J. J. L. to Frederick Douglass, September 3, 1858

Death of C. A. Mundy.

Mr. EDITOR:—I had no intention to write an obituary notice of our faithful African friend, Caesar Augustus Mundy, who died in Mt. Carmel, Ill., some two weeks since, at a somewhat advanced age; waiting rather in the expectation that some suitable and appropriate notice would issue from one of his spiritual brethren, a member of the Methodist Church, of which he was for many years a worthy and consistent associate.

To attempt more than a mere formal, sentence-long announcement of the demise of a negro, the child of a race of people who as a nation have been known in history for more than eighteen centuries, as barbarous unenlightened and wholly destitute, until lately, of the benign influences and exalting agencies of the Christian religion, may by many be thought small business, a sort of "love's labor lost."

Since, through political pressure ignoring the higher and nobler instincts of our nature, a very large class of people have unwittingly imbibed the nation that black men are a mere remove above the brute, "with no rights which white men are bound to respect," it would seem that I invited the gibes and jeers of even those who do not wholly indorse the dictum of the highest tribunal of our land.

To speak kindly and honestly of a poor, despised, benighted, down-trodden and oppressed race, may be considered fool-hardy and without profit. This hatred of the African, this denial of their humanity intellectually and morally was not always so, and will not continue always. Ethiopia was not always in the lowest scale of mental darkness, and God will yet raise her. She has had her Euclid and her Father Augustine, names which are bright with the accumulating testimonies of ages, and whose names will endure as long as science and religion have an abiding place in the human breast. The embryotic greatness of Africa is in the womb of the fugitive, awaiting development to a better and brighter destiny.

This hope of a despised people is not the dream of an enthusiast, having no foundation in truth or reason, but is based chiefly and confidently on the scripture-injunction of "honor all men," made binding by inscription. When the "Apostles of the Gentiles" enunciated this glorious hope, this gospel to the down trodden, he meant not white men alone.

In the common, Websterian acceptation of the term honor, what do we understand by "honor all men? Whom do we honor? Do we "treat with respect and perform relative duties to" a chattel, a saddle, a horse, a dog? Are these things included in the promise,

"In thee shall all nations be blessed?" No! verily not.

But to the subject of this brief and hastily written communication: Caesar A. Mundy was born in New Jersey about the year 1802, a slave, the property of Phineas Mundy, and at a subsequent period, transferred to his son, Edward Mundy, who, in 1861, brought him to this county as a bondman. Although he could not be held in the capacity of a slave in this State, he nevertheless performed faithfully and with utmost fidelity the obigagation which he had entered into with Mr. Mundy preparatory to leaving New Jersey, that of serving five years from the date of his emigration. As an evidence that he scrupulously observed this covenant with his masters and that he proved himself worthy of his love, Mr. Mundy authorized and urges Caesar, after his term of service had expired, to go into Kentucky and seek a mate from among the slaves, and he would purchase her and free her. Although he never enjoyed the advantages of a school, he was by no means ignorant of knowledge but, in that respect, could claim to be the peer of many who are favored with a paler skin, who need not encounter a blighting and withering prejudice in the acquisition of knowledge, but for whom every possible incentive to knowledge is fostered. He could read with much ease, and had a taste, which he cultivated for reading useful and profitable matter. Punctual in contributing his quota to the church and ministry of his choice, and without the aid of a mechanical pursuit, or the profits of trade and traffic, he notwithstanding accumulated, by honest and perservering efforts, the handsome estate of near two thousand dollars, which in this money-making are might be considered, in the case of one of us white folks, the measure of judgement and ability. Leaving several brothers behind him, he manifested singular and commendable wisdom in the disposition of his estate. He placed implicit trust in but one of them, whose longtried integrity and fidelity has retained him an honorable trust in the "Tract-house," New York. To him he bequeathed his effects, with the request that he should distribute their several portions to his other brothers, at such times and in such amounts as he judged best. In his child-like, retiting and "hewingof-wood" deportment, he had won himself many friends in this community. On all festal occasions, Caesar's ebony was present, wreathed with joyous smiles. Scarce a marriage festival could be celebrated without assigning to him the post of Ganymede. Many is the debt of gratitude which more than a few of love-sick swains and lassies owe to Caesar for the messages of love which he was wont to convey from the one to the other. He had installed himself worthily in the office of Love's Hermes. Well do I remember with what emotions of joy I received from

his hands the first missive of the kind; how his eyes danced delight in a consciousness of its contents. His walk through life was singularly unexceptionable; and as a worthy and consistent churchman, the testimony of his brethren will bear me witness in ascribing to him a reasonable if not full measure of the honest requirements of a Christian. By no means a bright illustration of what black men are capable, his mental, moral, and religious capacities were not contemptible. Free and enlightened America known not yet what state and degree of advancement and culture the descendants of Misraim and Put are susceptibel of. At present they may be spiritless, cowardly, brutal and improvident, We have not yet known them long enough to measure their worth, though we meet with isolated examples where true greatness has sprung out of the galling chains of bondage notwithstanding.

Prior to the Christian year 1,000, our forefathers began to emerge from a state of barbarism, heathen ignorance and serfdom more galling and degrading than the slavery of the South. Why did they continue as villains or slaves for a period of five hundred years? Were they capable of self-government? If so, why show so little spirit and wear the yoke for generations? Who losed their manacles? Did they do it themselves? Who, in our own century, strangled the despot in San Domingo?—the enslaved themselves, the only example upon record where an enslaved race, by their own sword, cut asunder the gordian know of wicked bondage. This present generation many not see the sons of Africa advance much in the arts and sciences, in the fruits of civilization and Christianization. Their civil pentecost is at hand, the signs whereof are becoming more and more manifest every day, and may be understood and appreciated by every thoughtful student of the affairs of mankind.

J. J. L.