The Black Man (Brown)/Elymas Payson Rogers
ELYMAS PAYSON ROGERS.
E. P. Rogers, a clergyman of the Presbyterian order, and pastor of a church at Newark, New Jersey, was a man of education, research, and literary ability. He was not a fluent and easy speaker, but he was logical, and spoke with a degree of refinement seldom met with. He possessed poetical genius of no mean order, and his poem on the "Missouri Compromise," which he read in many of the New England cities and towns in 1856, contains brilliant thoughts and amusing suggestions. The following on Truth is not without point:—
"When Truth is girded for the fight,
And draws her weapons keen and bright,
And lifts aloft her burnished shield,
Her godlike influence to wield,
If victory in that self-same hour
Is not accomplished by her power,
She'll not retreat nor flee away,
But win the field another day.
She will with majesty arise,
Seize her traducers by surprise,
And by her overwhelming might
Will put her deadly foes to flight."
The allusion to the threat of the south against the north is a happy one, in connection with the rebellion.
"I'll show my power the country through,
And will the factious north subdue;
And Massachusetts shall obey,
And yield to my increasing sway.
She counts her patriotic deeds,
But scatters her disunion seeds;
She proudly tells us of the tea
Sunk by her worthies in the sea,
And then she talks more proudly still
Of Lexington and Bunker Hill;
But on that hill, o'er patriots' graves,
I'll yet enroll my negro slaves.
I may have trouble, it is true,
But still I'll put the rebels through,
And make her statesmen bow the knee,
Yield to my claims, and honor me.
And though among them I shall find
The learned, the brilliant, and refined,
If on me they shall e'er reflect,
No senate chamber shall protect
Their guilty pates and heated brains,
From hideous gutta percha canes."
The election of N. P. Banks, as speaker of the House of Representatives, is mentioned in the succeeding lines:—
"But recently the north drove back
The southern tyrants from the track,
And put to flight their boasting ranks,
And gave the speaker's chair to Banks."
Mr. Rogers was of unmixed race, genteel in appearance, forehead large and well developed, fine figure, and pleasing in his manners. Anxious to benefit his race, he visited Africa in. 1861, was attacked with the fever, and died in a few days. No man was more respected by all classes than he. His genial influence did much to soften down the pro-slavery feeling which existed in the city where he resided.