Because even were
it possible, with the present hate and jealousy that the whites have
towards us in this country, for us to gain equality of rights with them;
we never could have an equality of the exercise and enjoyment of those
rights--because, the great odds of numbers are against us. We might
indeed, as some at present, have the right of the elective
franchise--nay, it is not the elective franchise, because the _elective
franchise_ makes the enfranchised, _eligible_ to any position
attainable; but we may exercise the right of _voting_ only, which to us,
is but poor satisfaction; and we by no means care to cherish the
privilege of voting somebody into office, to help to make laws to
degrade us.
In religion--because they are both _translators_ and _commentators_, we
must believe nothing, however absurd, but what our oppressors tell us.
In Politics, nothing but such as they promulge; in Anti-Slavery, nothing
but what our white brethren and friends say we must; in the mode and
manner of our elevation, we must do nothing, but that which may be laid
down to be done by our white brethren from some quarter or other; and
now, even on the subject of emigration, there are some colored people to
be found, so lost to their own interest and self-respect, as to be
gulled by slave owners and colonizationists, who are led to believe
there is no other place in which they can become elevated, but Liberia,
a government of American slave-holders, as we have shown--simply,
because white men have told them so.
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