The Liberator

WENDELL PHILLIPS—DEMOCRACY.

Extracts of a letter from a highly intelligent and respected colored citizen of Connecticut:

New London, Feb. 20, 1860.

Wm. C. Nell, Esq.—Dear Friend—This city has been favored with a lecture from Wendell Phillips, Esq., on the 'Lost Arts,' and I echo the words of every one I have heard speak of it, (and those are not few,) that it was the best of the course of lyceum lectures that has been delivered here this season. Indeed, so great is the enthusiasm to hear him again, that he is to be invited to speak on any subject that he may choose. To me, who have always resided here, I consider it a significant move in the right quarter. John Brown's campaign has set white men to thinking, and the only thing that has brought it about is the fact that white men have been made to feel the crushing weight of slavery. Northern Democracy cannot save them. Here is a case in point, since the Brown invasion: Two young men (brothers) took letters from ——, a noted Democrat of Woodstock, Ct., to Gov. Letcher of Virginia, stating that they were all right, i. e., 'sound on the goose' in regard to slavery. But, (mark this!) they were mechanics—carpenters—and, of course, 'had no rights that slaveholders were bound to respect'; consequently, they were watched in words and actions. One day, some of the butterfly troops of Virginia were on parade, and a remark was made by one of the brothers that they were a fine looking set of men! The other replied, Yes, they were; but twenty Yankees would drive them all into the swamp; which observation was overheard by a slaveholder, who instantly had the mob upon them, and they barely escaped with their lives, glad to get home to old Woodstock—changed in their views in regard to the peculiar institution and Democracy. For me, there is not much difference between a Democrat and a Republican; they are both unsound. The Republicans in this section are as much afraid of any thing dark as a booby would be in passing through the woods. They have to keep crying out about this country being free for the white man, just as the booby whistles going through the woods, and for the same reason, because they are afraid! It is no use to waste powder on the Democrats; the game is not worth it. A man, to be a Democrat now-a-days, must take an oath similar to what sailors used to when crossing the equinoctial line, that is, to go contrary to what they know to be their better nature. Thus they say, Slavery we go for, even if it enslaves us, our children, and their posterity.

My dear friend, you know we have no votes here, but we have tongues, and mean to use them. When white men ask me if I do not feel bad about slavery, and the wrong of it upon the colored people, I tell them the time has been when I thought it touched none but the colored man, but now I say, 'Weep not for me, but rather for yourselves and your children, and the evil that shall come upon you.' I tell them I have prayed that the white man might feel what the colored man felt in regard to slavery; and they are feeling it; and, unless slavery is abolished within fifty years, white men will feel it shifted upon their own shoulders, for slavery grows whiter every day; and the whiter it grows, the dearer it grows.

Yours, truly,

[Signature omitted].