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Letter from our Philadelphia Correspondent.
Philadelphia, Penn.,
Dec. 14, 1857.
The suggestion which you made us in your visit last winter that we should occasionally meet for military drill, our colored citizens can not be made to heed. In them refusing to acquire a knowledge of the manly art of united self-defense we think they show an unpardonable degree of obtuseness. It appears that the "Liberty Guard" of Boston, has made its appearance in public parade, which has redounded much to their credit. We doubt whether any such parade would be tolerated in Philadelphia; most likely it would not. The moyamensing rowdies and vagabonds, thieves, knaves, pimps, rascally scapegoats of eery dye, those Lords of the Argus, the Pennsylvania and other like satanic sheets, most probably would not allow a military company of colored men to march through our streets just now. But let our colored brethren get well under drill, let every man of us know how to use the sabre and the bayonet in order and at the command of some well chosen chieftain, let each and all get accustomed to smelling powder, let these things be done and we may rest assured that when we see fit to take a little military exercise in the open air, we shall most likely be unmolested. We don't wish to raise the cry of blood and thunder. But we must and will insist that it is black men's right to know how to defend themselves, as well as it is white men's. If it is right and just and proper for the latter to be prepared for war in time of peace, we cannot see why it is not equally so for the former. We are sick and disgusted at the tractable and lamblike manner in which black men conduct themselves under an oppression such as the orient vassals of the Czar never saw. What in God's name has seized upon us are we dumb to the terrible tyranny which meets us at every turn? We know not which to despise most; the damnable prejudice meeted out to us, or the lamblike meekness with which we receive it. An editor who may be our next door neighbor, will denounce us and write us out of existence, without fear of ever being molested about it by an negroes pen or tongue a word from him against uncivilized foreigners
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