! And conservatism sighs for the good old days
when they blasphemed _Liberty_ at their little suppers,

'And--blest condition!-felt genteel.'

To be sure, the portraits of Puritan or Huguenot or Revolutionary
ancestors frowned on them from the walls--the portraits of men who had
risked all things for freedom; ''but this is a different state of
things, you know;' we have changed all that--the heart is on the other
side of the body now--let us be discreet!'

It is curious, in this connection of employing slaves as workmen or
soldiers, with the remembrance of the progressive gentlemen of the olden
time who founded this republic, to see what the latter thought in their
day of such aid in warfare. And fortunately we have at hand what we
want, in a very _multum in parvo_ pamphlet[5] by George H. Moore,
Librarian of the New-York Historical Society. From this we learn that
while great opposition to the project prevailed, owing to wrong
judgment as to the capacity of the black, the expediency and even
necessity of employing him was, during the events of the war, forcibly
demonstrated, and that, when he _was_ employed in a military capacity,
he proved himself a good soldier.

There were, however, great and good men during the Revolution, who
warmly sustained the affirmative. The famous Dr. Hopkins wrote as
follows in 1776:

'God is so ordering it in his providence, that it seems absolutely
necessary something should speedily be done with respect to the
slaves among us, in order to our safety, and to prevent their
turning against us in our present struggle, in order to get their
liberty. Our oppressors have planned to gain the blacks, and induce
them to take up arms against us, by promising them liberty on this
condition; and this plan they are prosecuting to the utmost of
their power, by which means they have persuaded numbers to join
them. And should we attempt to restrain them by force and severity,
keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who
shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will
only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence,
oppression and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous and shocking, and
bring down the righteous vengeance of heaven on our heads. The only
way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil, is to set the
blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws