Page:The black man - his antecedents, his genius, and his achievements (IA blackmanantecede00browrich).pdf/53

 take up arms and fight to a man for them Mr. Toombs, I believe, threatened that he would arm his slaves, and other men in Congress from the slave states made the same threat. They were going to arm the slaves and turn them against the north. They said they could be trusted; and many people here at the north really believed that the slave did not want his liberty, would not have it if he could, and that the slave population was a very dangerous element against the north; but at once, on the approach of our soldiers, the slaves are seen, with their bundles and baskets, and hats and coats, and without bundles or baskets, and without hats or coats, rushing to our lines; demonstrating what we have so often said, that all the slave was waiting for was the opportunity to get his liberty. Why should you not have believed this? Why should you have supposed for a moment, that, because a man's color differs a little from yours, he is better contented to remain a slave than you would be, or that he has no inclination, no wish, to escape from the thraldom that holds him so tight? What is it that does not wish to be free?

"Go, let a cage with grates of gold, And pearly roof, the eagle hold; Let dainty viands be its fare, And give the captive tenderest care; But say, in luxury's limits pent, Find you the king of birds content? No; oft he'll sound the startling shriek, And dash the cage with angry beak: Precarious freedom's far more dear Than all the prison's pampering cheer."

As with the eagle, so with man. He loves to look upon the bright day and the stormy night; to gaze