David Walker writes in "Walker's Appeal":
... I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family.
Can the whites deny this charge?
Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs?
O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves?
Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. --
Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds?
It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains.
I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty.
So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own... (from "Walker's Appeal")
No comments:
Post a Comment