becoming disloyal because it has
stricken down my manhood, and treated me as a salable commodity. I can
join a foreign enemy and fight against it, without being a traitor,
because it treats me as an ALIEN and a STRANGER, and I am free to avow
that should such a contingency arise I should not hesitate to take any
advantage in order to procure such indemnity for the future."

Robert Purvis, a Philadelphian, also agreed that revolution might be the
only tool left with which to secure redress for grievances. He contended
that to support the government and the constitution on which it was based
was to endorse a despotic state, and he went on to express his abhorrence
for the system which destroyed him and his people. Purvis said that he
could welcome the overthrow of this government and he could hope that it
would be replaced by a better one.

The alienation of the Afro-American from his government was dramatically
underscored and justified in 1857 by the Dred Scott Decision which was
handed down by the Supreme Court. A slave who had resided with his master
in a territory where slavery was forbidden by act of Congress had claimed
his freedom. After returning to slave territory, he sued his master on
the grounds that residence in a non-slave territory had made him free.
The court said that the Missouri Compromise which had established
slave-free territories was unconstitutional, and it went on to state that
blacks were not citizens of the United States and therefore could not
bring a suit in court. In one single decision the court had lashed out at
the Afro-American with two blows. Besides justifying slavery, it had
openly supported the spread of the peculiar institution into the West.
Then, it castrated the freedmen by denying any political rights to them.
They were left with four alternatives: slavery, a freedom rooted in
poverty and prejudice, emigration abroad, or revolution.

Suddenly, the terms of the equation were dramatically altered by an
obscure white man named John Brown. After beginning his public career in
New England as a participant in the abolitionist struggle, Brown became
absolutely outraged by the apparent success that the South was having in
spreading slavery into the new territories. He became one of the most
active leaders in Kansas and rallied support to prevent that state from
falling into the hands of proslavery factions. The slavery debates in
Kansas exploded into open combat. Brown's outrage beca