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And by thy junior, thus in bondage held,
By claim, pretended from Omnipotence,
In vindication of accursed wrong;

As though Benignity would have transmitted,
From its throne, a license for oppression!
Shameless slander of a God of justice,
Who hath, with nicest impartiality,
Dispensed his mercies, equally, to all;
Nor designed the rule should be perverted!

Thy history declares, the time was once,
When all thy caste was stigmatized as

To feed on threats, and grieve in thankfulness,
Or suffer scourging for ingratitude.

Nor do we lack examples, nearer home,

(We hope Judge Lynch wont hear the allusion)
Of metamorphosing men to cattle;

Though, not exactly, by the Power Divine,
By which hereditary Kings are made,
But what is nearest in authority,
That of the Federal-Constitution,

Which owns the equal rights of all mankind,
And therefore deems the African a beast!
For else, his freedom is as well secured
By this same Compact, paramount to law,
As that of any yankee-mother's son,
Whose sire, the war-torch lit, at Lexington!—

Glorious Spirit of Seventy-six,

Which did, the fetters, of the black-man, fix,

Through countless generations of his race;

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Nor heeded the anomalous disgrace,
Of rearing its standard, in name of God,
And striping its flag, with the negro's blood;"
Bestowing its freedom on all our kin,
Whom nature wrapped not, in too dark a skin!
Thus doth Columbia's Charter secure
The mutual justice, of Simon Pure!
Nor is dominion counter to the plans
Of brawling, nominal republicans!-
With whom, liberty is another name
For downright, political recklessness
Of all the rules a wise Consistency
Has established, for its preservation—
A liberty, that bold Licentiousness
Might feed upon, to gouty corpulence-
That fain, would make Philosophy and Art
Shake hands with Ignorance and Quackery,
And call this breach of Nature's institutes—
This impracticable absurdity,

Sublime, political equality

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A liberty that spurns a guardian,
Though it were a Deity incarnate!
Nor will it yield the insane privilege,
Of being cheated, and imposed upon
By any false pretender, who shall choose
To expend his wit in that direction!

As those ancient chronicles inform us,
Whose veracity must not be doubted,
Thou wert, firstly manacled, where the Nile
Made corn abundant, yet where vassals starved;

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Where slaves,by thousands,wrought for one mad lord,
And other millions, for an insane king;

Where princely vanity could gorge itself,
With lumbrous, architect'ral monuments,
Obelisks, Pyramids and Labyrinth,
For Glory, Sepulture and Sacrilege;
Nor grieve at such a reckless sacrifice,
Of human flesh and sinews, as should draw
Tears, from an eyeless, marble monument!

That thou wert, next, enslaved in Palestine,
By those annointed Hebrew Partialists,
That claimed, by contract of the Deity,
The entire beneficence of Heaven:
Nor, like innumerous, modern Christians,
Would they admit a soul to Paradise,

But through the slough, of their formalities!

Thenceforth, the world, (for such were Greece and

Rome,)

Assumed the right to scourge thee at its will:

And tho' that world has met sad changes since,

It has not changed its hate of thee,

Except in few and rare particulars!

Thou art, tho' men have known thee long too well,
A thing anomalous-inscrutable,

And which no single definition fits!
Chameleon like, thou art as changeful
As conscience, fashion and opinion are!
For that which bears thine epithet, to-day,

Might, yesterday, have been called competence,
And to-morrow, with equal justice, wealth.

Like one, who holds left-handed sentiments,
Of Religion, Politics or Morals,

Or like a debtor irresponsible,

Thou art unwilling to expose thy state

Of feeling, or of funds!—

Kind hearted thing!

To be so careful of our sympathies,

As though we had a wish, to waste on thee,
But that thou had'st been drowned with Egypte Host,
Nor lived, to snarl at Providence so long,

For ills, thy sordidness hath merited!

Thou art as friendless as ophthalmia,
Or Parsimony, Toothache, or the Gout,
And as heartily contemned as Treason!
And so thou should'st! for rank duplicity,
The vilest trait, in Satan's character,

And e'en in some, who own him not as master,
Has marked thy wanderings, six thousand years;
And yet
thou would'st, like most of us, be thought
Possessed of virtues, which were never thine;
And charge on others, want of complaisance,
While thou dost not, one whit, respect thyself!

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Thou art the cringing sycophant of Wealth,
Whom, meanwhile, thou pretendest to despise!
Nor can❜st yet sustain e'en Honor's shadow,
Without a golden crutch, to lean upon!

Nor is such lameness rare, among mankind!

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To imitate Wealth's worst delinquencies, à n‡a
And play the tyrant, well, with Beggary,
Seems the apex of thy mean aspirings.
Such baseness fits thee, for a paltry slave,
And shapes thy pliant limbs, for manacles!
The ape and mocking-bird excel thee, more,
In principle than art! For they do not,
Select, for imitation, but the worst,

Of all the practical examples,

Of prank and voice, but fain attempt the whole!

Thou art the pander of Licentiousness,

The supple catspaw of thine enemy,

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To scratch out nuts, from where 'twould burn its own!
Not much unlike, some talking animals,

Who, being served, (ungrateful fratricides)
Then serve themselves, by sacrificing those,
Who have been catering for their baseness!
Yet thou, with all these stains upon thy hands,
Art no less sensitive, when honor 's touched,
Than though, memory had, to thee, turned traitor,
And left thee unacquainted with thyself!
Or wert a Congress man, or Col. Webb,
To murder folks in injured manhood's cause,
While the transaction proves themselves are beasts!
And, were detraction whispered in thine ear,
Thy carcase would, like a percussion cap,
Explode, and let thy mammoth spirit out,
To plant a Cypress, on a mad-man's grave!

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