if we have to obtain our freedom by fighting.  Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate you,[27] and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as much our country, as it is yours.—­Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together.  For we are not like you, hard hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving.  What a happy country this will be, if the whites will listen.  What nation under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives us up into his hand?  But Americans, I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends.  You do not look for it, do you?  Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends.  And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people.  The whites may say it is impossible, but remember that nothing is impossible with God.

The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have to raise us from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and to make a national acknowledgement to us for the wrongs they have inflicted on us.  As unexpected, strange, and wild as these propositions may to some appear, it is no less a fact, that unless they are complied with, the Americans of the United States, though they may for a little while escape, God will yet weigh them in a balance, and if they are not superior to other men, as they have represented themselves to be, he will give them wretchedness to their very heart’s content.

And now brethren, having concluded these four Articles, I submit them, together with my Preamble, dedicated to the Lord for your inspection, in language so very simple, that the most ignorant, who can read at all, may easily understand—­of which you may make the best you possibly can.[28] Should tyrants take it into their heads to emancipate any of you, remember that your freedom is your natural right.  You are men, as well as they, and instead of returning thanks to them for your freedom, return it to the Holy Ghost, who is your rightful owner.  If they do not want to part with your labours, which have enriched them, let them keep you, and my word for it, that God Almighty, will break their strong band.  Do you believe this my brethren?—­See my Address delivered before the General Coloured Association of Massachusetts, which may be found in Freedom’s Journal, for Dec. 20, 1828.—­See the last clause of that Address.  Whether you believe it or not, I tell you that God will dash tyrants, in combination with devils, into atoms, and will bring you out from your wretchedness and miseries, under these Christian People!!!!!!

Those philanthropists and lovers of the human family, who have volunteered their services for our redemption from wretchedness, have a high claim on our gratitude, and we should always view them as our greatest earthly benefactors.