The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848
feel, and to act, he made a bold attempt to effect a revolution, and failing in it, he fell a martyr to his principles.

On the day previous to his death, he wrote the following lines, of which Coolridge or Montgomery would not have been ashamed. They present a blaze of poetic fire, intense and sublime:—

The next day they led Placido forth to execution, and from the mouths of bristling musketry a shower of lead was poured upon his quivering heart. That heart stood still,—and a truer, braver one, never beat in the breast of a mortal man!

[18]The Brazillian Government holds three millions of the colored race in slavery. The United States have about the same number. The Spanish Colonies have one million.

[18]

But it is proper to turn the other side of the picture, and I rejoice that there is another side. Nine hundred thousand of these people are enjoying their freedom in the British West India Isles. There are six hundred thousand free people in the United States, while in Hayti we have an independent population of nearly a million. Possessing a land of unsurpassed fertility, they have but to turn their attention manfully to Agricultural pursuits and it will shine forth the brightest Isle that slumbers in the arms of old ocean.

In regard to the enslavement of our race, this Country presents as mournful a picture as any other beneath the sun; but still it is not hopelessly enshrouded in darkness. The good institutions of the land are well adapted to the developement of the mind. So far as the oppressed shall make their own way towards them, and shall escape the influence of those that are evil, so far shall they succeed in throwing off their bitter thraldom, and in wrenching the scourge from the hands of tyranny.

Slavery has done much to ruin us, and we ourselves have done some things which effect the same. Perhaps the evils of which I am about to speak arise from slavery, and are the things without which the system cannot exist. But nevertheless we must contribute largely towards their overthrow. If it is in our power to destroy these evils, and we do not, then much of our own blood will be found on us.

We are divided by party feuds, and are torn in pieces by dissensions. Some men have prostituted good talents, for the base purpose of kindling the fires of discord. Some who officiated in the temples said to be dedicated to God, are idolaters to sectarianism. And some 
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