The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-11-24

think that even slaves would be made immeas-
urably better by liberty but do not believe
they would be made better by liberty gained by
instruction or rebellion. A regulated Liberty,
Liberty possessed with the consent of their
masters, liberty under the laws and institu-
tons of the country, a Liberty which should
make them common benefciaries of those in
situations and principles which make us wise
and happy-such q Liberty would be q great
blessing to them. Freedom, with law and gov
ernment is good; but without them, it is
mischief And anything that tends to incite
among men vague insurrectionary spirit, is
great and cruel wrong to them.
If, in view of the wrongs of Slavery, you say
that you do not care for the master but only
the slave, / reply, that you should care for both
master and slave If you do not care for the
fate of the wrong-doing white man, do care
for the fate of the wrong-doing white man
But even though your sympathy were only for
the slave, then for his sake you ought to set
your face against and discountenance anything
like an insurrectionary spirit.
Let us turn, then, from these specifications
of the acrong ssay, to some consideration relating
to the right acdy
l. If we would benefit the African at the
South, we must begin at home This is to some
men the most disagreeable part of the doctrine
of emancipation. 1t is very easy to labor for
the emancipation of beings thousand miles
off; but when it comes 70 the practical applca-
ton of justice and humanity to those about us,
it is not so easy. The truths of God respecting
the rights and dignities of men, are just as inn
portant to free colored men as to enslayed col
ored men. 1t may seem strange for me to say
that the lever with which to lift the load of Geor
gia is in New York but it is. do not believe
the whole free North can tolerate grinding in
justice toward the poor, and inhumanity toward
the laboring classes, without exerting an infiu-
ence unfavorable to justice and humanity in the
South. No one can fail to see the Inconsistency
between our treatment of those amongst us who
are in the lower walks of life, and our profes-
sions of sympathy for the Southern slaves. How
are the free colored people treated at the North?
| They are almost without education, with but
little sympathy for ignorance. They are refused
the common rights of citizenship which the
whites enjoy. They cannot even ride in the
cars of our city railroads. They are snuffed at
in the house of God, or tolerated with ill.dis-
guised disgust. Can the black man be mason
in New York? Let him be employed as jour.
neyman, and every Irish lover of Liberty that
carries the hod or trowel would leave at once
or compel him to leavel Can the black man
be carpenter? There is scarcely carpen-
ter's shop in New York in which Journey
man would continue to work, if black man
was employed in it. Can the black man engage
in the common industries of life? There is
scarcely one in which he can engage He is
crowded down, down, down, through the most
mental callings, to the bottom of society. We
tax them, and then refuse to allow their chill
dren to go to our public schools. We tax them,
and then refuse to sit by them in Gods house
We heap upon them moral obloquy more afro
cious than that which the master heaps upon
the slave. And, Notwithstanding all this, we
lift ourselves up to talk to the Southern people
about the rights and liberties of the human
soul, and especially the African soul
1t is true that Slavery is cruel. But it is not
at all certain that there is not more love to the
race in the South than in the North. They love
their property. We do not own them, so we do
not love them at all. The prejudice of the
whites against color is so strong that they can
not endure to ride or sit with black man, so
long as they do not Ol0R him. AS a neighbor,
they are not to be tolerated but as property,
they are most tolerable in the house, the church,
the carriage, the couch The African, o,cned,
may dwell in America; but ,tnoWned, he must
be expatriated; emancipation must be iackal to
colonization. The choice given to the African
is plantation or colonization. Our Christian
public sentiment is a pendulum swinging be-
tween Oa0ning or exporting the poor in our
midst.
Whenever we are prepared to show toward
the lowest the poorest, and the most despised,
an unaffected kindness, such as led Christ,
though the Lord of glory, to lay aside his dig
mites, and take on himself the form of SER
want, and to an ..ignominious death, that he
might rescue men from ignorance and bond
age-whenever we are prepared to do such
things as these, we may be sure that the exam
pie of the North will not be unfelt at the South.
Every effort that is made in Brooklyn to estab-
lish schools and churches for the free colored
people, and to encourage them to educate them
selves and become independent, is a step to-
ward emancipation in the South The degrade
ton of free coored men in the North will fortify
Slavery in the South
2. We must quicken all the springs of feeling
in the free States in behalf of Human Liberty,
and create a public sentiment based upon
truth and true manhood. For if we act to any
good purpose on the minds of the South, we
must do it through a salutary and pure public
sentiment in the North. When we have cor
rected our own practice, and set an example of
the right spirit, then we shall have position
from which to exert beneficial public infu-
ence on the minds of Southern Shareholders.
For this, there must be full and free discussion.
Under our institutions, public opinion is the
monarch, and free speech and debate form pub
lie opinion.
The air must be vital with the love of Liberty
Liberty with US must be raised by Religion from
the selhshness of an instinct to the sanctity of
moral principle We must love it for ourselves,
and demand it for others. Since Christ took
mans nature, human life has Divine sanctity.
We must inspire in the public mind profound
sense of the rights of men, founded upon their
relations to God The glory of intelligence, re-
hnement genius, has nothing to do with mems
rights. The rice slave, the Hottentot, are as
much Gods children as Humboldt or Chalmers.
That they are in degradation, only makes it
more imperative upon US to secure to them the
birthright which they in ignorance might sell
for mess Of pottage.
These things must become familiar again to
our pulpits. Our children must be taught to
| glow again in our schools over the heroic ideals
of Liberty. Mothers must Irvine the first threads
of their children's life with the golden threads
OF these Divine truths, and the whole of life
must be woven to the heavenly pattern of Lib.
erty
| What can the North do for the South, unless
her own heart is purified and ennobled =? When
the love of Liberty is at so low an ebb that
| churches dread the sound, ministers shrink
from the topic when book publishers dare not
publish or republish word on the subject of
Slavery, cut out every living word from school
books, expurgate life-passages from Humboldt,
| Spurgeon, and all foreign authors or teachers
and when great religious publication societies,
endowed for the very purpose of speaking fear
lcssly the truths which interest would let perish
pervert their trust and are dumb, first and
chiefly, and articulate only in things that thou
sands of others could publish as well as thew
what chance is there that public sentiment, in