proof of all that is paralyzing to enterprise, destructive to ambition, ruinous to character, crushing to mind, and painful to the soul, in the monster, Prejudice. For it is found equally malignant, active, and strong,—associated with the mechanical arts, in the work-shop, in the mercantile house, in the commercial affairs of the country, in the halls of learning in the temple of God, and in the highways and hedges. It almost possesses ubiquity; it is everywhere, doing its deleterious work wherever one of the proscribed class lives and moves.
Yet prejudice against color, prevalent as it is in the minds of one class of our community against another, is unnatural, though habitual. If it were natural, children would manifest it with the first signs of consciousness; but with them, all are alike affectionate and beloved. They have not the feeling, because it is a creature of education and habit.
While we write, there are now playing at our right, a few steps away, a colored and a white child, with all the affection and harmony of feeling, as though prejudice had always been unknown.
Prejudice overlooks all that is noble and grand in man's being. It forgets that, housed in a dark complexion is, equally and alike, with the white, all that is lofty in mind and noble in soul; that there lies an equal immortality. It teaches to grade mind and soul, either by the texture of the hair, or the form of the features, or the color of the skin. This is an education fostered by prejudice; consequently, an education almost universally prevalent in our country; an education, too, subverting the principles of our humanity, and turning away the dictates of our noble being from what is important, to meaner things."
This Country, our only Home.
"When we say, "our home," we refer to the colored community. When we say, "our only home," we speak in a
