help needed!

My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of

my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist -- the result of my

observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these

United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the

world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more.

They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last

were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and

heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no

more than a cypher -- or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more

among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were

reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon, our fathers ourselves and our children, by

Christian

Americans!

...

... I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant

himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found,

which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the

insupportable insult

upon the children of Israel,

by telling them that they were not of the

human family

. Can the whites deny this charge? Have

they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up

as descending originally from the tribes of

Monkeys

or

Orang-Outangs

? O! my God! I appeal to

every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our

miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we

pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to

the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a

man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set

of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an

iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and

expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the

Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a

son of Israel for her own, as will appear by the following.

...

The world knows, that slavery as it existed was, mans, (which was the primary cause of their

destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a

cypher

, when compared with ours

under the Americans. Indeed I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very

learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, "when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the

same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death." -- Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but

he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore

ask the whole American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death, than to be a slave to any

tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and children's lives by the inches? Yea, would I

meet death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such

servile submission

to the murderous hands

of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson's very severe remarks on us have been so extensively argued upon by

men whose attainments in literature, I shall never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled

with it, were it not to solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of

Mr. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," and put it in the hand of his son.

...

But let us review Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable

fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: "Yet notwithstanding these and other

discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They

excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children;

Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, -- but they were of the race of whites. It is not

their

condition

then, but

nature

, which has produced the distinction." See this, my brethren! ! Do

you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr.

Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites? See his writings for the

world, and public labours for the United States of America. Do you believe that the assertions of

such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this people and the world? If you do you

are much mistaken-See how the American people treat us -- have we souls in our bodies? Are we

men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are many

swell-bellied

fellows among us,

whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do not mean -- I am after those who know

and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr.

Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.

...

...I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with

Great Britain, there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of

which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs,

to their new States and Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their

children-and millions of them believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made

by our Creator to be an inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of

brutes

.

Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, 0 my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves

to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to

make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body,

as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as

ours? -- What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could

be so

submissive

to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or

not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell -

- but I declare, we judge men by their works.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of

beings, always seeking after power and authority.

...

...to my no ordinary astonishment, [a] Reverend gentleman got up and told us (coloured people)

that slaves must be obedient to their masters -- must do their duty to their masters or be whipped

-- the whip was made for the backs of fools, &c. Here I pause for a moment, to give the world

time to consider what was my surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master,

whose very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this pretended preacher tried to

make us believe. What the American preachers can think of us, I aver this day before my God, I

have never been able to define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals, which they

receive in continual succession, but on the pages of which, you will scarcely ever find a

paragraph respecting slavery, which is ten thousand times more injurious to this country than all

the other evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of its government, unless

something is very speedily done; for their cup is nearly full.-Perhaps they will laugh at or make

light of this; but I tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course,

you

and your

Country are gone! ! ! ! !

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