the master has little care for the imperishable part of their nature. And this is the most crying evil of the whole system: bodily torture, cold, hunger, taunts, revilings, toil beneath the lash of the overseer, nay, death itself, are as nothing in comparison with this annihilation of every glimmering spark of the divine light within, (which should be as a lamp to lead the soul to a Saviour's feet,) which generally ensues in that state of brutal ignorance in which the slave is allowed to remain, if he be not, as in most instances he is, kept and bound there.

        Education for the slave is a thing not to be thought of, not to be tolerated; and so we hear of heavy fines and penalties, and other punishments, inflicted on those who attempt to teach the benighted African, dwelling in a so-called christian land, the way of salvation; and why? because the freedom of the soul from the thraldom of ignorance and superstition, and sensuality, must soon be followed by the freedom of the body. If once your slave gets but a revelation of divine truth, he is a slave no longer; he knows that other than an earthly master hath bought

him at a high price; and bind him as securely, watch him as closely, and torture him as severely as you may; oh, haughty southern planter! there is a part of him-- the more noble part--which you cannot hold, nor frighten, nor maltreat. This truth is nowhere more forcibly demonstrated than in Mrs. Stowe's admirable work: poor Tom dying under the lash of the fiend-like Legree, was more free than the sin-bound and embruted creature who owned his body, because

                         "He could read his title clear,
                         To mansions in the skies."
And he knew full well, that the trouble and suffering through which it was his lot to pass, was but as a rugged gloomy passage to a bright and blissful hereafter. It is Bryant who bids us

                         "Deem not the just by heaven forgot!
                         Though life its common gifts deny--
                         Though with a crushed and bleeding heart,
                         And spurned of man, he goes to die!
                         For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
                         And numbered every bitter tear;
                         And heaven's long years of bliss shall pay
                         For all his children suffer here."

        The educated and spiritually enlightened slave, we say, knows all this, and fears not the stripes and injuries which man can inflict; if he attempt not to escape from his earthly bondage, which he generally will do, being conscious of his right to freedom, he will shew by his aspect and demeanour, that he claims a recognition of that common humanity which he shares with his owner; he is no longer a brute, but a man. And what so galling to the pride of a tyrannical master, as for that being of an assumed inferior nature to rise up and claim brotherhood with him, the delicately-nurtured, the highly- educated, and refined lord of broad lands, and human chattels.

        To us it seems that no science can be true science, no philosophy other than spurious, that does not recognise in every human being, whether his skin be white or sable, a man and a brother. "The christian philosopher," says Dr. Chalmers, "sees in every man a partaker of his own nature, and a brother of his own species. He contemplates the human mind in the generality of its great elements. He enters upon a wide field of benevolence, and disdains the geographical barriers by which little men would shut out

one half of the species from the kind offices of the other. Let man's localities be what they may, it is enough for his large and noble heart, that he is bone of the as a bone."

        Let us add to this the testimony of the pious Richard Watson, which we find quoted in Wilson Armistead's "Tribute for the Negro," a noble volume, to which we are indebted for much of the information contained in the following pages; pointing to the scripture passage which tells how our Saviour became incarnate, "that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Watson says, 'Behold then the foundation of the fraternity of our race, however coloured, and however scattered. Essential distinctions of inferiority and superiority had been, in almost every part of the Gentile World, adopted as the palliation or the justification of the wrongs inflicted by man on man; but against this notion, christianity, from its first promulgation, has lifted up its voice. God hath made the varied tribes of men 'of one blood.' Dost thou wrong a human being? He is thy brother. Art thou a murderer by war, private malice, or a wasting and exhausting oppression? 'The voice, of thy brother's blood crieth to God from the ground.' Dost thou, because of some accidental circumstance of rank, opulence, or power, on thy part treat him with scorn and contempt? He is thy 'brother for whom Christ died;' the incarnate Redeemer assumed his nature as well as thine. He came into the world to seek and to save him, as well as thee; and it was in reference to him also, that he went through the scenes of the garden and the cross. There is not then a man on earth who has not a father in heaven, and to whom Christ is not an advocate and patron; nay, more, because of our common humanity, to whom he is not a brother."

        Hear this, ye slave-holding churches of America! and tremble for the account which you will have to render at the great day of judgment, when the question shall be asked--What hast thou done with that poor benighted African--that talent that was given thee to improve? Hast thou squandered it? Hast thou hidden it in a napkin; or hast thou used it in any way so that it shall redound to the glory of God and the good of man? Alas, no! to use thou hast put it; but to how base a use! Thou hast made it subservient to thine own pride, and avarice, and sensuality; and thus bast hast done thy best to efface the glorious image of its and thy Maker, with which it was

stamped in the mint of heaven, and to substitute a figure and a superscription which shall make it pass current in the exchange of hell. This thou hast done; oh, false professor of a creed of brotherhood! This thou continuest to do; and what avails it in the sight of heaven, that thou makest long prayers, and givest alms to the poor, and teachest and preachest with such fervency and unction, the holy precepts of christianity, with which thine actions have so little agreement?

        How fearful, when thou standest before thy Father, and thy Judge, to give an account of all that thou hast done in the flesh, will be the question--"Cain where is thy brother Abel?" Will thy trembling lips then dare to ask-- "Am I my brother's keeper?"No, for thou wilt know that thou oughtest to have been his helper, and instructor, and protector. Will you babble then about the Old Testament law? Will ye point to the Gospel, and say that Paul sent Onesimus back to bondage; ye, who have dwelt in the full blaze of a new dispensation, and who knew, or ought to have known, that the only bondage referred to by the Apostle, was, that of christian fellowship, into which the poor disciple was to be received "as a brother." How vain will be all such subterfuges; and how vain do they seem even now; well may the poor slave exclaim--

                         "Deem our nation brutes no longer,
                         Till some reason ye shall find,
                         Worthier of regard and stronger,
                         Than the colour of our kind.

                         Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings
                         Tarnish all your boasted powers,
                         Prove that you have human feelings,
                         Ere you proudly question ours!"

        It would be well for those who contend for the inferiority of the Negro race, and point to the present degraded condition of the poor Africans, as a proof of that inferiority, to glance for a moment at Caesar's description of their own ancestors.-- "In their domestic and social habits, the Britons are as degraded as the most savage nations. They are clothed with skins; wear the hair of their heads unshaven and long, and shave the rest of their bodies except their upper lip; and stain themselves a blue colour, with woad, which gives them a horrible aspect in battle." Deeply sunken as they were in ignorance and superstition, uncouth in appearance, rude in manners,

savage in war, and in their religious rites cruel and bloody, if we wish for a parallel picture, we must look to the countries watered by the Senegal or the Gambia; we shall see there but the reflex of our own primitive state, and it may well be questioned whether, if the same opportunities of civilization and improvement which the aborigines of Britain enjoyed, were given to the woolly-headed tribes of Africa, they would not make more rapid advances than did the woad-stained dwellers in these islands, proud as is the position which they now occupy in the scale of intellect and morality.

        The Roman orator, Cicero, urges his friend Atticus "not to buy slaves from Britain, on account of their stupidity, and their inaptitude to learn music and other accomplishments." And he adds, that the ugliest and most stupid slaves came from this country. No doubt, to the highly civilized and powerful Romans, the barbarous Angles appeared like an inferior race, whom it was alike philosophical and humane to keep in a state of dependence and degradation. In the correspondence of Dr. Philip, there is an instructive passage on this head, which we cannot refrain from quoting-- "Seated one day in the house of a friend, at Cape Town, with a bust of Cicero on my right hand, and of Sir Isaac Newton on my left, I accidentally opened a book on the table, at that passage in Cicero in which the philosopher speaks so contemptuously of the natives of Great Britain. Struck with the curious coincidence arising from the circumstances in which I found myself; pointing to the bust of Cicero, and then to that of Sir Isaac Newton, I could not help exclaiming--Hear what that man says of that man's country." Dr. Philip goes on to observe, very truly, that ,"The Romans might have found an image of their own ancestors in the representation they have given of ours. And we may form not an imperfect idea of what our ancestors were at the time when Caesar invaded Britain, by the present condition of some of the African tribes. By them we may perceive, as in a mirror, the features of our progenitors; and by our own history, we may learn the extent to which such tribes may be elevated by means favourable to their improvement." To this, we may add, the testimony of Dr. Pritchard who in his celebrated "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind," says, "The ancient Britons were nearly on a level with the New Zealanders, or Tahitians of the present day or perhaps not very superior to the Australians." And

again, "Of all pagan nations, the Gauls and Britons appear to have had the most sanguinary rites. They may well be compared, in this respect, to the Ashante, Dahomehs, and other nations of Western Africa." Let us talk no longer then of inferiority of race.--

                         "Let us not then the negro slave despise;
                         just such our sires appeared in Caesar's eyes."

        Instances might be cited, in which, what are generally considered as the distinctive marks of the negro race, have become greatly modified under the influence of a change of climate and circumstances, in the course of one or two generations; and even in the same individual a wonderful change has been observed to take place, after his shackles have been loosed, his mind enlightened, his physical wants satisfied, and his natural feelings and affections studied and respected. Frederick Douglass, cowering under the lash of Covey, the slave-breaker, half-starved and scantily clothed, and beaten like a dog, is a very different being from he who lately stood up before a British audience, in a land of freedom, himself as free as any there, and electrified thousands by his thrilling eloquence. Gilbert, like a true artist as he is, has finely depicted this difference in "Uncle Tom's Cabin Almanack." Let our readers look on the two pictures, and ask themselves, admirably as the likeness is preserved, if it can be the same individual, here grovelling on the earth, and terror-stricken at the expected punishment, like the mere animal; there upright, as a man should be, with flashing eyes, and a countenance lighted with intelligence.

        Look again at poor Pennington, the scared run-away, when he entered with a trembling heart and hesitating steps, the presence of the benevolent quaker, who sheltered and fed him for awhile; and again ask yourselves--Can this be he who afterwards became so efficient a minister of the Gospel of Christ; who stood up on the platform at the Paris Peace Convention, and delivered so beautiful and impressive a speech; "whose amiable and gentlemanly deportment, pliant and elegant mind, and culture and power of intellect, have won for him the esteem of very many, while his eloquence and pathos have touched the hearts of multitudes who have been privileged to hear him;" and on whom, a German University, from whose venerable walls have gone forth masters in the loftiest departments of human lore, has conferred the honourable distinction of D. D.?

        Look again at Josiah Henson, at William Wells Brown, and others, whose biographies will be presently given, in their enslaved and free state; mark the difference, and then ask yourselves another question:--Can these noble specimens of God's handiworks--these enlightened, high-souled christian men, belong to an inferior race? Can we believe this? no, the rather let us agree with the wise and benevolent Dr. Channing, who addresses his countrymen thus:--

        "We are holding in bondage one of the best races of the human family. The Negro is among the mildest and gentlest of men. He is singularly susceptible of improvement from abroad. His children, it is said, receive more rapidly than ours the elements of knowledge. How far he can originate improvements, time alone can teach. His nature is affectionate, easily touched; and hence he is more open to religious impressions than the white man. The European races have manifested more courage, enterprise, invention; but in the dispositions which Christianity particularly honours, how inferior are they to the African! When I cast my eyes over our southern region, the land of bowie knives, Lynch law and duels-- of chivalry honour, and revenge--and when I consider that Christianity is declared to be a spirit of charity, ''which seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and endureth all things,'--can I hesitate in deciding to which of the races in that land Christianity is most adapted and in which its noblest disciples are likely to be reared."

        Elsewhere this eloquent advocate of the oppressed Negro makes the following forcible observations:--"The moral influence of slavery is to destroy the proper consciousness and spirit of a man. The slave, regarded and treated as property, bought and sold like a brute, denied the rights of humanity, unprotected against insult, made a tool, and systematically subdued, that he may be a manageable useful tool, how can he help regarding himself as fallen below his race? How must his spirit be crushed? How can he respect himself? He becomes bowed to servility. This word, borrowed from his condition, expresses the ruin wrought by slavery within him. The idea that he was made for his own virtue and happiness scarcely dawns on his mind. To be an instrument of the physical, material good of another, whose will is his highest law, he is taught to regard as the great purpose of his being. The whips and imprisonment of slavery, and even the horrors of the middle passage from Africa to America, these are not to be named in comparison with

this extinction of the proper consciousness of a human being, with the degradation of a man into a brute.

        It may be said that the slave is used to his yoke; that his sensibilities are blunted; and that he receives, without a pang or a thought, the treatment which would sting other men to madness. And to what does this apology amount? It virtually declares that slavery has done its perfect work--has quenched the spirit of humanity--that the Man is dead within the Slave. It is not, however, true that this work of abasement is ever so effectually done as to extinguish all feeling. Man is too great a creature to be wholly ruined by Man. When he seems dead he only sleeps. There are occasionally some sullen murmurs in the calm of slavery, showing that life still beats in the soul, that the idea of rights cannot be wholly effaced from the human being. It would be too painful, and it is not needed, to detail the process by which the spirit is broken in slavery. I refer to one only, the selling of slaves. The practice of exposing fellow-creatures for sale, of having markets for men as for cattle, of examining the limbs and muscles of a man and woman as of a brute, of putting human beings under the hammer of an auctioneer, and delivering them, like any other article of merchandise, to the highest bidder, all this is such an insult to our common nature, and so infinitely degrading to the poor victim, that it is hard to conceive of its existence except in a barbarous country. The violation of his own rights to which he is inured from birth, must throw confusion over his ideas of all human rights. He cannot comprehend them; or, if he does, how can he respect them, seeing them, as he does, perpetually trampled on in his own person?"

        Other demoralizing, we had almost said demonizing, influences, which the system of slavery calls into play, might be dwelt upon, were they not of too dark and impure a character to admit of more than a passing hint. Any properly constituted and instructed mind must shrink with horror at even a distant contemplation of those violations of virtue and decency, and the best and holiest affections of humanity, which are of daily, hourly occurrence in the slave states of America, if the testimony of a "thousand witnesses" many of them favourable to this accursed system, is to be believed.

        We may now quote a few remarks apropos to our subject, by an authority of some weight in this country. In an article in "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal," on a work published some years since in one of the slave states, the professed object of which was to prove that Negroes are not human beings

in the full sense of the term, but a sort of intermediate link between the larger of the ape tribe and the white races of man, it is said in conclusion, "The answer to all these arguments is, we think, not difficult. Supposing the Negroes differ in all the alleged respects from the whites, the difference we would say, is not such as to justify, the whites in making a property of them, and treating them with cruelty. But the Negroes are not, in reality, beyond the pale of humanity, either physically or mentally, Their external conformation is not greatly different from that of whites. Their being the same mentally, is shewn by the fact, that many Negroes have displayed intellectual and moral features equal to those of whites of high endowment. We might instance Carey, Jenkins, Cuffee, Gustavus Vasa, Toussaint, and many others.

        If any one Negro has shewn a character identical with that of the white race, the whole family must be the same, though in general inferior. The inferiority is shewn to be not in kind, but in degree; and it would be just as proper for the clever whites to seize and enslave the stupid ones, as for the whites in general to enslave the blacks in general. The blacks, moreover, have shewn a capacity of improvement. They have shewn that, as in many districts of even our island of Great Britain, many parts of mind appear absent only when not brought out or called into exercise, and that by education the dormant faculties can be awakened and called into strength, if not in one generation, at least in the course of several. The tendency slavery is to keep down, at nearly the level of brutes, beings who might be brightened into intellectual and moral beauty."

        Further, in their "Tract on Intelligent Negroes," the Messrs. Chambers either give utterance, or the sanction of their names, to this sentiment--"Such men as Jenkins and Carey at once close the months of those who, from ignorance or something worse, allege an absolute difference, or specific character, between the two races, and justify the consignment of the black to a fate which only proves the lingering barbarism of the white."

        Yes, we are all stones from one quarry, dark of hue and rugged of form as some may be, while others are white and beautifully polished; coloured and shapen in accordance with the will of the Divine Architect, we shall form eventually one grand and symmetrical whole--a temple that shall redound to the glory of Him who designed and fashioned it. What,

then; shall the richly sculptured capital of the slender column, or the embossed key-stone of the stately arch, despise the dark and rugged mass which helps to form the basement? nay, not so; for it performs an important work in the economy of the whole structure, and might by labour and skill have been rendered worthy a place in its more ornamental parts. But dropping the metaphor, truly may we say to the Negro--

                         "Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, thou art,
                         Co-heritor of kindred being thou;
                         From the full tide that warmed one mother's heart,
                         Thy veins and ours received the genial flow."

        It is plain, from the accounts which travellers give us, that the great varieties, or races, into which ethnologists have divided the human family, are not by any means so distinctly marked as they would have us believe. The main distinctions of these races are their geographical boundaries, for they melt, and, as it were, run into each other in almost imperceptible gradations: and but for the mountains, and seas, and rivers, which divide them, there would be really no clear lines of demarcation. The woolly hair, protuberant lips, and other physical characteristics, as they are generally considered, of the Negro race, are not found in all of them, and one or other, sometimes several of these characteristics, are found in other tribes. There are Negroes which the most inveterate hater of a black skin could not but acknowledge to be beautiful--perfect models of grace and elegance; and there are white men, aye, men of the great dominant Anglo-saxon race whose appearance would indicate a very near approach to the lower grade of animals. That the structural anatomy of all races closely approximates, even Dr. Knox admits, for he says--"Strip off the outer garments of Venus, and compare her to a bushwoman, (one of the most degraded of the African tribes,) and the difference would be seen to be very slight." These distinctions of race then, on which so much stress is laid, are not organic, but merely superficial, and therefore, as we must believe, variable according to climate and circumstances.

        Wilson Armistead, whose volume contains a vast amount of information on this head, tells us that "Professor Blumenbach, the great German physiologist, bestowed much labour and research on the question of Negro capacity. He collected a large number of skulls, and also a numerous library of the works of persons of African blood or descent, (which

library it is said would bear out the assertion, that there is not a single department of taste or science, in which some Negro has not distinguished himself.) Blumenbach is perhaps, the greatest authority, in favour of the identity of species, and of intellect in the black and white races. It is to him that we are indebted for the most complete body of information on this subject, which he illustrated most successfully by his unrivalled collection of the Craniæ of different nations, from all parts of the globe.

        From the results of the observations of Blumenbach and others, it appears then, that there is no characteristic whatever in the organization of the skull or brain of the Negro, which affords a presumption of inferior endowment, either of the intellectual of moral faculties. If it be asserted that the African nations are inferior to the rest of mankind, from historical facts, because they may be thought not to have contributed their share to the advancement of human arts and sciences, the Mandingoes may be instanced as a people evidently susceptible of high mental culture and civilization. They have not, indeed, contributed much towards the advancement of human arts and sciences, but they have evinced themselves willing and able to profit by these advantages, when introduced among them."And what more could the so- called superior races have done? They have availed themselves of the means and opportunities of improvement offered to them, and become elevated above the dark region of ignorance and superstition, in which the poor Negro yet lies grovelling; let them lend him a helping hand and lift him up to the same height of civilization and knowledge as that on which they now stand, and which he is as capable of occupying and enjoying as themselves.

        Who can tell what a bright and glorious future may yet be in store for this now degraded and persecuted race; how high a position they may yet attain in the scale of humanity. In the revolutions of past ages, what nations and races have arisen from a state of barbarism, grown great and flourished for awhile, and then declined; and it may be that we ourselves have reached, and passed, our culminating point of power and earthly glory; and that when we are far down the descent which leads to extinction, or subjugation, the dark-skinned dwellers in that far western continent, may be great, and powerful, and famous; lifting aloft the lamp of christianity--"That light which lighteneth every one that cometh into the world;"cherishing the arts and sciences which can no longer find a place in our deserted

schools and halls of learning; and, enriched by that commerce which once crowded our ports with shipping, and filled our marts to overflowing. Who can say what God in His inscrutable wisdom, hath in store for this Negro race. We can scarcely imagine that beneath the depth in which they now lie bound, hand and foot, there is a lower deep still for them; the light of knowledge and civilization, and above all, of christianity, must reach their benighted souls; with knowledge will come power, with power freedom; it is, it must be so ordained. Let us then be fellow-workers with God, whose image we recognise in this black brother of ours, crying out for help amid the embers of his burning kraal, in the desolate karoo, across which he journeys, faint and bleeding; on the wide waters of the intermediate passage, nearly stifled in the hold of the pestiferous slave ship; and in that boasted land of liberty, where the true dignity of man is so much talked about, but so little understood, and where independence would appear to mean a total disregard of all the claims and rights of human brotherhood! Listen, oh, listen, with pity and sympathy, to

THE CRY OF THE AMERICAN SLAVE

                         THERE'S promise of freedom
                         For me and for mine;
                         I hear the glad tidings,
                         I see the light shine;
                         But it shineth afar yet,
                         The hill-tops are bright,
                         While the vale where the slave lies
                         Is gloomy as night;
                         An the voice of deliverance
                         Sounds faint when the cries
                         And the groans of the scourged,
                         And the fettered arise.

                         Press on, my white brothers!
                         The tyrants are strong,
                         Ye have giants to cope with--
                         Oppression and Wrong:
                         Be brave, my white brothers!
                         Your work is of love;
                         All good men pray for you,
                         And God is above;
                         And the poor slave he crieth
                         Unto ye for aid--
                         Oh, be not discouraged!
                         Oh, be not afraid!

                         From the cotton plantation,
                         The rice-swamp, the mill,
                         The cane-field, the workshop
                         The cry cometh still:--
                         Oh! save us, and shield us,
                         We groan and we faint;
                         No words can our sorrows,
                         Our miseries paint;
                         Our souls are our masters',
                         They sport with our lives,
                         They torture and scourge us
                         With whips, and with gyves.

                         We see scowling faces
                         On every hand;
                         We bear on our persons,
                         The marks of the brand;
                         We're fed, and we're cared for,
                         Like horses and hogs;
                         We're cut, and we're shot at,
                         And hunted with dogs;
                         Like goods we are bartered,
                         And given, and sold;
                         And the rights of our race
                         There are none to uphold;--

                         Save ye, noble workers
                         In freedom's great cause;
                         Save ye, loud proclaimers
                         Of God's righteous laws,
                         Who call us your brothers,
                         Though black be our skin,
                         And own we have hearts
                         These dark bosoms within--
                         Like feelings, emotions,
                         And passions, with those
                         Who spurn us, and scorn us,
                         And scoff at our woes.