be
desecrated, and their wives and little ones, with their aged sires,
exposed to the oppression of a ruthless foe. Then, with what cheerful
and thrilling enthusiasm, steps forward the husband, the father, the
brother, and bares his bosom to the sword,--his head to the storm of the
battle-field, in defence of his country's freedom, and the God-given
rights of himself and family! But what sees the oppressed negro? He sees a
proud and haughty nation, whose Congressmen yearly meet to plot his ruin
and perpetuate his bondage! He beholds, it is true, a few Christ-like
champions, who rise up with bleeding hearts to defend his cause; but while
his eye kindles with grateful emotion, he sees the bludgeon of the South--
already reeking in the blood of freemen--raised and ready to fall with
murderous intent upon the head of any one, who, like the illustrious
Sumner, dare open his mouth in defence of Freedom, or speak of the wrongs
of the poor negro, and the sins of the Southern autocrat!

What inducement then, has the slave to shoulder his musket, when the
American drum beats the call, "To Arms! To Arms!" Does he not remember
that the wife of his bosom; the children,--"bone of his bone, and flesh of
his flesh,"--and the rude hearth-stone they for a time are allowed to
surround, belong not to himself, but to the tyrannical master, who claims
dominion over all he possesses. As his property then, let the slave owner
go forth in defence of his own, and lay down his life if he please; but
the poor slave has no home, no family to protect; no country to defend;
nor does he care to assist in sustaining a government that instead of
offering him protection, drives him from the soil which has been
cultivated by his own labor,--to beg at the hand of England's Queen,
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Humiliating as it is for an American citizen to name these things, they
are nevertheless true; and I would to God that America would arise in her
native majesty, and divest herself of the foul stain, which Slavery has
cast upon her otherwise pure drapery! Then would she be no longer a
hissing and by-word among the nations; but indeed what she professes to
be, "the land of the free, and the home of the brave;" an asylum for the
oppressed of every clime.

But should the monarchial government of England call for the services of
the colored man, freely would his heart's blood be poured out in her
defence,--not because he has a particul