Theodore
Frelinghuysen, late Governor Poindexter of Mississippi, George McDuffy,
Governor Hammond of South Carolina, Extra Billy (present Governor)
Smith, of Virginia, and the host of our oppressors, slave-holders and
others, true, that we are insusceptible and incapable of elevation to
the more respectable, honorable, and higher attainments among white men.
But this we do not believe--neither do you, although our whole life and
course of policy in this country are such, that it would seem to prove
otherwise. The degradation of the slave parent has been entailed upon
the child, induced by the subtle policy of the oppressor, in regular
succession handed down from father to son--a system of regular
submission and servitude, menialism and dependence, until it has become
almost a physiological function of our system, an actual condition of
our nature. Let this no longer be so, but let us determine to equal the
whites among whom we live, not by declarations and unexpressed
self-opinion, for we have always had enough of that, but by actual proof
in acting, doing, and carrying out practically, the measures of
equality. Here is our nativity, and here have we the natural right to
abide and be elevated through the measures of our own efforts.

VI

THE UNITED STATES OUR COUNTRY

Our common country is the United States. Here were we born, here raised
and educated; here are the scenes of childhood; the pleasant
associations of our school going days; the loved enjoyments of our
domestic and fireside relations, and the sacred graves of our departed
fathers and mothers, and from here will we not be driven by any policy
that may be schemed against us.

We are Americans, having a birthright citizenship--natural claims upon
the country--claims common to all others of our fellow citizens--natural
rights, which may, by virtue of unjust laws, be obstructed, but never
can be annulled. Upon these do we place ourselves, as immovably fixed as
the decrees of the living God. But according to the economy that
regulates the policy of nations, upon which rests the basis of
justifiable claims to all freeman's rights, it may be necessary to take
another view of, and enquire into the political claims of colored men.

VII

CLAIMS OF COLORED MEN AS CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES

The political basis upon which rests the establishment of all free
nations, as the first act in their organization, is the security by
constitutional pro