Wheatland, Nov. 17, 1851.

Friend Douglass:—At a public meeting held in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1842, Robert Tyler, a son of the ex-President, declared in a speech which he made on that occasion, that "the negro was but a link in the chain that united man to the brute creation." It was offered in vindication, and to detract from the guilt of slavery, by denying that the slave was a human being. This was the prevalent sentiment of the task-master, and his abettors. To give it the appearance of truth, they worked with an energy, which if directed in the opposite course, would have produced brilliant results, to depress and crush the race. They were denied privileges granted to the meanest of other lands, every avenue to respectability was closed against them; it was made a crime to teach them to read, every gleam of intelligence was quenched; every aspiration, every longing for something higher and nobler, was smothered in their bosom. Having thus robbed them of their self-respect, and effectually ground them to the earth, they turn, and with an air of generosity and magnanimity, peculiar to the South, taunt them with being low-born, servile and grovelling.

Can meanness go further? But this accusation will not avail them, because it is untrue. The fact that numbers of the colored men have, under the most adverse circumstances, arisen to positions of respectability, and influence, proves they are men. To say nothing of his despised race in Western New York, whose oratorical fame has become worldwide, whose vigorous and energetic pen, displays an intellect of no ordinary character; the simple mention of the names of Remond, Smith, Ward, &c., is a single refutation of this charge. No; the black man is a human being. He can see and feel, understand and appreciate. He can love and hate; admire and detest; possesses the same feelings and faculties; the same passions, affections, aspirations; and is susceptible of every emotion that animates the bosom of his white brother. This plea of an "inferior race," won't do. Those who make it are either misinformed, or hypocritical. This is one of the props of the institution knocked away, and in its removal, the hideousness of the system is seen in a clearer light, and the guilt and hypocrisy attending it, rendered more glaring.

There is evidently a crisis approaching in the history of our nation, that is to decide the fate of those in bonds. Every act of legislation, every occurrence of the age points to this end. A quarter of a century ago, the opposition to slavery was feeble and faint. It has survived amidst ridicule, derision, contempt, and persecution, till the public mind of the North has become filled with horror and detestation of the slave system, and the giant evils which it nurtures and sustains. The slaveholders have witnessed this rising wave of indignation, this abhorrence of a system of such gross injustice and inhumanity, and [illegible] the blindness of men driven to desperation, have sought to avert the storm by means the most daring. They have enacted sanguinary laws to redress the utterance of sympathy

with the oppressed to "conquer the prejudices" of the free people of the North, and to make them upholders and abettors of an institution they abominate. They have sought to extend and perpetuate this curse over soil before unpopulated. An adjoining republic has been dismembered and annexed. The immense arena of slave territory thus acquired, the political power gained, the increase in value of slave property, has but whetted their appetite for more. Already the initiatory steps have been taken to carve another generous slice from weak and distracted Mexico. Coveted Cuba is not yet abandoned. Priests and politicians have not proved invincible to power and patronage; but have either openly endorsed, or secretly winked and connived at these grievous wrongs. The cup of this nation's guilt is not yet full; we await with patience its further development.

Yours, truly, Engs.