Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/55

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gained from the earth. Among such a people, and with such recommendations to favour, they are esteemed less than strangers and sojourners: aliens in their native land. From the Judicial Seat of that mighty Government, comes the shameful, disgraceful, wicked and diabolical decision,—"No person, along whose veins courses one drop of African blood, has rights that a white man need respect." The chastity of my daughter cannot be protected as an American citizen, because African blood courses her veins, consequently she has "no rights that a white man need respect." She has no virtue that a white man need regard. She has no honour that a white man need admire. No noble qualities he need appreciate. The Negro race is scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities, human and Divine. We plead their rights in the name of the immortal declaration of Independence, and in the still more glorious name of Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour. We beg for mercy; and the Slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over them in mockery. We invoke the aid of the Ambassadors of Him who came "to preach deliverance to the captives, and set at liberty them that are bound." We cry for help to humanity, but are repulsed. We appeal to American Christianity, but it refuses to shield them; to the coloured man "its bones are brass and its feathers iron."