Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1862-08-21

the whole race, and treat it with all the indig-
nifty which our laws will permit. We do not
treat the negro as q man. The street cars of
New York city, which carry the advertisement
"colored people allowed in this car" is q busy
record of our shame. The black corners in our
burial grounds and the negro pews in our
churches, the social prescription, the political
proscrption-the laws in some states which
forbid negro to come into the state at all, the
prejudice against color which everywhere pre-
walls, and which refuses to see negro received
into society in any capacity but that of a SER
vant-all these things show how little we be-
lieve in the doctrines which we profess, touch
ing the manhood and the rights Of the African.
Nay, all these things show that our sin against
this unfortunate race does not differ materially
in its nature from that of the slavehold ng
power of the South.
But good anti-slavery men-good, we mean,
as the world goes-will start back from this
thought of the equality of the black race with
a shudder. There is many man in Massachu-
settes to-day bowling about the government
because il will not Immediately do what lies in
its power to abolish slavery, who turns up his
nose at "nigger," with the most inhuman dis
gust. We have no very great amount OF re-
spect for the beneyolence or the sincerity OF
these men. They profess to believe that God
earth. They profess to believe that Christ died
equally for the white man and the black man,
but they account themselves almost infinitely
above the black man, and would not for the
world be caught in the street in intimate con-
verse with one. Massachusetts, is an anti
slavery state. 1t has kind feeling toward the
negroes who are in bondage, but it is neither a
negro loving nor negro respecting state,
II we 60 TO our northern army OF white men,
and propose that black regiments from either
the free or slave states shall join them, and as
sis. in putting down the rebellion, they will
protest Mt once against fighting by the side of
the negro. This pride, this prejudice Of race,
amounts almost to insanity in every free state
and throughout all our armies. We have pre-
tended to be terribly indignant that the bred
Scott decision should deny the colored man
citizenship in this country, but we of the anti
slavery North make precisely the same decision
when we deny to the black the privilege of en-
listing in our regiments to fulfil the duties of a
citizen. Now is this not a sin ? Are we not
to learn something touching the Nervousness of
this sin from the trials of this warp Are we
gutless toward the African race that we can
egitimatey wonder why we have had this ter
rible visitation Are there not slaves to be
freed at the North--black men to be made So
cially and politically free? How is itP
For ourselves, we honestly regret that the
negroes are to have no chance to distinguish
themselves in the suppression of this rebellion.
Gov. Sprague of Rhode Island means to put
through an experiment, and if it is possible,
to get black regiment into the army. We
wish that one might be recruited in Massachu-
setts--one or more. Let the race have a
chance to win respect to itself--a chance to
break down that prejudice which, alike at the
North and South, regards them as only fit to
serve, and denies TO them the privileges and
prerogatives of manhood. The truth is that,
in our anti-slavery sympathies and our inhuman
prejudices against the black, we are guilty Of
an Inconsistency which is crime in itself suf-
fcient 10 evoke the vengeance of Heavens.
Reuub.