Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-04-29
From the Galena Jeffersonian.
A WORD FOR THE OPPRESSED.

We should fail to discharge our duty as
public journalists, did we not keep alive in
the minds of onr readers the wrongs and dis
abilities under which the black race in Hi
nois suffer; and we should fail to discharge
our duty as good citizens and patriots, did
we hesitate, for fear of the dissent of the
heartless or bigotted, to cry aloud against
the injustice they were doomed to endure.
A case in point: Swanzey Adams, color
ed, well known to every person in this city
as an honest industrious, pains-taking, sober
Christian man, is called upon regularly by
the tax gatherer to receive his quota toward
the support of government that Expresses
and wrongs him. The collector of the school
tax visits him whenever school rates are lev
led, and Swanzey has no alteranative-he
must pay whatever is assessed. In return
for the money that Swanzey thus unwilling
ly contributes, what does he get? Let us see.
He has been slave. Years ago, by the ex-
ercise of persevering and unremtting indus
try, he amassed money enough to purchase
himself (what phrase purchase himself!)
Settling in Illinois after a life of bondage, he
has continued the habit of labor acquired in
J,
toll, brought to his side by purchase, the wife
and, one at time the children left behind.
He has amassed a little money; has COM
Portable home and, for aught we know,
happy home. He strives to bring up his
family that he has emancipated in the nur-
ture and admontion of the Lord to so feed
and enlighten their minds, though they be-
long to despised and condemned race, they
may not err through blind and besotted TO-
norance, or fail through parental neglect.
God knows that the man who has accom-
plished what Swanzey Adams has DONE
though his skin were as black as the ex-
tinguished fires of Tophet is a mana man
the law should protect, whose virtue the law
should cherish. But what says the law to
all his kind? what says the law to him 3
You are niggerl You must pay taxes;
but you shall not have the right of citizen
ship. You shall not vote; you shall not sit
on jury; but you must pay taxes. You
shall not be allowed your oath in a court of
justice, even to rebut the testimony of the
meanest white man that lives; but you must
pay taxes for the expense of the administra-
ton of justice Not one of your children
shall see the inside of school house; but
you must pay taxes for the support of com
mon schools! You ignorant devil, we will
rear you without any attempt to enlighten
your mind; we will make you beast; but
we will require you to behave like man.
We Will not teach YOU the difference between
right and wrong; but if you do not pursue
the right and avoid the wrong, we will load
you with chains and cast you into a prison.
You have bought yourself out of slavery, and
want now to bring to your home in illinois
that child remaining in bondage, towards
whom your heart yearns with the manly ten
derness of fathers love; you may buy him;
but if you bring him here, we declare him
criminal and will seize him; we will, for no
offence, confne him in felon's jail, and will
sell him out to the best bidder into a worse
slavery than from which he escaped and if
you dare to resist the iniquity, in you go to
keep him company" Thus says the law
and Swanzey, per force, submits.
Democrats men who call yourselves De-
mocrats Is there any democracy in this? Is
it human! Is it not rather inhuman devlish.
The man who pleads for the perfect social
and political equality of the white and color
ed race, wastes hts breath. He cannot rem
der nugatory the laws which nature fixed
and by which she works. But the man who
rises superior to the vulgar prejudices of the
day, whether they tend to the union and
amagamation of these two branches of the
human family, or whether they tend to the
oppression and degradation of the one, by
the unequal and unjust laws of the other,
does good work if his utterance be not
choked Give the colored man his rights.
Relieve him from taxation for the support
of any institutions the benefit of which he is
denied Establish school where his chill
dren may be educated to discharge well,
with credit to themselves and benefit to the
State, the active duties of life Treat him as
if he was a moral AGENT responsible be-
ing. The experience of the world demon
strates that kindness is more potent for good
than kicks. Let US try it while on the in
dividuals Of the negro race, and mark well
~. rn-1,TY