raise ourselves superior to the condition of slaves, or continue the
meanest underlings, subject to the beck and call of every creature
bearing a pale complexion? If we are, we had as well remained in the
South, as to have come to the North in search of more freedom. What was
the object of our parents in leaving the south, if it were not for the
purpose of attaining equality in common with others of their fellow
citizens, by giving their children access to all the advantages enjoyed
by others? Surely this was their object. They heard of liberty and
equality here, and they hastened on to enjoy it, and no people are more
astonished and disappointed than they, who for the first time, on
beholding the position we occupy here in the free north--what is called,
and what they expect to find, the free States. They at once tell us,
that they have as much liberty in the south as we have in the
north--that there as free people, they are protected in their
rights--that we have nothing more--that in other respects they have the
same opportunity, indeed the preferred opportunity, of being their
maids, servants, cooks, waiters, and menials in general, there, as we
have here--that had they known for a moment, before leaving, that such
was to be the only position they occupied here, they would have remained
where they were, and never left. 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,