The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

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APPENDIX. 457
he wise and the good to abandon it. No pride of opinion or of
reputation should then induce them longer to lend it countenance.
If any one doubts that that portion of our enterprise which relates
:o slavery is of sufficient magnitude to call for action at the polls, in
pne form or other, from all who love justice above self-aggrandize-
(nent, let him compare the wrongs set forth in the Declaration of
American Independence as a sufficient motive to a seven years' war,
vvith those which we propose to redress through a peaceful resort to
:he ballot-box. Were the victims of our injustice to state the griev-
mces which they suffer at our hands, the following might enter into
the array
"They have deprived us of the enjoyment of our inalienable rights
to choose for ourselves our places of abode.
"They have wrested from us our right to select the mode of our
employment.
" They have denied us freedom of speech and of the press.
"They have forbidden us the exercise of our natural faculties, and
:>f the means of mental and moral culture which the Creator has
prepared for us.
"They have rendered us prisoners for life, without even a charge
of crime, while they deem a few months or years of imprisonment a
sufficient penalty for confessed and hardened criminals.
"They have prohibited to us the free exercise of religion, and
have excluded from our intercourse those ministers of Christianity
who would preach conformity to the primary precepts of their own
professed faith, viz., that they should do unto others as they would
that others should do unto them.
"They have driven us to unreasonable and excessive toil.
"They have rendered us liable, at the arbitrary caprice of individ-
uals, to be deprived of convenient food, clothing, shelter and medical
aid.
"They have subjected our persons, without distinction of sex or
age, to assault, outrage and even death, at the will of each member
of the privileged class, by depriving the injured and their friends of
the right of giving testimony in courts of justice against the aggressors.
"They have forbidden us to become instructed and qualified for
reading those laws which they have imposed upon us without our
consent or participation, and have doomed us to more grievous
penalties for violating such laws through ignorance, than they inflict
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