Page:The black man - his antecedents, his genius, and his achievements (IA blackmanantecede00browrich).pdf/237

 those intrepid heroes, Denmark Veazie and Nat Turner, whose very names were a terror to oppressors; who, conceiving the sublime idea of freedom for themselves and their race, animated by a love of liberty of which they had been ruthlessly deprived, made an attempt to sever their bonds; and though, in such attempts to open the prison doors of slavery and let the oppressed go free, they were unsuccessful, their efforts and determination were none the less noble and heroic. In the future history of our country, their names to us will shine as brightly as that of the glorious old hero, who, with his colored and white followers, so strategically captured Harper's Ferry, and touched a chord in the life of our country that will vibrate throughout the land, and will not cease until the last fetter has been struck from the limbs of the last bondman in the nation; and though the bodies of these heroes lie mouldering in the clay, their souls are 'marching on.'

"I never visit our 'Cradle of Liberty,' and look at the portraits that grace its walls, without thinking that the selection is sadly incomplete, because the picture of the massacred Crispus Attucks is not there. He was the first martyr in the Boston massacre of March 5, 1770, when the British soldiers were drawn up in line on King (now State) Street, to intimidate the Boston populace. On that eventful day, a band of patriots, led by Attucks, marched from Dock Square to drive the redcoats from the vicinity of the old State House. Emboldened by the courageous conduct of this colored hero, the band pressed forward, and in attempting to wrest a musket from one of the British soldiers, Attucks was shot. His was the first blood