was this very important one: Cau the Negro sustain the legal relation of a husband to a wife: Can he make a valid marriage contract in this Christian country?
This problem was solved by the same slaveholding authority, entirely against the Negro, Such a contract, it was argued, could only be binding upon men providenti- ally enjoying the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and since the } Negro is a slave and slavery a divine institution, legal marriage was wholly inconsistent with the institution of slavery.
When some of us at the North questioned the ethics of this conclusion, we were told to mind our business, and our Southern brethren asserted, as they assert now, that they alone are competent to manage this and all other questions relating to the Negro. In fact, there has been no end to the problems of some sort or other, involving the Negro in difficulty.
Can the Negro be a citizen? was the question of the Dred Scott decision, Can the Negro be educated: Can the Negro be induced to work for himself without a master? Can the Negro be a soldier? Yime and events have answered these and all other like questions. We have among us Negroes who have taken the first prizes as scholars; those who have won distinction for courage and skill on the battle ficld; those who have taken rank as lawyers, doctors and ministers of the gospel; those who shine among men in every useful calling; and yet we are called a problem—a tremendous problem: a mountain of dithiculty; a constant source of apprehension; a disturbing social force, threatening destruction to the holiest and best interests of socicty. I declare this statement concerning the Negro, whether by good Miss Willard, Bishop Ilaygood, Bishop litzgerald, ex-Governor Chamberlain, or by any and all others, as false and deeply injurious to: the coloured citizens of the United States.
But, my friends, I must stop. Time and strength are not equal to the task before me. But could [ be heard by this greai nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted and startled a listening world. Its voice, then, was as the trump of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppres- sion and time honourcd tyranny, to judgment. Crowned heads heard it and shriekcd. Toiling millions heard it and
