since we have been among you,
and thus, at once, gain our affection, while we are ignorant? Remember
Americans, that we must and shall be free, and enlightened as you are,
will you wait until we shall, under God, obtain our liberty by the
crushing arm of power? Will it not be dreadful for you? I speak
Americans for your good. We must and shall be free I say, in spite of
you. You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery, to
enrich you and your children but God will deliver us from under you.
And wo, wo, will be to you if we have to obtain our freedom by
fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us
and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate
you,[27] and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as
much our country, as it is yours.--Treat us like men, and there is no
danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together. For we
are not like you, hard hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a
happy country this will be, if the whites will listen. What nation
under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives
us up into his hand? But Americans, I declare to you, while you keep
us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us
support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not
look for it, do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your
friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of
the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will
become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible,
but remember that nothing is impossible with God.

The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have to raise us
from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and to make a
national acknowledgement to us for the wrongs they have inflicted on
us. As unexpected, strange, and wild as these propositions may to some
appear, it is no less a fact, that unless they are complied with, the
Americans of the United States, though they may for a little while
escape, God will yet weigh them in a balance, and if they are not
superior to other men, as they have represented themselves to be, he
will give them wretchedness to their very heart's content.

And now brethren, having concluded these four Articles, I submit them,
together with my Preamble, dedicated to the Lord for your inspection,
in language so very simple, that the most ignorant, who