an beings, with brains and
muscles,--brains at least intelligent enough to comprehend the stake
they have in this controversy, and muscles strong enough to do good
service in the cause of constitutional liberty and republican
institutions. Is it wise to reject their offered assistance. Will not
our foes have good cause to despise our folly, if we leave in their
hands this most efficient element of their power? You have friends and
relatives fighting in the Union armies. If you give the subject a
moment's reflection, you must see that all slaves labouring on the
plantations of their masters not only are feeding the traitors who are
doing their utmost to destroy our country, but by relieving thousands
upon thousands of Southern men from the necessity of remaining at home
and cultivating the soil, are, to all practical purposes, as directly
imperilling the lives of our Union soldiers as if these same slaves with
sword or musket were serving in the Rebel ranks. And again, while you
object to the enlistment of negroes, you are unwilling that any member
of your family should leave your household and expose himself to the
many hazards of war. Now is it not too plain for argument, that every
negro who is enrolled in our army prevents, by just that unit, the
necessity of sending one Northern soldier into the field?

But will the slaves consent to enlist? Let the thousands who have forced
their way to Union camps,

"Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,"

tracked by blood-hounds, and by their inhuman oppressors more savage
than blood-hounds, answer the insulting inquiry. Are they brave? Will
they fight for the cause which they have dared so many dangers to
espouse? I point you to the bloody records of Vicksburg, Million's
Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner; I appeal to the testimony of every
Union officer under whom black soldiers have fought, as the most fitting
reply to such questions. Shame on the miserable sneer, that we are
spending the money and shedding the blood of white men to fight the
battles of the negro! Blush for your own unmanly and ungenerous
prejudices, and ask yourself whether future history will not pronounce
the black man, morally, not only your equal, but your superior, when it
is found recorded, that, denied the rights of citizenship, long
proscribed, persecuted, and enslaved, he was yet willing, and even
eager, to sa