the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a
serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential
preservation, you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and
tranquility which you enjoy, you have mercifully received, and that a
peculiar blessing of heaven.

"This, sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state
of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its
condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that
you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy
to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: 'We hold these
truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

Then came Dr. James Derham, who could tell even the learned Dr. Rush
something of medicine, and Lemuel Haynes, to whom Middlebury College gave
an honorary A.M. in 1804. These and others we may call the Revolutionary
group of distinguished Negroes--they were persons of marked ability,
leaders of a Talented Tenth, standing conspicuously among the best of
their time. They strove by word and deed to save the color line from
becoming the line between the bond and free, but all they could do was
nullified by Eli Whitney and the Curse of Gold. So they passed into
forgetfulness.

But their spirit did not wholly die; here and there in the early part of
the century came other exceptional men. Some were natural sons of
unnatural fathers and were given often a liberal training and thus a race
of educated mulattoes sprang up to plead for black men's rights. There was
Ira Aldridge, whom all Europe loved to honor; there was that Voice crying