and unemployed in
labor. An animal, whose body is at rest and who does not reflect, must
be disposed to sleep, of course. Comparing them by their faculties of
memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they
are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could
scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the
investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull,
tasteless, and anomalous.

It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We
will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where
the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It
will be right to make great allowances for the difference of
condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they
move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America.
Most of them, indeed, have been confined to tillage, to their own
homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situated that they
might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters;
many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that
circumstance have always been associated with the white. Some have
been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the
arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have
had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad.

The Indians, with no advantages of their kind, will often carve
figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will
crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the
existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They
astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove
their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and
elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a
thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an
elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more
generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time,
and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether
they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of
melody, or of complicated harmony is yet to be proved. Misery is often
the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks
is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar
oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the