114

266 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

best deliberation, I now for the first time during this war, feel at liberty to
call and counsel you to arms. By every consideration which binds you to
your enslaved fellow-countrymen, and the peace and welfare of your country;
by every aspiration which you cherish for the freedom and equality of
yourselves and your children; by all the ties of blood and identity which
make us one with the brave black men now fighting our battles in Louisiana
and in South Carolina, I urge you to fly to arms, and smite with death the
power that would bury the government and your liberty in the same hopeless
grave. I wish I could tell you that the State of New York calls you to this high
honor. For the moment her constituted authorities are silent on the subject.
They will speak by and by, and doubtless on the right side; but we are not
compelled to wait for her. We can get at the throat of treason and slavery
through the State of Massachusetts. She was first in the War of Independence;
first to break the chains of her slaves; first to make the black man equal
before the law; first to admit colored children to her common schools, and
she was first to answer with her blood the alarm cry of the nation, when its
capital was menaced by rebels. You know her patriotic governor, and you
know Charles Sumner. I need not add more.

"Massachusetts now welcomes you to arms as soldiers. She has but a
small colored population from which to recruit. She has full leave of the
general government to send one regiment to the war, and she has undertaken
to do it. Go quickly and help fill up the first colored regiment from the North.
I am authorized to assure you that you will receive the same wages, the same
rations, the same equipments, the same protection, the same treatment, and
the same bounty, secured to white soldiers. You will be led by able and skillful
officers, men who will take especial pride in your efliciency and success.
They will be quick to accord to you all the honor you shall merit by your
valor, and see that your rights and feelings are respected by other soldiers. I
have assured myself on these points, and can speak with authority. More than
twenty years of unswerving devotion to our common cause may give me
some humble claim to be trusted at this momentous crisis. I will not argue.
To do so implies hesitation and doubt, and you do not hesitate. You do not
doubt. The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron
gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will
fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march
out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of
centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the plane of
common equality with all other varieties of men. Remember Denmark Vesey
of Charleston; remember Nathaniel Turner of South Hampton; remember