Article #170 - Discussion on Lyceums

            Would not the object of this association be more effectually promoted by confining the subjects of its Lectures Essays Questions and discussion strictly to science?

[No! says the author, E. P. Barnard. First, the dangers of liquor must be taught; as must, secondly, the injurious effects of tobacco.]

            Thirdly, Slavery the crowning climax of human misery is a curse and an abomination upon our country we are represented as a free & independant [sic] people keeping at the same time over three millions of our citizens in bondage denying them the privilege of their freedom tearing asunder man & wife, parent from children without reference to the misery consequent thereon.

            A poor slave mother related to me her story as the tears trinkeled [sic] down her cheeks she assured me she had to overcome many hardships but tearing her children from her was more than she could bare [sic] the slave villain (for that is what I will call him) came with his bloody lash demanding them to follow him which alarmed the little ones they ran to her for assistance some in her lap others clambering up between her & the chair with their arms around her neck while some clung to her for they thought that she could save them for a parent will

overcome any danger on behalf of their children, but these ruffians tore them away amidst entreaties & crys [sic] of humanity caring nought about the feelings of the parent but strap[p]ed her up and lashed her severely for interfering they are not al[l]owed to show any signs of grief if they do their lot will be a worse one.

            Who are they that are here could bear to see a child, parent, brother, or sister, torn from them, is it not hard enough to part with them when called by death but tis harder by far to have them torn away placed upon the auction block & sold to the highest bidder regardless of the misery that they inflict upon them.

            “Well did Thomas Jefferson exclaim I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just & that his justice will not sleep forever.”

            Do we not see the necessity of having our Lectures Essays &c of such a character as would be reminding the people of the enormity & degradation that is in our land endeavouring to devise some plan for its radical extermination from this bo[a]sted land of the free and the home of the brave.

            It is enough to make a person shudder to think of the slave catching law that was passed by a recent session of Congress our late legislature passed too on the strength of northern votes, your own representatives woman has no hand in this thing she too is held in vasselage deprived by you of her natural & unalienable rights had womans spirit throb[b]ed within those halls a different result would undoubtedly have occur[r]ed.

            Woman ever hateth strife

            Amid the sunny scenes of life

            Her soul delights to dwell

            But when the wrong comes o’er the right,

            When fiercest deadliest in the fight

            She girds her armour on!

            Joy to the true! they hail her form

            The rainbow of the battle storm

            When blows fall fast their hearts are firm

            And victory is won.

            No free coloured man is in safety I need not say coloured for no man is in safety, but in the operation of your own laws passed by your own representatives you yourselves by false acquisitions may be claimed as the property of a southern nabob may be dragged into the cotton fields of Alabama or the sugar plantations of Louisiana.

            There is evidently as much necessity for Temperance Anti-Tobacco, & Anti-Slavery Lectures as scientific there are some that are so eccentric that they will not listen to anything of a reformatory nature anything that will enlighten them in reference to the true Geography of the race for fear that they might be convinced of a truth become excited if they think an Antislavery Lecture will be delivered in their hearing & are disposed to cherish an unwarrantable prejudice against Afric’s sable sons and daughters have but little simpathy [sic] for their improvement & right development of their depressed intellects rendered such by op[p]ression in its varied forms.

Hence the propriety of questions & answers throwing light upon the miserys [sic] of the race. Scientific questions have a tendency to enlarge the mind in reference to science, but ques-

tions & investigations of the kind I have been al[l]uding to will have the same tendency in reference to the position, unalienable rights, and the true order of society and that we may thereby approximate nearer the higher destiny designed us of making this life a kind of paradise

below.

            That from East to West from North to South

            Right principals [sic] should extend

            And every man in every face behold

            His brother and his friend

So in the Language of Whittier

            “Up the hillside down the glen

            Rouse the sleeping citizen

            Summon out the might of men

            Clang the bells of all your spires,

            On the gray hills of your sires

            Fling to Heaven your signal fires.

            Oh for God and duty stand

            Heart to heart, and [hand?] with hand

            Round the old graves of your land.

            Whoso shrinks and falters now

            Whoso to the yoke would bow

            Brand the craven on his brow.”

                                    E. P. Barnard