of equal rights, and equal consideration and respect.  All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues—­the most vulgar, as well as the self-styled most refined—­have learnt to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.  How, in the name of all that is natural, probable, possible, should the spirit and energy of any human creature support itself under such an accumulation of injustice and obloquy?  Where shall any mass of men be found with power of character and mind sufficient to bear up against such a weight of prejudice?  Why, if one individual rarely gifted by heaven were to raise himself out of such a slough of despond, he would be a miracle; and what would be his reward?  Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—­would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—­would any of you give your daughter to his son, or your son to his daughter?—­would you, in any one particular, admit him to the footing of equality which any man with a white skin would claim, whose ability and worth had so raised him from the lower degrees of the social scale.  You would turn from such propositions with abhorrence, and the servants in your kitchen and stable—­the ignorant and boorish refuse of foreign populations, in whose countries no such prejudice exists, imbibing it with the very air they breathe here—­would shrink from eating at the same table with such a man, or holding out the hand of common fellowship to him.  Under the species of social proscription in which the blacks in your Northern cities exist, if they preserved energy of mind, enterprise of spirit, or any of the best attributes and powers of free men, they would prove themselves, instead of the lowest and least of human races, the highest and first, not only of all that do exist, but of all that ever have existed; for they alone would seek and cultivate knowledge, goodness, truth, science, art, refinement, and all improvement, purely for the sake of their own excellence, and without one of those incentives of honour, power, and fortune, which are found to be the chief, too often the only, inducements which lead white men to the pursuit of the same objects.

You know very well dear E——­, that in speaking of the free blacks of the North I here state nothing but what is true and of daily experience.  Only last week I heard, in this very town of Philadelphia, of a family of strict probity and honour, highly principled, intelligent, well-educated, and accomplished, and (to speak the world’s language) respectable in every way—­i.e. rich.  Upon an English lady’s stating it to be her intention to visit these persons when she came to Philadelphia, she was told that if she did nobody else would visit her; and she probably would excite a malevolent feeling, which might find vent in some violent demonstration against this family.  All that I have now said of course bears only upon the condition of the free