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226 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

there are skill, invention, power, industry, and real mechanical genius,
among the colored people, which will bear favorable testimony for them,
and which only need the means to develop them, I am decidedly in favor of
the establishment of such a college as I have mentioned. The benefits of
such an institution would not be confined to the Northern States, nor to the
free colored people. They would extend over the whole Union. The slave
not less than the freeman would be benefited by such an institution. It must
be confessed that the most powerful argument now used by the southern
slaveholder, and the one most soothing to his conscience, is that derived
from the low condition of the free colored people of the north. I have long
felt that too little attention has been given by our truest friends in this country
to removing this stumbling block out of the way of the slave's
liberation.

"The most telling, the most killing refutation of slavery, is the presentation
of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty, and intelligent free black population.
Such a population I believe would rise in the Nothern States under the
fostering care of such a college as that supposed.

"To show that we are capable of becoming mechanics I might adduce
any amount of testimony; but, dear madam, I need not ring the changes on
such a proposition. There is no question in the mind of any unprejudiced
person that the Negro is capable of making a good mechanic. Indeed, even
those who cherish the bitterest feelings towards us have admitted that the
apprehension that negroes might be employed in their stead, dictated the
policy of excluding them from trades altogether. But I will not dwell upon
this point as I fear I have already trespassed too long upon your precious
time, and written more than I ought to expect you to read. Allow me to say
in conclusion, that I believe every intelligent colored man in America will
approve and rejoice at the establishment of some such institution as that now
suggested. There are many respectable colored men. fathers of large families,
having boys nearly grown up, whose minds are tossed by day and by
night with the anxious inquiry, what shall I do with my boys? Such an institution
would meet the wants of such persons. Then, too, the establishment of
such an institution would be in character with the eminently practical philanthropy
of your trans-Atlantic friends. America could scarcely object to it as
an attempt to agitate the public mind on the subject of slavery, or to dissolve
the Union. It could not be tortured into a cause for hard words by the
American people, but the noble and good of all classes would see in the
effort an excellent motive, a benevolent object, temperately, wisely, and
practically manifested.

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