rulers of our own domestic household, while the bondman's self is
claimed by another, and his relation to his family denied him. What the
unfortunate classes are in Europe, such are we in the United States,
which is folly to deny, insanity not to understand, blindness not to
see, and surely now full time that our eyes were opened to these
startling truths, which for ages have stared us full in the face.

It is time that we had become politicians, we mean, to understand the
political economy and domestic policy of nations; that we had become as
well as moral theorists, also the practical demonstrators of equal
rights and self-government. Except we do, it is idle to talk about
rights, it is mere chattering for the sake of being seen and heard--like
the slave, saying something because his so called "master" said it, and
saying just what he told him to say. Have we not now sufficient
intelligence among us to understand our true position, to realise our
actual condition, and determine for ourselves what is best to be done?
If we have not now, we never shall have, and should at once cease
prating about our equality, capacity, and all that.

Twenty years ago, when the writer was a youth, his young and yet
uncultivated mind was aroused, and his tender heart made to leap with
anxiety in anticipation of the promises then held out by the prime
movers in the cause of our elevation.

In 1830 the most intelligent and leading spirits among the colored men
in the United States, such as James Forten, Robert Douglass, I. Bowers,
A.D. Shadd, John Peck, Joseph Cassey, and John B. Vashon of
Pennsylvania; John T. Hilton, Nathaniel and Thomas Paul, and James G.
Barbodoes of Massachusetts; Henry Sipkins, Thomas Hamilton, Thomas L.
Jennings, Thomas Downing, Samuel E. Cornish, and others of New York; R.