If
pulpits must be desecrated by eulogies of the patriotism of bloodshed, we
see no reason why black defenders of their country in the war for liberty
should not receive honorable mention as well as white invaders of a
neighboring republic who have volunteered in a war for plunder and
slavery extension. For the latter class of "heroes" we have very little
respect. The patriotism of too many of them forcibly reminds us of Dr.
Johnson's definition of that much-abused term "Patriotism, sir! 'T is
the last refuge of a scoundrel."
"What right, I demand," said an American orator some years ago, "have the
children of Africa to a homestead in the white man's country?" The
answer will in part be found in the facts which we have presented. Their
right, like that of their white fellow-citizens, dates back to the dread
arbitrament of battle. Their bones whiten every stricken field of the
Revolution; their feet tracked with blood the snows of Jersey; their toil
built up every fortification south of the Potomac; they shared the famine
and nakedness of Valley Forge and the pestilential horrors of the old
Jersey prisonship.
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