Indeed, such is the disappointment in
many cases, that they immediately return back again, completely insulted
at the idea, of having us here at the north, assume ourselves to be
their superiors. Indeed, if our superior advantages of the free States,
do not induce and stimulate us to the higher attainments in life, what
in the name of degraded humanity will do it? Nothing, surely nothing.
If, in fine, the advantages of free schools in Massachusetts, New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and wherever else we may have them, do not
give us advantages and pursuits superior to our slave brethren, then are
the unjust assertions of Messrs. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Theodore
Frelinghuysen, late Governor Poindexter of Mississippi, George McDuffy,
Governor Hammond of South Carolina, Extra Billy (present Governor)
Smith, of Virginia, and the host of our oppressors, slave-holders and
others, true, that we are insusceptible and incapable of elevation to
the more respectable, honorable, and higher attainments among white men.
But this we do not believe--neither do you, although our whole life and
course of policy in this country are such, that it would seem to prove
otherwise. The degradation of the slave parent has been entailed upon
the child, induced by the subtle policy of the oppressor, in regular
succession handed down from father to son--a system of regular
submission and servitude, menialism and dependence, until it has become
almost a physiological function of our system, an actual condition of
our nature.
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