Page:An address to the free people of color of the state of Maryland.djvu/4



Having thus briefly introduced myself, I will drop the third person and for plainness and convenience address you personally. At the outset, I will affirm, that the result of my long intercourse with the race to which you belong, the native African, the slave, and the free, in this and other lands, is a firm conviction, that, as a race—or a variety of the human species—you are capable of attaining the full stature of Manhood: not equalling some other varieties in intellectual power and ability, but surpassing others, and inferior to none in moral endowments and the capabilities for the rational enjoyment of human life. Did I believe otherwise, the counsel, I now propose to give, would be but an absurdity. With capabilities for the highest, what is the position you now occupy? In a legal point of view, you are disfranchised, you cannot hold any office of trust or profit in the government. You have not the right of trial by a jury of your peers—your jurors are of your masters. Your testimony, where the property or person of a white man is concerned, is not admitted in any court. You are declared not citizens of the United States, or of any State, by a decision of the highest tribunal in the land. You are not allowed to take part in any election or vote for any office. You are not permitted to bear arms in defence of the country in which you live, or for personal protection. You are taxed for the support of a Government in which you can take no part, and of schools, from which your own children can receive no benefit—and lastly, you are subject to a special legislation, from time to time, further circumscribing your personal liberties in various ways. So much for your legal disabilities.

As to your social position, or I should say, degradation, for position in comparison with the white race, you have none, it would be useless to attempt a detail; it is in accordance with, or what might be expected from your legal disfranchisement. You are liable to insult and contumely at every step, and even your private dwellings are not sacred from intrusion and violence of lawless ruffianism; for, however aggravated a case may be, and ample the testimony of your own race, legal redress you have none; and where you meet with kindness and protection, the act and manner of its tender is often more humiliating to an independent mind, than actual cruelty or neglect, implying, as it does, your absolute dependence and inferiority.

Now, I appeal to you all, collectively and individually, are not these things so? And if so, what and where is the remedy, for I cannot believe you so lost to all sense of independence, manhood and self respect, that you are content to live and die in such a state of absolute inferiority. Is there hope of improvement in the future? To judge the future by the past—none. There are, doubtless, those among you who have cast a vote in the elections of the State, or who remember to have seen some of your people do it. Now, what greater absurdity could be imagined than for a black man to present himself at the polls. You all must know that the Legislation of the State, in regard to the "free people of color," is becoming more and more stringent, that every session of the Legislature adds one or more chapters to the statute book, curtailing, in