Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/22

 Deity, and thus sit in judgment upon the character and piety of multitudes of people whom he has never seen, and of whom he knows nothing!

Fourth. I turn from the religious advance of my people to their monetary and industrial condition. And here, too, as in the other cases referred to, there is every cause for thanksgiving. We are indeed a poor people—most likely the poorest, as a class, in the whole nation. This fact of poverty is unavoidable, for our history had one conspicuous peculiarity, viz.: that while enriching others, both law and slavery prevented us from enriching ourselves. At the period of emancipation both these hindrances were removed, and for the first time in two hundred years my people saw open before them the pathway to wealth. The change in their monetary condition has been rapid. They have not, indeed, succeeded as yet in amassing wealth; for, first, no people can extemporize a state of opulence suddenly; nor, second, has it been possible to break down straightway all the unhappy influences and hindrances of slavery. , the eldest child of slavery, still exists. But, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, the black race in this country has begun the race of wealth; has succeeded in entering some of the golden avenues of prosperity and affluence.

Twenty years ago it was a slave race. Over four millions of men and women did not own the bodies in which were enshrined the immortal spirits which resided therein.

Out of those immortal spirits slavery had crushed every noble impulse, and all the springs of action. And see now at once the marvelous change. The instinct of greed, dead for two centuries under the palsying influences of