Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/250

 aims, ends, and objects in life on a level with the low, grovelling, and servile plane of a slavish and dependent mind; or if by chance that mind has grown restless under its fetters, and sighs for enfranchisement and liberty, it is apt to rush to the other extreme in its desires, and is led to covet those positions for which it has no proper qualifications whatever. The bent of the slavery-disciplined mind is either too low or too high. It cannot remain in equilibrium. It either cringes with all the dastard servility of the slave, or assumes the lordly airs of a cruel and imperious despot.

These things, therefore, being true of the victims of abject servitude, we have herein the key to the failure of the colored emigration to Hayti.

At the invitation of President Geffrard, in 1861, some of the colored citizens of the United States did accept the invitation and went out; but it would have been better for them and for Hayti had they remained at home. The majority of the emigrants ventured on the voyage to Hayti, because a free passage was given them by Geffrard; and the offer of the Haytian government to supply the emigrants with provisions until they could raise a crop, was a bait which these idlers could not withstand.

Men who had been failures in their own country, could scarcely be expected to meet with success by merely a trip across the sea.

What Hayti needed were men with stout hearts and hard hands, fitted for an agricultural life, determined upon developing the resources of the country. Men of the above type are to be found in our land, but