Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/86

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
82
MEMOIR OF

or for some other purpose, of equally false and elegant tissue.

But let him declare this brutal prejudice, not brutal; let him palm it upon God, as the Colonization Society does in its 15th Annual Report; let him assert that it is invincible, as Jefferson did; let him unite with the Connecticut Colonization Society, in saying, "The African." (take notice, most of them are Americans all the while) "in this country" (i. e. in his native country) "belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society; and from that station, he can never rise, be his talents, his enterprise, his virtues, what they may. They" (the free negroes, i. e. the free Americans whose unhappy parents or ancestors, suffered, not committed, the curse of slavery) "constitute a class by themselves; a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which none can be depressed. And this is the difficulty, the invariable and insuperable difficultly, in the way of every scheme for their benefit. Much can be done for them—much has been done for them; but still they are, and in this country, always must be, a depressed and abject race. . * * * In every part of the United States, there is a broad and impassable line of demarcation between every man, who has one drop of African blood in his veins, and every other class in the community;" together with the following words of the same address prefixed to the passage just quoted: "The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society—prejudices of which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religion itself can subdue, mark the people of color" (note—this should have been, the Americans who had one drop of African blood in their veins) whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation, inevitable and incurable." Yes—let a man, thus trumpet the shame of the United States through the world, usurping God's place, and giving them over to final and utter impenitence in this ferocious and libertine sin, and he shall be a champion—a loyal end true-hearted man!!! What difference is there between this, and the Hindoo, who reviles and spurns, whoever worships not his