who disparage us, giving themselves credit for whatever is commendable that may emanate from us, if there be the least opportunity of claiming it by "blood." We shall now proceed to review the attainments of colored men and women of the present day.

X

PRACTICAL UTILITY OF COLORED PEOPLE OF THE PRESENT DAY AS MEMBERS OF SOCIETY—BUSINESS MEN AND MECHANICS

In calling attention to the practical utility of colored people of the present day, we shall not be general in our observations, but simply, direct attention to a few particular instances, in which colored persons have been responsibly engaged in extensive business, or occupying useful positions, thus contributing to the general welfare of community at large, filling their places in society as men and women.

It will studiously be borne in mind, that our sole object in giving these cases publicity, is to refute the objections urged against us, that we are not useful members of society. That we are consumers and non-producers—that we contribute nothing to the general progress of man. No people who have enjoyed no greater opportunity for improvement, could possibly have made greater progress in the same length of time than have done the colored people of the present day.

A people laboring under many disadvantages, may not be expected to present at once, especially before they have become entirely untrammeled, evidence of entire equality with more highly favored people.

When Mr. Jefferson, the great American Statesman and philosopher, was questioned by an English gentleman, on the subject of American greatness, and referred to their literature as an evidence of inferiority to the more highly favored and long-existing European nations; Mr. Jefferson's reply was—"When the United States have existed as long as a nation, as Greece before she produced her Homer and Socrates; Rome, before she produced her Virgil, Horace, and Cicero; and England, before she produced her Pope, Dryden, and Bacon"; then he might consider the comparison a just one. And all we shall ask, is not to wait so long as this, not to wait until we become a nation at all, so far as the United States are concerned, but only to unfetter our brethren, and give us, the freemen, an equal chance for emulation, and we will admit any comparison you may please to make in a quarter of a century after.

For a number of years, the late James Forten, of Philadelphia, was the proprietor of one of the principal sail 

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