[25] The mulatto youth had been purchased in the city of Washington, and kept in it in irons several weeks, by a person who confessed his regret that he had not removed him before the suit for the recovery of his freedom had commenced; and that, if he had known it sooner, he would have taken him on to ——, (the place of his residence,) even if he had been satisfied of his being free. One Slave-Trader, to whom he had been offered, was however so conscientious, that he refused to purchase him, or the lad who was with him, (before mentioned) being confident that they were illegally enslaved.
[26] I have been assured by a gentleman of the highest respectability, that a former representative to Congress, from one of the southern states, acknowledged to him, that he held a mulatto man as a slave, having purchased him in company with slaves, who affirmed that he was free born, and had been kidnapped from one of the New England states; who was well educated, and who, he had no doubt, was born as free a man as himself, or my informant. Upon being asked, how he could bear then to retain him, he replied, that the customs of his part of the country were such, that these things are not minded much.
[27] I was informed that the mulatto man was probably destined for the New-Orleans market, not very far distant from the Gulf of Mexico, which probably embraces more personal slavery, including its neighbouring regions, than any region of equal extent on the globe.
[28] On the ensuing day, having persevered in endeavours to secure the captives, the son of this landlord (to whom I presume manacles, hand-cuffs, iron man-fetters, hopples &c. are as familiar as steel-traps and snares to the hunter of the animals which yield fur,) expressed his sympathy for the loss of the purchaser of the mulatto man, (who still remained in his chains,) should he be set at liberty. I asked him whether he considered it worse for the trader to lose a few hundred dollars in money, than for the mulatto man to be transported to a strange country, and be deprived of his liberty for life. To which he replied, after a short pause, that he did not know as there was much difference! I assured him, that if he did not, I was sorry for him. This illustrates the invincible force of morbid education and of habit.
[29] By information, derived from distinct and corresponding sources, a few days after this caravan left Washington, there is no doubt of the fact, that it contained, in addition to the slaves, a young black woman, who had been emancipated in Delaware, and was sold by the same person as an agent, that assisted in seizing and sold the black woman and child; and also a legally free mulatto man, in irons, who had been sold in the night by his employer, near Philadelphia, and who was most unmercifully beaten with a club, on the night previous to their arrival in the city, for telling a person that he was free.
[30] Additional aid was also rendered by the Abolition Society at Wilmington.
[31] It would be equally as absurd to do this, as it would to import 2,000,000 prisoners of war from Turkey or China, and make citizens of them.
[32] "It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know, that all are the work of an Almighty Hand." [From the first section of the Preamble to the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, before referred to.]
[33] M'Gurran Coulon, in his "Observations on the Insurrection of the Negroes in the Island of St. Domingo," read before the National Assembly of France, attributes the troubles of that island, "above all, to the injustice of which the whites have been guilty, in refusing to let the mulattos partake of the blessings of liberty." This was evidently one of the chief proximate causes;—but the primitive radical origin of those implacable conflicts between different shades of colour, may be traced to the miserable fatal policy which permitted the production of those shades. "The white father falls a victim to the unnatural rage of his mulatto son." "In a country where it is by no means unusual for the known children of the Planter to undergo all the hardships, and the ignominy of slavery, in common with the most degraded class of mortals, is it there we are to seek for instances of filial affection?" [Inquiry into the Causes of the Insurrection of the Negroes in St. Domingo.]
[34] Recent message of the President of the United States to Congress, alluding to the red natives of America.