rushed by the constant sense of inferiority. He has no
effectual incentives to manly enterprise. He stands in a
degraded class of society; and out of that class he never dreams
of rising.'--[Christian Spectator.]

'This is the true condition of the free colored population of
our land. They are placed mid way between freedom and slavery;
they feel neither the moral stimulants of the one, nor the
restraints of the other, and are alike injurious to every other
class of the community.'--[Southern Religious Telegraph.]

I repel these charges against the free people of color, as unmerited,
wanton and untrue. It would be absurd to pretend, that, as a class,
they maintain a high character: it would be equally foolish to deny,
that intemperance, indolence and crime prevail among them to a mournful
extent. But I do not hesitate to assert, from an intimate acquaintance
with their condition, that they are more temperate and more industrious
than that class of whites who are in as indigent circumstances, but who
have certainly far greater incentives to labor and excel; that they are
superior in their habits to the hosts of foreign emigrants who are
crowding to our shores, and poisoning our moral atmosphere; and that
their advancement in intelligence, in wealth, and in morality,
considering the numberless and almost insurmountable difficulties under
which they have labored, has been remarkable. I am informed that
twenty-five or thirty years ago, the colored inhabitants of Philadelphia
scarcely owned a dollar's worth of real estate, whereas they now own
enough to amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This fact speaks
volumes in praise of their industry and economy; for, be it remembered,
they have had to accumulate this property in small sums, by shaving the
beards, cleaning the boots and clothes, and being the servants of their
white contemners, and in other menial employments. In Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New-York, and other places, there are several colored
persons whose individual property is worth from ten thousand to one
hundred thousand dollars;[T] and in all those cities, there are primary
and high schools for the education of the colored
population--flourishing churches of various denominations--and numerous
societies for mutual assistance and improvement, &c. In Philadelphia
alone, I believe, there are nearly fifty colored associations for
benevolent, literary, scientific and moral pur