by the speaker's powerful manner, superb
physical manhood, and superior intelligence.

"You know, Pomp, that your condition, to begin with, is very different
from that of any white man. Your relation to your master is not that of
a man to his neighbor, or of a citizen to the government; it is that of
property to its owner."

"Property!" There was something almost wicked in the wild, bright glance
with which the negro repeated this word. "How came we property, sir?"

"Our laws make you so, and you have been acquired as property," said
Deslow, not unkindly, but in his bigoted, obstinate way. "So, really,
Pomp, you can't blame us for the view we take of it, though it does
conflict a little with your choice in the matter."

"But suppose I can show you that you are wrong, and that even by your
own laws we are not, and cannot be, property?" said Pomp, with a
princely courtesy, looking down from the rock upon Deslow, so evidently
in every way his inferior. "I will admit your title to a lot of land you
may purchase, or reclaim from nature; or to an animal you have captured,
or bought, or raised. But a man's natural, original owner is--himself.
Now, I never sold myself. My father never sold himself. My father was
stolen by pirates on the coast of Africa, and brought to this country,
and sold. The man who bought him bought what had been stolen. By your
own laws you cannot hold stolen property. Though it is bought and sold a
thousand times, let the original owner appear, and it is his,--nobody
else has the shadow of a claim. My father was stolen property, if he was
property at all. He was his own rightful owner. Though he had been
robbed of himself, that made no difference with the justice of the case.
It was so with my mother. It is so with me. It is the same with every
black man on this continent. Not one ever sold himself, or can be sold,
or can be owned. For to say that what a man steals or takes by force is
his, to dispose of as he chooses, is to go back to barbarism: it is not
the law of any Christian land. So much," added Pomp, blowing the words
from him, as if all the false arguments in favor of slavery were no more
to the man's soul, and its eternal, God-given rights, than the breath he
blew contemptuously forth into those mountain woods,--"so much for the
claim of PROPERTY!"

Penn was so delighted with this triumphant declaration of principles
that he could have flung his hat into the maple boughs and shouted
"Brav