s capacity for freedom;
his capacity to know what is the 'perfect law of liberty,' keeping
irresponsible license in check; his absolute freedom from the
bloodthirstiness that seems to horrify so many unthinking persons, who
affect to fear the consequences of putting a musket in a negro's hand.
The incontestable points above enumerated show the groundlessness of
such an alleged fear. It needs only to consider them candidly to be
disabused on that score. No one who has seen and knows the tenderness of
the negro toward the children of his master, and his never-failing
respect toward his mistress, dares say he fears the negro's savageness.
No one who knows the negro's religious sensibility and his unshaken
faith in Christ, dares say he fears. No. Only those fear who know
nothing at all about the negro. They fear whose creed is given them by
men thirsting for the negro's blood, that it may be coined into ungodly
gold.

Thus much will suffice for objections to negro troops, on the ground of
their incapacity. It is seen that the negro is capable to comprehend the
limitations of liberty; that his nature is not essentially savage, or,
if so, has been softened and tempered into a gentle docility under the
benign influences of civilized society; that, above all, his Christian
education has elevated him to a dignity that despises mean revenge. If
further proof is necessary, the regiments of negro slaves recruited in
Louisiana and the Carolinas, acquiring a discipline that has stood them
in good stead at Olustee (day of gloom) and elsewhere on their native
soil, may be cited in evidence of their capacity.

But what about our rights in the matter? For we are considering now the
case of the slaves, not the free negro? The proper and sufficient answer
to that question is, What about the rights of slave-holders? What rights
of theirs are we bound to respect now? They have taken the law into
their own hands, and if they cannot enforce it, is it any part of our
business to aid them? Certainly and undoubtedly not. It is part of the
penalty of treason; part of the price they are paying for their ignoble
thrust at the nation's life; and a very light penalty, and cheap price
it is, that they lose their right to hold slaves. Such rights as they
possessed they held under the Constitution. We have been willing, for
the sake of peace (bearing in mind the apostle's injunction, 'If it be
possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all m