A Colored Canadian to Frederick Douglass, February 20, 1854
FROM OUR CANADIAN CORRESPONDENT.
—
TORONTO, C.W., Feb. 20th, 1854.
MR. EDITOR:—It must be obvious to men
of reflection that we live in a period fraught
with momentus events. The signs of the
times are exceedingly ominous, mangre [sic] the
beautiful visions of those who see little but
"the good time coming." Heterogeneous
elemants, moral, religious, and political, are
in fearful commotion. They are rapidly ar-
ranging themselves, agreeably to their re-
spective affinities, for a conflict unparalleled
for the moral and physical sublime, for des-
peration and disaster, and for glorious re-
sults to the cause of truth and righteousness
in the earth. In this conflict none will he
neutral. The wavering, the time-server, the
unprincipled compromiser, will receive no
quarter; they will be forced into antagonistic
position. A voice of irresistible authority
will soon thrill every soul: "If the Lord be
God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow
him." Between the true disciples of Christ
and mere nominal professors;—the genuine
lovers of liberty and those who sympathize
with oppressors, there will be marked, an[d]
unmistakable distinction. Then will abo-
litionism, which has put the Christianity of
the American church to the severest test, and
proved it to be but a form of godliness with-
out the power, be itself weighted in the bal-
balance, or be caused to pass through the fiery
oreal, to the praise and glory of all who
love their neighbor as themselves. We are
glad to see, that the slave power, by its exor-
birtant demands, its audacious and daring ag-
gressions, its infamous enactments, and its
shocking barbarities, is precipitating the
issue indicated. This issue cannot be much
longer delayed. Light is flashing in the dark
abodes of despotism. The slave is restless.
He sighs for freedom as he never before
sighed. He sees his unfortunate companions
hunted by blood-hounds; and shot down an
the wild beasts of the forests;—he sees his
fellow creature, for having a skin colored like
his own, chained to a tree, by fiends in human
form, and burned to death, under circum-
stances of the most savage atrocity, while
the appointed conservators of the peace and
the professed ministers of Jesus, sanction
the diabolical deed by preaching—not re-
pentance to the guilty murderers—but obe-
dience on the part of the slaves to these san-
guinary tyrants, threatening them with a
like fate, should they dare parry the blows,
or raise their heads against a brute in human
form, under a white skin. The poor slave
finding himself thus forsaken and friendless,
thus given over to the tender mercies of an
infuriated mob, by a tyrannical government,
and deserted by a recreant, fallen church,
has no alternative but to cry, in the agony of
his soul, "How long, O Lord, how long?"—
He will not cry in vain. The day of retri-
bution is at hand. "For the oppression of the
poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will
I arise: I will set him in safety from him
that puffeth at him." "He that being often
reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly
be destroyed, and that without remedy;" is
as true of nation as of individuals. But
judging of the doctrines and doings of the
rulers of Church and State, in the American
Union, it would seem they have yet to learn
"that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he
will, and setteth up over it the basest of
men;"—that "the Judge of all the earth will
do right;"—that "he will by no means clear
the guilty:"—they have yet to learn, that, in
their God—defiant insane efforts to perpet-
uate slavery, to starve out and exile their
free colored countrymen, they most signally
exemplify the memorable heathen maxim:
"Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat."—But what of the free colored man? Is he satisfied with the position assigned him by a
corrupt public sentiment, and the invidious,
unjust laws under which he lives? The Rev.
Dr. Fuller, a distinguished champion of
slavery in the South, thus answers the ques-
tion:
"It is impossible but that the worst feel-
ings, envy, hatred, vindictiveness, will secret-
ly work in his bosom, rendering him unhap-
py in himself, and dangerous to the country.
Already have we had fearful premonitions
flashing up here and there; and rest assured,
nothing but fear represses the utterance,
deep and loud, of passions, which are only
the more fierce, because as yet, they can
have no vent. * * * * He ("the free
Africans") would not be fit for freedom, he
would not be a man, if he could be satisfied
with his position."
And what is the remedy which the Doc-
tor proposes to heal those wounds which be
in the address from which we quote, has
caused to bleed afresh? Why, of course, re-
moval of the free colored Americans to Af-
rica. But, in relation to emigration thither,
his colored brother is immovably restive,
doggedly determined not to go. And should
he, by acts of oppression and cruelty, un-
paralleled in the civilized world, be driven
from the scones of his childhood, the graves
of his fathers, he will still linger about the
continent; he will cling, with desperate
tenacity, to the new world; and if he can-
not live here, his enemies will learn, in a
lesson they will remember in eternity, that
he can die here. We would say, then, to the
Doctor, and every other negro-hater in the
land, "Agree with thine adversary quickly
while thou art in the way with him;" make
a virtue of necessity at once, and for your
own peace and happiness, in time and eterni-
ty, treat your colored countrymen as men, as
children of one common Father, as members
of one great family. But, if you otherwise
determine, then know that your quarrel is
with the arrangements of Providence; your
warfare with Omnipotence. Can you successfully contend with the Almighty? Have
you an arm like God? See you not the up-
lifted hands, and hear you not the agonizing
groans, the earnest, importunate prayers of
the oppressed, as they daily ascend to the
throne of the great Eternal for deliverance?
Can one single petition, throughout the vast
domains of oppression, be offered in opposi-
tion to the cries of the brutalized and down-
trodden? Dare you venture on such temer-
ity, such shocking impiety? Be assured,
that your unhallowed crusade against the
rights and privileges of colored Americans,
is doomed to a signal discomfiture, and your
splendid scheme of African colonization to
a splendid failure; for "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
A COLORED CANADIAN.