Henry Highland Garnet

“ America is my home, my country, and I have no other. I love whatever of good there may be in her institutions. I hate her sins. I loathe her slavery, and I pray Heaven that ere long she may wash away her guilt in tears of repentance. I love the green-hills which my eyes first beheld in my infancy. I love every inch of soil which my feet pressed in my youth, and I mourn because the accursed shade of slavery rests upon it. I love my country’s flag, and I hope that soon it will be cleansed of its stains, and be hailed by all nations as the emblem of freedom and independence. ”

“ By an almost common consent, the modern world seems determined to pilfer Africa of her glory. It were not enough that her children have been scattered over the globe, clothed in the garments of shame—humiliated and oppressed—but her merciless foes weary themselves in plundering the tombs of our renowned sires, and in obliterating their worthy deeds, which were inscribed by fame upon the pages of ancient history. ”

“ The whole boundless continent is ours,”
in this they bespeak our destiny.
There are those who, either from good or evil motives, plead for the utopian plan of the Colonization of a whole race to the shores of Africa. We are now colonized. We are planted here, and we cannot as a whole people, be re-colonized back to our father-land. It is too late to make a successful attempt to separate the black and white people in the New World. They love one another too much to endure a separation. Where one is, there will the other be also. ”

“ The good institutions of the land are well adapted to the developement of the mind. So far as the oppressed shall make their own way towards them, and shall escape the influence of those that are evil, so far shall they succeed in throwing off their bitter thraldom, and in wrenching the scourge from the hands of tyranny.
Slavery has done much to ruin us, and we ourselves have done some things which effect the same. Perhaps the evils of which I am about to speak arise from slavery, and are the things without which the system cannot exist. ”

“ Justice and judgment are the habitations of his throne, and mercy and truth go before his face. His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and his law is the truth.”
The truth will profit us nothing if we suffer it not to clothe us in our right minds—it returns without accomplishing its high mission to us, if we refuse to let her lead us to the delectable mountain, from whence we can behold the pure stream of the law of Jehovah, flowing from his throne, hailed by angel voices and the music of the spheres. ”

“ Among the seven hundred wives, and the three hundred concubines, who filled his houses, the most favored queen was a beautiful sable daughter of one of the Pharoahs of Egypt. In order to take her to his bosom, he trampled upon the laws of his nation, and incurred the divine displeasure—for a Jew might not espouse any heathen or idolater who was not circumcised in heart. When he had secured her, he bowed his great intellect before her, that he might do her that homage which he paid to no other woman. Solomon was a poet, and pure love awakened the sweetest melody in his soul. ”

“ On the other continent, the destiny of the colored people will be similar to that of the people among whom they are scattered. Colorphobia is confined almost entirely to the United States and the Canadas. We speak of prejudice against color, but in fact, nothing of the kind exists. The prejudice is against the condition alone. Were not this the case the American feeling would pervade the whole earth.
Many things that were intended for evil to us, will result, I trust, in good. The tyrants have debarred us from the wealth accruing from trade and commerce. This is an evil. ”

“ But the Colored race, although they have been transplanted in a foreign land, have clung to and grown with their oppressors, as the wild ivy entwines around the trees of the forest, nor can they be torn thence. At this moment when so much feigned hatred is manifested toward us, our blood is mixed with every tribe from Cape Horn to the Frozen Ocean. ”

“ We should be burdened with that renegade negro of the United States Senate, Mr. Yulee, of Florida. We should take one of the wives of Senator Samuel Houston. The consort,—the beautiful Cleopatra of his Excellency, R. M. Johnson, late Democratic Vice President of this great nation,—would be the foremost in the vast company of exiles. After we all should return to tread the golden sands of Africa, whether we would add to the morality of our kindred across the deep waters future generations would decide. ”

“ Our sisters ever manifesting the purest kindness, whether in the wilderness of their father-land, or amid the sorrows of the middle passage, or in crowded cities, are unprotected from the lusts of tyrants. They have a regard for virtue, and they possess a sense of honor, but there is no respect paid to these jewels of noble character. Driven into unwilling concubinage, their offspring are sold by their Anglo Saxon fathers. To them the marriage institution is but a name, for their despoilers break down the hymenial alter and scatter its sacred ashes on the winds. ”

“ For one I would [23] welcome my dark-browed and liberty-loving brethren to our embrace. Aye! let them come with the population of seven and a half millions. One fifth of that number are white, and they are ultra Abolitionists. Two fifths are Indians, and the other two fifths are of the black, and mixed races. I repeat it, I should not dispair if they should come.
The dominions of slavery are directly between Northern and Southern freedom—between Eastern and Western Democracy. In the East the sons of New England are waking up at freedom’s call, among the tombs of their fathers. ”

“ Our young men are brutalized in intellect, and their manly energies are chilled by the frosts of slavery. Sometimes they are called to witness the agonies of the mothers who bore them writhing under the lash, and as if to fill up to overflowing the already full cup of demonism, they are sometimes compelled to apply the lash with their own hands. ”

“ The airy plains are radiant with prophetic brightness, and truth, love, and liberty are descending the heavens, bearing the charter of man’s destiny to a waiting world.
All the various forms of truth that are presented to the minds of men, are in perfect harmony with the government of God. Many things that appear to be discordant are not really so ”

“ This western world is destined to be filled with a mixed race. Statesmen, distinguished for their forecast, have gravely said that the blacks must either be removed, or such as I have stated will be the result. It is a stubborn fact, that it is impossible to separate the pale man and the man of color, and therefore the result which to them is so fearful, is inevitable. ”

“ The oppressive burdens of slavery, therefore, will keep down Anglo-American progress in that direction!”
Cincinnati Chronicle.
[25] Who is there, after looking at these facts, will question the probability of the assumption, that this republic, and this continent, are to be the theatre in which the grand drama of our triumphant Destiny is to be enacted.
The Red men of North America are retreating from the approach of the white man. They have fallen like trees on the ground in which they first took root, and on the soil which their foliage once shaded. ”

“ It was from them that he gathered the materials with which he reared that grand superstructure, partaking of law, poetry, and history, which has filled the world with wonder and praise. Mournful reverses of fortune have passed over that illustrious people. ”

“ They cry from gory fields—from pestilential rice swamps—from cane breaks, and forests—from plantations of cotton and tabacco—from the dark holds of slave ships, and from countless acres where the sugar cane nods to the sighing winds. ”

“ These men being the children of one father, they were originally of the same complexion—for we cannot through the medium of any law of nature or reason, come to the conclusion, that one was black, another was copper-colored, and the other was white. Adam was a [7] red man, and by what law of nature his descendants became dissimilar to him, is a problem which is yet to be clearly solved. The fact that the universal Father has varied the complexions of his children, does not detract from his mercy, or give us reason to question his wisdom. ”

“ If the colored people should all consent to leave this country, on the day of their departure there would be sore lamentations, the like of which the world has not heard since Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not. We would insist upon taking all who have our generous and prolific blood in their veins. In such an event, the American church and state would be bereaved. ”

“ The besetting sins of the Anglo-Saxon race are, the love of gain and the love of power. In many instances, while our services could be dispensed with, we have not been permitted to join the army, and of course have not been killed in the wars. ”

“ A trade [13] that was found to be so lucrative, was ultimately taken up by almost every Christian nation, until that unhappy country was annually plundered of 300,000 of her children. Future generations will gaze upon the names of the guilty priest and King, in that contemptuous position where they have placed themselves. Shame will deepen the hatred of their memory, as men become enlightened and just, and clouds of infamy will thicken around them as the world moves on toward God. ”

“ But thy children are tortured, taunted, and hurried out of life by unprecedented cruelty. Brave men formed in the divinest mould, are bartered, sold and mortgaged. Stripped of every sacred right, they are scourged if they affirm that they belong to God. ”

“ Possessing a land of unsurpassed fertility, they have but to turn their attention manfully to Agricultural pursuits and it will shine forth the brightest Isle that slumbers in the arms of old ocean.
In regard to the enslavement of our race, this Country presents as mournful a picture as any other beneath the sun ”

“ May God grant, that we may betake ourselves to greater wisdom and frugality. I know that the oppressed above all other people need holidays, and pastimes, but in no case should we bid adieu to our common sense. ”

“ It is empty declamation. It is unwise. It is not logical—it is false. Of all the people in this wide earth, among the countless hordes of misery, there is not one so poor as to be without a home and a country. ”

“ In 1620, the very same year in which the Pilgrims landed on the cold and rocky shores of New England, a Dutch ship freighted with souls touched the banks of James river, where the wretched people were employed as slaves in the cultivation of that hateful weed, tobacco. ”

“ The Masons have led off in this course of wastefulness, and a majority of the other institutions are but children of the great ORIGINAL, and they resemble their parent more or less. Let no one say that I seek the destruction of these Institutions. I desire rather to remove the unfruitful branches of the trees, that it may be ascertained whether their trunks are capable of bearing good fruit. If they can produce good, if there is life in the stock, let them remain that they may be beautified by the dresser’s hands. ”

“ Societies, called benevolent, frequently squander more money for the purchase of banners and badges, and in feasting, than they use in acts of charity. What are regalia and other trappings worth, if they signify nothing but sham and parade? In 1846, $5000 were paid by the oppressed Colored people at the Temperance Celebration held in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and yet we do not adequately support a single Newspaper in the United States. ”

“ The interior of Ethiopia has not been explored by modern adventurers. The antiquarian has made his way into almost every dominion where relics of former greatness have promised to reward him for his toil. But this country, as though she had concealed some precious treasure, meets the traveller on the outskirts of her dominions, with pestilence and death. ”

“ When the great national account shall be rendered before the tribunal of Justice, the guilt of course must be borne by those who might have had, or who have used the power of the government. There may, therefore, be some good that may come out of this evil. But no thanks to the evil doers. Their works are evil still, the good comes in spite of them. ”

“ The Castillian Monarch had enslaved the Indians who inhabited his dominions, but soon found that they were unprofitable in such a relation. Encouraged by his Clerical confident, his evil genius, he introduced into South America a number of slaves from Africa, because one black man could do as much labor as four Indians. Las Cassas, in mercy to the aborigines, recommended to Cardinal Zimernes, to enslave the children of Africa. ”

“ The Brazillian Government holds three millions of the colored race in slavery. The United States have about the same number. The Spanish Colonies have one million.
But it is proper to turn the other side of the picture, and I rejoice that there is another side. Nine hundred thousand of these people are enjoying their freedom in the British West India Isles. There are six hundred thousand free people in the United States, while in Hayti we have an independent population of nearly a million. ”

“ The men of the North begin to appreciate the doctrine which has been long inculcated, that in order to be free themselves, they must emancipate the bondmen. The young lion of the West has torn the net of voluntary servitude, and gives signs of his latent strength. ”