Freeman of color

“ I cannot promise however, to write such a book as ought to be written to illustrate fully the bitterness, malignity, and cruelty, of American prejudice against color, and to show its terrible power in grinding into the dust of social and political bondage, the hundreds of thousands of so-called free men and women of color of the North. ”

“ His creed begins and ends with it—that the colored race can only obtain their true status as men, by relying on their own identity; that they must prove, by merit, all that white men claim; then color would cease to be an objection to their progress—that the blacks must take pride in being black, and show their claims to superior qualities, before the whites would be willing to concede them equality. ”

“ They relied, however, on the goodness of Almighty God, and were animated by the most ardent desire of redeeming themselves from bondage, for those who are in the legal condition of slaves in the States, are not the only slaves, but the free people of color, so called as it were in mockery, are slaves perhaps in a worse sense, from their legal disabilities, their rejection from society, and the utter contempt in which they are held by the whites. ”

“ Slavery had the power at one time to make and unmake Presidents, to construe the law, dictate the policy, set the fashion in national manners and customs, interpret the Bible, and control the church; and, naturally enough, the old masters set themselves up as much too high as they set the manhood of the negro too low. Out of the depths of slavery has come this prejudice and this color line. It is broad enough and black enough to explain all the malign influences which assail the newly emancipated millions to-day. ”

“ But if, in full view of a proposition to break down all the social barriers which now divide the races, so that our descendants and those of the colored man shall form one homogeneous people, we interrogate our own [Pg 603] consciousness, we shall discover that we, even those of us who have most eloquently and indignantly denounced 'prejudice against color,' are compelled to own ourselves in sympathy with the great mass of the American people, in utter and unconquerable aversion to such an arrangement. ”

“ Will they occupy more room as freemen than as slaves? Is the presence of a black freeman less agreeable than that of a black slave? Is an object of your injustice and cruelty a more ungrateful sight than one of your justice and benevolence? ”

“ Why is it that the free people of color are now, in almost every part of our country, threatened with banishment from State to State, and with hunting from city to city, until there shall be no place for the soles of their feet in this their native land? Is it because they are in reality, as slaveholders tell us, an inferior race of beings? No, my friends: their consistent conduct, their polished manners, and their great respectability, wherever they have enjoyed the advantages of equality of education and equality of motives, proclaim the contrary. ”

“ The free blacks of the United States, will at length discover their true interests, will at length perceive that if they would consult their own real happiness, and the lasting good, moral and physical, of themselves and their children — if, in a word, they would become truly freemen, not only legally, but civilly and socially, they must separate themselves from the whites, and go where they will be in a community of their own color and kin, and where they Will be on perfectly equal terms with all around them. ”

“ To set them free here, even if there were no legal obstacles in the way, would not, in the present state of feeling towards free colored people, and the little chance they can have to rise in the world, be much of a favor. ”

“ We turn to the free States, where slavery has not directly steeled our hearts against human suffering, and where no supposed danger of insurrection affords a pretext for keeping the free blacks in ignorance and degradation; and we ask, what is the character of the prejudice against color here? ”

“ They can therefore have no rights socially in common; or, in other words, the social equality they claim is not a right, and ought not to and cannot exist under present circumstances, and any law that overreaches the moral reason to the contrary must be admitted as unjust if not impolitic.
But it is color, they say, color only, which determines how the negro must be treated. Color is his misfortune, and his treatment must be his misfortune also. ”

“ There is hope for a people when their laws are righteous whether for the moment they conform to their requirements or not. But until this nation shall make its practice accord with its Constitution and its righteous laws, it will not do to reproach the colored people of this country with keeping up the color line—for that people would prove themselves scarcely worthy of even theoretical freedom, to say nothing of practical freedom, if they settled down in silent, servile and cowardly submission to their wrongs, from fear of making their color visible. ”

“ How utterly at variance is this with the commonly received opinion, that the colored people are disposed to thrust themselves into the society of the whites!
"Prejudice against color exists in this community only to a limited extent, and that chiefly among those who could never bring themselves to believe that emancipation would really take place. Policy dictates to them the propriety of confining any expression of their feelings to those of the same opinions. ”

“ And it is not merely the demand of the white man that the Negro step aside by himself, for the Negro himself is drawing the colour line, and drawing it with as much enthusiasm as the white man. A genuine race-spirit or race-consciousness is developing. Negroes are meeting prejudice with self-development. ”

“ The free colored American, of whatever shade, sees that his destiny is linked with slavery. Where his face is a crime he can not hope for justice. In the country which enslaves his race he can never be an acknowledged man. ”

“ They are not equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.' Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color—perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, White or Black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him. ”

“ Free people of color, like the slaves, are excluded by law from all means of obtaining the common elements of education.
The free colored man may at any time be taken up on suspicion, and be condemned and imprisoned as a runaway slave, unless he can prove the contrary ”

“ It is probably the design of Providence in this case, to call the attention of the public to the fresh consideration of what is implied in the great doctrine of human brotherhood. Is it true or not, that a colored man has all the rights of a white man? Is this a question still mooted among Abolitionists? ”

“ He not only wanted him free, but he wanted him located where he might receive all the rights of citizenship, and where he could live--self-respectful and independent--in the society of his equals and his race. It was a matter of pitying wonder with him that the negro should love to live with a race that abused him, and held him at so low a value in the scale of humanity. ”

“ This American State has given some examples to history, it has given some demonstrations of the power of free institutions for the white, it is giving to-day its most memorable, and is it too much to hope that it will yet give to the world a more glorious, because more difficult, demonstration of the same power in the black race? What if it should remain, for it, after having completed its work for the one, it should crown it in the other, by lifting it from deepest slavery, and by self-sacrifice and toil make it a blessing to the world! ”

“ That baleful American peculiarity, prejudice against color, is evidently diminishing, under the influence of anti-slavery principles and practice; and the laws which have oppressed the free colored citizen are rapidly yielding to the persevering action of the abolitionists. ”

“ In all this world, but one spot offers, what you would desire. No where else, but in Liberia, does the man of color live under a free Government of his own organization and administration. Go where else you will, and um but partially relieve yourself from the disabilities under which you now labor. In the free States of the North, you meet a stronger prejudice against your color then here, and in many places with a legislation depriving you of many kinds of labor, at present open to you. ”

“ And if the Negro race should be moved by their fiery appeals, it would only be to rend and tear in pieces the fair fabric of American liberty, which, with all its shortcomings and defects, is by far the most beautiful ever yet conceived or constructed by the genius of man. ”

“ Reader, the life of a colored man in America, save as a slave, is regarded as far less sacred than that of a dog. There is no exaggeration in this statement—I am not writing of exceptions. It is true there are white people in America who, while the colored man will keep in what they call "his place," will treat him with a show of respect even. But even this kind of people have their offset in the multitudes and majorities—the populace at large who would go out of their way to inflict the most demon-like outrages upon those whose skins are not colored like their own! ”

“ It has done, it is doing more to rescue the African character from degradation, than could be done by a thousand volumes against prejudice.” And thus the writer goes on to say, “it has done, and is doing more to accelerate the abolition of slavery than could be done by a ship-load of such pamphlets and speeches as some that we might mention. Elevate the character of the free people of color—let it be seen that they are men indeed—let the degrading associations that follow them be broken up by the actual improvement of their character, as a people, and negro slavery must rapidly wither and die. ”

“ This convention is a proof of our faith in you, in reason, in truth and justice—our belief that prejudice, with all its malign accompaniments, may yet be removed by peaceful means; that, assisted by time and events and the growing enlightenment of both races, the color line will ultimately become harmless. When this shall come it will then only be used, as it should be, to distinguish one variety of the human family from another. ”

“ Intelligent and observing travelers, having no theory to support, men whose testimony would be received without question in respect of any other matter, and should not be questioned in this, tell us that they find no color prejudice in Europe, except among Americans who reside there. In England and on the Continent, the colored man is no more an object of hate than any other person. He mingles with the multitude unquestioned, without offense given or received. ”

“ But, fortunately for the Negro and for humanity at large, we live now in an epoch when race malice and sectional hate are disappearing beneath the horizon of a brighter and better future. The Negro in America is free. He is now an acknowledged factor in the affairs of the continent; and no community, state, or government, in this period of the world's history, can afford to be indifferent to his moral, social, intellectual, or political well-being. ”

“ The negro has been made free, though he did not seek freedom. Nominally free, he is beyond expression helpless by his want of self-reliance, of experience, of ability to understand and appreciate his condition. ”

“ Here they found the theoretical maxim of the American Constitution, that 'All men are born equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,' practically in existence—here no distinction of color, race, language, or religion, prevails to deprive a single individual of his civil and religious rights in the amplest sense. When they resided in the States they were taught to believe that theirs was the only free Government, the only country where republican principles were fostered. ”

“ This much was done by free colored men. In view of that fact the reader will find the following extracts from publications of the Colonization Society remarkable reading. Said Henry Clay in a speech found in the African Repository, Vol. VI., p. 12:
"Of all the descriptions of our population the free persons of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned." ”

“ The freedman has that right now to himself, and when white men say respecting "the equities," "Neither race wants them," the colored man respectfully answers back, "Gentlemen, we do our own thinking now; you are mistaken; your old habits blind your eyes and warp your judgment; we deny that you have any right to tell the world what we want and what we think. ”

“ All disqualifications and distinctions of color have ceased; men of all colors have equal rights in law, and an equal footing in society, and every man’s position is settled by the same circumstances which regulate that point in other free countries, where no difference of color exists. ”

“ Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek,—the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think. Work, culture, and liberty—all these we need, not singly, but together; for to-day these ideals among the Negro people are gradually coalescing, and finding a higher meaning in the unifying ideal of race,—the ideal of fostering the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to, but in conformity with, the greater ideals of the American republic, in order that some day, on American soil, two world races may give each to each those characteristics which both so sadly lack. ”