tracked by blood-hounds, and by their inhuman oppressors more savage than blood-hounds, answer the insulting inquiry. Are they brave? Will they fight for the cause which they have dared so many dangers to espouse? I point you to the bloody records of Vicksburg, Million's Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner; I appeal to the testimony of every Union officer under whom black soldiers have fought, as the most fitting reply to such questions. Shame on the miserable sneer, that we are spending the money and shedding the blood of white men to fight the battles of the negro! Blush for your own unmanly and ungenerous prejudices, and ask yourself whether future history will not pronounce the black man, morally, not only your equal, but your superior, when it is found recorded, that, denied the rights of citizenship, long proscribed, persecuted, and enslaved, he was yet willing, and even eager, to save the life of your brother on the battle-field, and to preserve you in the peaceable enjoyment of your property at home. Is the efficient aid of such men to be rejected? Is their noble self-sacrifice to be slighted? Shall we, under the contemptible pretext, that this war must be waged--if waged at all--for the benefit of the white race, deprive negroes of an opportunity to risk their lives to maintain a government which has never protected them, and a Constitution which has been practically interpreted in such a manner as to recognize and sanction their servitude? Do not, I implore you, answer these inquiries by that easy, but infamous taunt, so constantly on the lips of unscrupulous politicians in your party,--"Here comes the inevitable nigger again!" It is precisely because the awful and too long unavenged sufferings of the slave must be inevitable, while Slavery exists, that these questions must sooner or later be asked and answered, and that your political upholding of such a system becomes a monstrous crime against humanity. After all, my dear Andrew, why are you so sensitive on the subject of Slavery? You certainly can have no personal interest in the peculiar and patriarchal institution. You are too skilful a financier ever to have invested a single dollar in that fugacious wealth which so often takes to its legs and runs away. Nor does your unwillingness to listen to any expression of anti-slavery sentiment arise from affection for or real sympathy with Slavery, on moral grounds. Indeed, I have more than once been exceedingly refreshed in spirit at observing the sincere and hearty contempt with which you have treated what is blasphemously called the Biblical argument in favor of human bondage. The pleading precedent of Abraham has not seduced you, nor has the happy lot of the more modern Onesimus quieted all your conscientious scruples. You have never failed, in private conversation, to condemn the advocates of Slavery on whatever grounds they have rested its defence, nor have you ever ceased to deplore its existence in our country.