Indeed, if our superior advantages of the free States, do not induce and stimulate us to the higher attainments in life, what in the name of degraded humanity will do it?  Nothing, surely nothing.  If, in fine, the advantages of free schools in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and wherever else we may have them, do not give us advantages and pursuits superior to our slave brethren, then are the unjust assertions of Messrs. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Theodore Frelinghuysen, late Governor Poindexter of Mississippi, George McDuffy, Governor Hammond of South Carolina, Extra Billy (present Governor) Smith, of Virginia, and the host of our oppressors, slave-holders and others, true, that we are insusceptible and incapable of elevation to the more respectable, honorable, and higher attainments among white men.  But this we do not believe—­neither do you, although our whole life and course of policy in this country are such, that it would seem to prove otherwise.  The degradation of the slave parent has been entailed upon the child, induced by the subtle policy of the oppressor, in regular succession handed down from father to son—­a system of regular submission and servitude, menialism and dependence, until it has become almost a physiological function of our system, an actual condition of our nature.  Let this no longer be so, but let us determine to equal the whites among whom we live, not by declarations and unexpressed self-opinion, for we have always had enough of that, but by actual proof in acting, doing, and carrying out practically, the measures of equality.  Here is our nativity, and here have we the natural right to abide and be elevated through the measures of our own efforts.

VI

THE UNITED STATES OUR COUNTRY

Our common country is the United States.  Here were we born, here raised and educated; here are the scenes of childhood; the pleasant associations of our school going days; the loved enjoyments of our domestic and fireside relations, and the sacred graves of our departed fathers and mothers, and from here will we not be driven by any policy that may be schemed against us.

We are Americans, having a birthright citizenship—­natural claims upon the country—­claims common to all others of our fellow citizens—­natural rights, which may, by virtue of unjust laws, be obstructed, but never can be annulled.  Upon these do we place ourselves, as immovably fixed as the decrees of the living God.  But according to the economy that regulates the policy of nations, upon which rests the basis of justifiable claims to all freeman’s rights, it may be necessary to take another view of, and enquire into the political claims of colored men.

VII

CLAIMS OF COLORED MEN AS CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES

The political basis upon which rests the establishment of all free nations, as the first act in their organization, is the security by constitutional provisions, of the fundamental claims of citizenship.