It is hard to think that human beings can be placed thus defenceless by Act of Congress,--that masters or overseers, being white, may offer to colored persons any offence, any brutality, and the testimony of the witnesses, merely because they are colored, shall be excluded absolutely.
He laments the vulnerability of colored individuals under laws that allow their testimony to be disregarded.
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They are but leaders of the two contending factions into which the Slave Power is divided.
Above all, welcome to the united regenerated Democracy of the North, which spurns the mockery of a Republic, with professions of Freedom on the lips, while the chains of Slavery clank in the Capitol!
But so long as War exists as an Institution this terrible inconsistency must appear.
Nay, more,--if it would be criminal in these several clusters of States to reëstablish the Institution of War as Arbiter of Justice, then is it criminal in the Commonwealth of Nations to continue it.
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