s past and present.

Though shorn of their strength, disarmed of manhood, and stripped of
every right, encouraged by the part performed by their brethren and
fathers in the Revolutionary struggle--with no records of their deeds in
history, and no means of knowing them save orally, as overheard from the
mouths of their oppressors, and tradition as kept up among
themselves--that memorable event, had not yet ceased its thrill through
the new-born nation, until a glimmer of hope--a ray of light had beamed
forth, and enlightened minds thought to be in total darkness. Minds of
no ordinary character, but those which embraced business, professions,
and literature--minds, which at once grasped the earth, encompassed the
seas, soared into the air, and mounted the skies. And it is none the
less creditable to the colored people, that among those who have stood
the most conspicuous and shone the brightest in the earliest period of
our history, there are those of pure and unmixed African blood. A
credit--but that which is creditable to the African, cannot disgrace any
into whose veins his blood may chance to flow. The elevation of the
colored man can only be completed by the elevation of the pure
descendants of Africa; because to deny his equality, is to deny in a
like proportion, the equality of all those mixed with the African
organization; and to establish his inferiority, will be to degrade every
person related to him by consanguinity; therefore, to establish the
equality of the African with the European race, establishes the
equality of every person intermediate between the two races. This
established beyond contradiction, the general equality of men.

In the year 1773, though held in servitude, and without the advantages
or privileges of the schools of the day, accomplishing herself by her
own perseverance; Phillis Wheatley appeared in the arena, the brilliancy
of whose genius, as a poetess, delighted Europe and astonished America,
and by a special act of the British Parliament, 1773, her productions
were published for the Crown. She was an admirer of President
Washington, and addressed to him lines, which elicited from the Father
of his country, a complimentary and courteous reply. In the absence of
the poem addressed to General Washington, which was not written until
after her work was published, we insert a stanza from one addressed
(intended for the students) "To the University at Cambridge." We may
further remark, that th