gro, and to prove degradation, and slavery to be
his normal condition. They point to his figure as sculptured on ancient
monuments, bearing chains, and claim that his enslavement is lawful as
immemorial custom; but as well point to the brass collars on our Saxon
forefathers' necks to prove _their_ enslavement lawful. The fact that
slavery belonged to a patriarchal age is the very reason why it is
impracticable in a republican age,--as its special guardians in this
country seem to have discovered. But this question is now scarcely
actual. The South, by its first blow against the Union and the
Constitution, whose neutrality toward it was its last and only
protection from the spirit of the age, did, like the simple fisherman,
unseal the casket in which the Afreet had been so long dwarfed. He is
now escaping. Thus far, indeed, he is so much escaped force; for he
might be bearing our burdens for us, if we only rubbed up the lamp which
the genie obeys. But whether we shall do this or not, it is very certain
that he is now emerging from the sea and the casket, and into it will
descend no more. Henceforth the negro is to take his place in the family
of races; and no studies can be more suitable to our times than those
which recognize his special capacity.

The questions raised by military exigencies have brought before the
public the many interesting facts drawn from the history of Hayti and
from our own Revolution, showing the heroism of the negro, though we
doubt whether they can surpass the stories of Tatnall, Small, and
others, which have led a high European authority to observe that in this
war no individual heroism among the whites has equalled that of the
blacks. But the forthcoming social questions concerning the negro will
be even more exciting than the military. What are we to expect from the
unsealed Afreet,--good or evil? It was whilst studying in this direction
that I came upon the few facts which relate to Benjamin Banneker,--facts
which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the
district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned
grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race
who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and Condorcet
admired.

Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, near the village of
Ellicott's Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of the white
man's blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa,