The Portland daily press., 1866-11-23

ABOUT tne year 1881, panic was raised in
several of the Southern States, by the discov-
cry of an inaammatory pamphlet called San
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World"
which was found here and there in the hands
OF the more intelligent slaves. Very few copies
of this little work ever came into the hands of
white men North or South. We find in the
New York Post a description Of a single copy
which has been preserved. 1t is the third edi-
ton, dated 1880, makes SO pages octave, and
purports to have been written in Boston, in
September, 1929 David Walker, the author.
was negro of powerful but unframed intel
iect. His pamphlet is full of rude force, some
times startling in its earnestness. "We color
ed people of these United States" he saws.
ARE the most degraded and abject set of beings
that ever lived since the world began" And
again, most truly, "The Christians of
America, who hold us in slavery, treat us more
cruel and barbarous than any heather nation
did any people whom it had reduced to the
same condition" He urges the people to eiu-
cate themselves, to defend themselves against
oppression and to resist to the last the coloni-
cation plan" Here is passage which illus
trates the spirit and manner of the book:
lily HiUuS ana knees through
mud and mire to the feet of a learned man,
where would sit and hunbly supplicate him
to instill into me that which neither men nor
devils could remove only with my life. For
colored people to acquire learning in this coun-
try make tyrants quake and trenble on their
sandy foundations. Why, what is the matter ?
Why, they know that their Internal deeds of
cruelty will be made known to the world Do
you suppose one man OF sense and learning
would submit himself, his father, mother. wife
nd IN oxrrraf oh
himself, who instead of compromising him for
his labOrs, chains and beats him and family
almost to DEATH leaving life enough, however,
to work, and to call him master? No no! he
would cut his develish throat from ear to ear.
andiwell do the shareholders know it. The bare
name of educating the colored people scares
our cruel oppressOrs to death. But if they do
not have enough TO be frightened for yet, it
will be because they can always keep us igno-
rant. The whites shall have enough of the
blacks yet, as true as God sits on his throne in
Heaven.
Inns pamphlet was printed at the expense of
a few colored men who had earned something
more than living. Walker Himself carried it
secretly all over the South years before Mr..
Garrison began his agitation among the whites
The appeal met with no response Sickened
and almost driven to frenzy by the oppression
he saw, disappointed and discouraged by the
apathy of his people, his labors were at last
cut short by poverty and illness. His labor had
apparently been wasted. ..-....-
1t seems scarcely possible that single gen.
Grafton has witnessed change SO wonderful,
but the son of this illiterate pamphleteer has
just been elected to represent the city of Char
lesion in the Massachusetts, Legislature David
Walker complains in his little book, that ''the
school committee forbid the colored children
learning grammar" He was crushed by anx-
iety for the future of his children. His son.
Edward Garrison Walker, is well known as a
lawyer in Charleston, has long been prominent
in political meetings, and will do credit to him
self and his race anywhere
1.-THE South says, Poor tolEs coscny
An AH men up! says we,-
White, yaller, black and brown:
Now which is your idee?"