Various

“ For my part, sir, I firmly believe, that the barbarities committed by the Negroes, not merely against their masters, but even against others, will be attributed at the bar of eternal justice, to the slaveholders, and those infamous persons employed in the Guinea trade. I firmly believe, that no human justice has the right of putting a Negro slave to death for any crime whatever, because not being free, he is not sui juris, and should be regarded as a child or an idiot, being almost always under the lash. ”

“ For twelve centuries the problem "how shall Africa be redeemed?" has been unsolved, although earnestly sought for by the civil and religious powers of Europe; but in every instance it has been in vain, and the cloud of her wretchedness blackened on each failure. Mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of Providence to accomplish her restoration, lift her from the jaws of death, bind her as a jewel to the throne of righteousness, and give her a place among the civilized nations of mankind. ”

“ I cannot avoid commending the citizens of New York and Philadelphia, for their help to those that have been greatly oppressed, driving slavery out of their States, that they may have the peace of God, and his blessing upon the heads of their children, and children's children. I trust also to see the efforts of individuals crowned with a blessing in the Southern States, where barrenness of the land bespeaks the proverty and wretchedness of thousands of its inhabitants who might enjoy the smile of Heaven, if they would learn to fear God and love their neighbor. ”

“ The germs of disease have no race prejudice. They do not even draw the line at social equality, but gnaw with equal avidity at the vitals of white and black alike, and pass with the greatest freedom of intercourse from the one to the other. One touch of disease makes the whole world kin, and also kind. The Negro physician comes into immediate contact with the masses of his race; he is the missionary of good health. His ministration is not only to his own race, but to the community and to the nation as a whole. The white plague seems to love the black victim. ”

“ To whom are the wretched sons of Africa to apply for redress, if their cruel master treats them with unkindness? To whom will they resort for protection, if he is base enough to refuse it to them? The law is not their friend;--alas! too many statutes are enacted against them. The world is not their friend;--the iniquity is too general and extensive. No one who hath slaves of his own, will protect those of another, less the practice should be retorted. Thus when their masters abandon them, their situation is destitute and forlorn, and God is their only friend! ”

“ To take arms against masters, whose cruelties no submission can mitigate, no patience exhaust, and from whom no other means of deliverance are left, is the most atrocious of all crimes; and is punished by a gradual death, lengthened out by torments, so exquisite, that none, but those who have been long familiarized, with West Indian barbarity, can hear the bare recital of them without horror. And yet I learn from writers, whom the Europeans hold in the highest esteem, that treason is a crime, which cannot be committed by a slave against his master ”

“ What white man would be less cruel in his situation? Truly I think myself of a humane disposition, that I love my fellow-creatures and detest the effusion of blood, but if ever a villain, white or black, should snatch me from my freedom, my family, and my friends, should overwhelm me with outrages and blows, to gratify his caprice, should extend his barbarities to my wife and children--my blood boils at the thought--perhaps in a transport of revenge.... ”

“ Before this distinguished era of refined barbarity, the sons of Africa were in possession of all the mild enjoyments of peace--all the pleasing delights of uninterrupted harmony--and all the diffusive blessings of profound tranquility. Boundless must be the punishment, which irritated providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature--this flowery prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of never ending misery, they shall in bitterness atone for the stab thus given to human nature ”

“ If you want no more slaves from us, why cannot you be ingenious and tell the plain truth; saying that the slaves you have already purchased are sufficient for the country for which you bought them; or that the artists who used to make fine things, are all dead, without having taught anybody to make more? But for a parcel of men, with long heads, to sit down in England, and frame laws for us, and pretend to dictate how we are to live, of whom they know nothing, never having been in a black man's country during the whole course of their lives, is to me somewhat extraordinary! ”

“ I believe that the real criminal, the cause of the crime, is the man who first seized him, sold him, or enslaved him.--And if ever I should fall under the knife of an unhappy runaway, I would not resent it upon him but upon those white men who keep blacks in slavery. I would tell them, your cruelty towards your Negroes, has endangered my life--they execrate you, they take me for a tyrant because I am white like you, and the vengeance due to your crimes has fallen upon me. ”

“ In fine, no annals are more brilliant than those of America; nor do any more luxuriantly abound with examples of exalted heroism, refined policy, and sympathetic humanity. Yet now the prospect begins to change; and all the splendor of this august assemblage, will soon be overcast by sudden and impenetrable clouds; and American greatness be obliterated and swallowed up by one enormity. Slavery diffuses the gloom, and casts around us the deepest shade of approaching darkness. No longer shall the united states of America be famed for liberty. Oppression pervades their bowels ”

“ I do not, however, pretend to say, that the Negroes of Africa are all good, or even that many of them are not depraved. But is this fact to be imputed to them as a personal crime? Ought you not rather to have ascribed it to the foreign source by which they are corrupted. Alike in them and in the whites, the depravity of man is a consequence of his wretchedness, and the usurpation of his rights. Wherever he is free and at ease, he is good; wherever the contrary, he is wicked. Neither his nature nor the climate corrupt him, but the government of his country. ”

“ There is no more pathetic chapter in the history of human struggle than the emergence of the smothered ambition of this race to meet the social exigencies involved in the professional needs of the masses. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the plowhand was transformed into a priest, the barber into a bishop, the housemaid into a schoolmistress, the day-laborer into a lawyer, and the porter into a physician. ”

“ The Romance of Antar is the free expression of real Arab hero-worship. And even in the cities of the Orient today, the loungers over their cups can never weary of following the exploits of this black son of the desert who in his person unites the great virtues of his people, magnanimity and bravery, with the gift of poetic speech. Its tone is elevated; it is never trivial, even in its long and wearisome descriptions, in its ever-recurring outbursts of love. ”

“ The voice of injured thousands, who have been violently torn from their native country, and carried to distant and inhospitable climes--the bitter lamentations of the wretched, helpless female--the cruel agonizing sensations of the husband, the father and the friend--will ascend to the throne of Omnipotence, and, from the elevated heights of heaven, cause him, with the whole force of almighty vengeance, to hurl the guilty perpetrators of those inhuman beings, down the steep precipice of inevitable ruin, into the bottomless gulph of final, irretrievable, and endless destruction! ”

“ The practice which has been followed by the English nation, since the establishment of the slave trade--I mean that of stirring up the natives of Africa, against each other, with a view of purchasing the prisoners mutually taken in battle, must strike the humane mind with sentiments of the deepest abhorrence, and confer on that people a reproach, as lasting as time itself. It is surprising that the eastern world did not unite, to discourage a custom so diabolical in its tendency, and to exterminate a species of oppression which humbles the dignity of all mankind. ”

“ Without arts, without habits of industry, and unaccustomed to provide by their own exertions and foresight for their wants, the colony will soon become the abode of every vice, and the home of every misery. Soon will the light of Christianity, which now dawns among that portion of our species, be cut out by the clouds of ignorance, and their day of life be closed, without the illumination of the gospel. ”

“ When his genius for warfare was shown it was given an opportunity to develop and serve the cause of all who preferred valiant deeds to arguments of race. When his life was spent it was not looked upon as one of an unusual Negro rising above a sphere previously limited to his fellows of the same blood but as an epic of success crowning human effort and worthy to be embodied in the literature of Arabia as the exploits of a hero who exemplified the spirit of the people, acceptable for all time as their model for valor, poetic genius, hospitality, and magnanimity. ”

“ We must conclude from this fact, that if the Virginians were no longer severe, and should treat the blacks like fellow-creatures, they would not be more vicious than their white servants.
The degree of oppression is the measure of what is improperly called the viciousness of the slaves.--The more cruel their tyrants, the more treacherous, villainous and cruel are the slaves in return--Can we wonder that Macronius should assassinate his master Tiberius? This viciousness is a punishment that heaven inflicts upon tyranny. ”

“ What then is race orthodoxy? Where shall we look for a true statement of the attitude of the South on the subject of the Negro since none of these attempts at interpretation have done justice to it? The racial creed has been expressed at different times in a number of pithy expressions current in the Southern states. Here they are in order as the author gives them: "Blood will tell"; The white race must dominate; The Teutonic peoples stand for race purity. The Negro is inferior and will remain so. "This is a white man's country." Let there be no social equality; no political equality. ”

“ The first thing then, which seems necessary, in order to remove those prejudices, which are so unjustly entertained against us, is to prove that we are men--a truth which is difficult of proof, only because it is difficult to imagine, by what argument it can be combatted. Can it be contended that a difference of colour alone can constitute a difference of species?--if not in what single circumstance are we different from the rest of mankind? what variety is there in our organization? what inferiority of art in the fashoning of our bodies? ”

“ When the united colonies revolted from Great Britain, they did it upon this principle, "that all men are by nature and of right ought to be free."--After a long, successful, and glorious struggle for liberty, during which they manifested the firmest attachment to the rights of mankind, can they so soon forget the principles that then governed their determinations? Can Americans, after the noble contempt they expressed for tyrants, meanly descend to take up the scourge? ”

“ Feeling desirous to follow the Shepherd of my soul, and seeing no further work at this time for me, I leave this city in peace, requesting the Lord to bless the seed sown in great weakness, and to water it with the descending showers of his spiritual rain, that the glory may arise to him alone who is worthy to be praised by every creature, but especially by a worm whom he has preserved thus far from the destructive power of sin, and satan. ”

“ In recent years it has been asked, "Why cannot the Negro attain superiority along lines of his own," that is, instead of simply patterning after what the white man has done, why cannot the Negro through music, art, history, and science, make his own special contributions to the progress of the world? ”