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And shall the nations dare to hold
In chains, whom Thou hast chartered free?
Or buy, with their accursed gold,
The sinewy arm and servile knee.
Whate'er of crime, whate'er of woe,
Europe has wrought and Afric wept,
In his recording volume, lo!
The Angel of the Court has kept.
In that great day, when Afric's race
Are from their house of bondage cast,
O, hide us in some peaceful place,
'Till all thy wrath be over-past."
It is often urged, though falsely, by the American Slaveholders and their abettors, that the Negro race does not possess, to the same degree as the white race, those strong social feelings and filial affections which lay at the foundation of human society; the essential elements and spontaneous out-growth of our nature. The potent ligaments of the whole social fabric. And as these qualities are developed, man ascends higher in the scale of intellectual, moral, social, and religious being. And that these qualities are in the Negro not equal in their development to the white race, I readily admit. But that the Negro does not possess them to the same degree as the white race, as characteristics of human nature, and that they are not as capable in the Negro race of as high a degree of development as in the white race, I am not at all prepared to admit. As to whether they possess them or not, a few examples will demonstrate. Stern
