y have nothing else to rely on for enduring support.

Let the Southern rebel attempt to disguise it as he may, the colored man
of the South is already a patriot on the side of the Union. He has heard
of a people in the North who believed that every human being, by nature,
was entitled '_to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness_.' He
knows that his oppressor hates this people of the North, and for the
sole reason that they entertain this generous sentiment. While the
Pharisaic theologian of the Southern pulpit is expounding his
Bible-doctrine in justification of kidnapping, and appealing to Heaven
for assistance, the colored man turns in disgust at the impiety, and
turns into secret places to beseech Omnipotence to favor the success of
the national arms. Perhaps there is an interfering Providence already
manifest in results. If the plagues of Egypt had been visited on the
rebellious States by an overruling Power, they would scarcely have
afforded a parallel to the calamity which rebel slaveholders have
inflicted on their country. They have exhausted and destroyed much of
what the long toil of the colored man South had assisted to raise up.
Devastation has followed the train of rebellion. The blood of the first
and of the second-born has been the sacrifice on the altar of slavery.
The brutal ruffianism of the pro-slavery spirit has far enough disclosed
its natural aptitudes to have become disgustingly odious in comparison
with the positively better characteristics of the colored man. The rebel
himself has taught a lesson to the world, which he can never unteach.
The twenty-seven millions of free labor in the Union have learned a
lesson through the teachings of slaveholders in rebellion, which they
can not forget. This teaching is nothing less than that the colored man
is capable, by protection and encouragement, of being converted into a
better element of national strength and national prosperity than
slaveholders, as _such_, would ever become.

Could any contemplative mind doubt for a moment the ability of the white
population of the Union, if justly disposed, to raise the colored
population of the country, in a short time, to the platform of a decent
respectability? With unjust prejudice laid aside, and the work of
beneficence acquiesced in, no one could reasonably doubt it. Who
deserves best at the hands of the nation's power, the oppressor or the
oppressed? The one that grasps at the throat of the nation and att