joy in peace nor defend
when they are outraged. If he is well treated, if his master be
tolerably humane or even understand his own interest tolerably, this is
probably _all_ he may have to endure: it is only to the consciousness of
these evils that knowledge and reflection awaken him. But how is it if
his master be severe, harsh, cruel--or even only careless--leaving his
creatures to the delegated dominion of some overseer, or agent, whose
love of power, or other evil dispositions, are checked by no
considerations of personal interest? Imagination shrinks from the
possible result of such a state of things; nor must you, or Mr. ----,
tell me that the horrors thus suggested exist only in imagination. The
Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and
personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that
it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision,
insult, menace--the handcuff, the lash--the tearing away of children
from parents, of husbands from wives--the weary trudging in droves along
the common highways, the labour of body, the despair of mind, the
sickness of heart--these are the realities which belong to the system,
and form the rule, rather than the exception, in the slave's experience.
And this system exists here in this country of your's, which boasts
itself the asylum of the oppressed, the home of freedom, the one place
in all the world where all men may find enfranchisement from all
thraldoms of mind, soul, or body--the land elect of liberty.

Mr. ---- lays great stress, as a proof of the natural inferiority of the
blacks, on the little comparative progress they have made in those States
where they enjoy their freedom, and the fact that, whatever quickness of
parts they may exhibit while very young, on attaining maturity they
invariably sink again into inferiority, or at least mediocrity, and
indolence. But surely there are other causes to account for this besides
natural deficiency, which must, I think, be obvious to any unprejudiced
person observing the condition of the free blacks in your Northern
communities. If, in the early portion of their life, they escape the
contempt and derision of their white associates--if the blessed
unconsciousness and ignorance of childhood keeps them for a few years
unaware of the conventional proscription under which their whole race is
placed (and it is difficult to walk your streets, and mark the tone of
insolent supe