The colored people South are better fitted for freedom than is commonly imagined.  They are quite well skilled in practical industry, more especially in agricultural pursuits.  There are many of them qualified in skilled labor in the coarser mechanic arts.  The whole of this population has been trained to diligent labor, under habits of continuous toil.  It has acquired patience in performing labor, by the discipline which unremitting labor gives.  The colored man South has not been brought up in idleness, or with habits calculated to make him a renegade.  Were he permitted to enjoy the fruits of his industry, there can be no doubt of his disposition and patience to toil on.  In case his rebel master would not hire him for wages, there would be enough amongst the non-slaveholding population who would.  Production in the South, under emancipation of the slaves of rebel masters, would not materially fall off.  Give to colored men the fruits of their industry, and many of them would soon set up for themselves.  Perhaps in connection with the soil of the South, that yields most abundantly in annual value of product, the rest of the colored population would soon get to emulate the free colored people of Charleston.  The law of subsistence would as much compel the South to go on without compulsory labor as it does the North, and there are just as many reasons for it in one section as in the other; that is, just none at all.  Under emancipation, there is little doubt that actual production could and would soon be put on the increase, with better distribution of wealth, more widely diffused comforts, and a broader and better public policy.  The only things that would be curtailed in their proportions would be slave-breeding, rebel-breeding, and ruffian cultivation.

It may, perhaps, continue to be easier for a time to strike the colored man than to strike off his shackles.  There is a mean and low side of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to strike the helpless.  This is the bravery of ruffianism.  There is apt to be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with arrogant power.  This is the cowardice of pusillanimity.  The American citizen has been noted for his superior bravery.  He has certainly shown himself brave in the battle-field, and more brave and determined than any other nation in the vindication and maintenance of the natural rights of the white man; but he is not done with the business of disenthrallment.  His language is the language of liberty.  It must not, it will not long continue to be spoken by slaves.  This was the meaning of Jefferson, when he penned the text-words of disenthrallment:  ’All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’  Where is to be found the evidence that these rights have been forfeited?  Who dare deny the right of the colored man morally,