Slaves Not Unfit for Freedom.

They are ignorant and stupid, it is said; a brutish race, not fit for freedom. True,—in part,—and partly false. No doubt the slaves are ignorant and degraded. So any race would be, if wronged as they have been, and through so many generations. What else could be expected from men weighed down by ages of oppression, forbidden to use the key of knowledge,—letters,—allowed no hope of bettering their state, nor any motive to exert their minds or to improve their morals? But it is not true that they are only fit for slavery; fit only to be kept under the very influences which now debase them. The bad effect is no good reason for continuing the cause, but rather shows the need of its immediate removal. What!—shall we enslave men, because slavery makes them base? Keep the burden on their backs because they stoop beneath its weight; the fetter on their limbs because their gait, with it, is awkward; their dungeon closely locked because its darkness dims their sight? Is this manly?—just?—or wise? If holding man as property would give him wisdom, virtue, manly bearing; or put him in the way of getting them; or even fill him with a stronger wish to have them; then ignorance and dulness, vice and degradation, might with a little better face be urged as reasons for enslavement. But such is not its purpose nor its tendency. Its motive is self-interest; the debasement of its subject is at once its necessary means and its sure result. While slavery lasts the slaves will be degraded. Freedom is the school which fits men to be free. What if the black man is inferior to the white? It does not follow that he always must be. Excel him where his chance is equal, before you boast yourself above him. Give him his liberty, and as strong a motive to exertion as you have;—a prospect of reward as sure and ample; not only wages for his toil, but respect and honor and social standing according to his worth, and see what he can then become, before you judge him to be sunk so low that freedom cannot lift him up and bless him. His powers have never yet been fairly tried, for he has always had to struggle against difficulties and discouragements which white men do not meet. When free in name, he is denied a freeman’s rights and hopes and prospects, an open field of competition, and success to match his merit. Yet how nobly has he often proved his manhood? Throughout the United States, spread over the broad fields of Canada, and in many foreign countries, are thousands who are living proofs that slaves of African descent can shake off degradation with their chains, and win respect even from stubborn prejudice. Toussaint and Petion, Dumas the general and Dumas the author, Placide the Cuban poet, Wheatly, Banneker, Horton, Osborn, Jordan and Hill, are a few among the many witnesses, that neither learning, taste, nor talent, nor skill to rule, nor warlike prowess, nor eloquence, nor wisdom, nor sagacity, nor any element of human greatness, is incompatible with negro blood. What these men have achieved may well suggest the question, “if such things can be done in the green tree, what may be done in the dry?” If with the hindrances of slavery and caste, the colored race has shown so many proofs of manliness, what may it not do when these checks have been removed. The slaves are very few, who, if set free and treated justly, would not take better “care of themselves” than slavery has ever taken of them. Nay, doubtless many now in bondage are higher, both in intellect and morals, than many of the whites. Some slaves and masters must exchange conditions, if the inferior is to be the slave. Fix,—on your scale of mind and morals,—the point of fitness to be free; and, high or low, it will condemn the present practice. If high enough to doom all colored men to slavery, it dooms a multitude of whites; if low enough to leave the whites all free, it frees all colored men. For the lowest black is not beneath the most degraded white.