Look at it, sir. Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their own chosen land,—a people for whom we have performed the humblest services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,—I say, sir, among such a people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far less esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.
Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere, may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities,—human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery. We invoke the aid of the ministers of Him who came "to preach deliverance to the captive," and to set at liberty them that are bound, and from the loftiest summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous response, saying: if one prayer would move the Almighty arm in mercy to break your galling chains, that prayer would be withheld. We cry for help to humanity—a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed. American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American Christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf,—from a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church.
Extract from an unpublished Poem on Freedom.
Oh, Freedom! when thy morning march began,
Coëval with the birth and breath of man;
Who that could view thee in that Asian clime,
God-born, soul-nursed, the infant heir of time—
Who that could see thee in that Asian court,
Flit with the sparrow, with the lion sport,
Talk with the murmur of the babbling rill
And sing thy summer song upon the hill—
Who that could know thee as thou wast inwrought
The all in all of nature's primal thought,
And see thee given by Omniscient mind,
A native boon to lord, and brute, and wind,
Could e'er have dreamed with fate's prophetic sleep,
The darker lines thy horoscope would keep,
Or trembling read, thro' tones with horror thrilled,
The damned deeds thy future name would gild?
Lo! The swart chief of Afric's vergeless plains,
Poor Heaven-wept child of nature's joys and pains,
Mounts his fleet steed with wind-directed course,
Nor checks again his free unbridled horse,
But lordless, wanders where his will inclines
From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines!
View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead!
Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled!
Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast!
Ye Christian Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7]
Who quickly kindling to historic fire
Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8]
Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow,
Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe,
And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great
Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9]
View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks
The dauntless monarch of his native walks
Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,[10]
Shouts the fierce music of his savage airs,
Or madly brave in hottest chase pursues
The tawny monster of the desert dews;
Eager, erect, persistent as the storm,
Soul in his mien, God's image in his form!
Yes, view him thus, from Kaffir to Soudan,
And tell me, worldlings, is the black a man?
See, the full sun emerging from the deep,
Climbs with red eye, the light-illumined steep,
And brightly beautiful continuous smiles
A fecund blessing on those Indian Isles!
Like eastern woods which sweeten as they burn,
So, the parched earths to odorous flowrets turn,
And feathered fayes their murmurous wings expand,
Waked by the magic of his conjuror's wand,
Flash their red plumes, and vocalize each dell
Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle,[11]
While half forgetful of her changing sphere,
The loathful summer lingers year by year.
Here, in the light of God's supernal eye—
His realms unbounded, and his woes a sigh—
The dusky son of evening placed whilcome
Found with the Gnu an ever-vernal home,
And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,[12]
Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules,
Gazed at the stars that stud yon tender blue,
And hoped, and deemed the cheat of death untrue;
Yet, supple sophist to a plastic mind,[13]
Saw gods in woods, and spirits in the wind,
Heard in the tones that stirred the waves within,
The mingled voice of Hadna and Odin,
Doomed the fleeced tenant of the wild to bleed
A guileless votive to his harmless creed,
Then gladly grateful at each rite fulfilled,
Sought the cool shadow where the spring distilled,
And lightly lab'rous thro' the torpid day,
Whiled in sweet peace the sultry eve away.
Or if perchance to nature darkly true,
He strikes the war-path thro' the midnight dew,
Steals in the covert on the sleeping foe,
And wreaks the horrors of a barbarous woe;
Yet, yet returning to the home-girt spot—
The vengeful causes and the deed forgot—[14]
Where greenest boughs o'er sloping banks impend,
And gurgling waves to bosky dells descend;
Intent the long expectant brood to sea,
He halts beneath the broad acacia tree;
And warmly pressed by wonder-gloating eyes,
Displays the vantage of each savage prize;
Stills with glad pride and plundered gems, uncouth,
The ardent longings of his daughter's youth;
Bids the dark spouse the tropic meal prepare,
Mid laughing echoes from the bird-voiced air;
Passes before him in a fond review
The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew;[15]
Recounts the dangers of the last night's strife,
Joys with their joy, and lives their inner life;
And then when slow the lengthened day expires,
Mid twilight balms and star-enkindled fires,
With all the father sees each form retire,
A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.[16]