U[riah] B[oston] to Frederick Douglass, December 14, 1855

For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

COLORED PEOPLE NORTH AND COLORED PEOPLE SOUTH.

MR. F. DOUGLASS: DEAR SIR:—We often hear it said that the slaves are better off than the free colored people in the free States. No one who is acquainted with the facts in the case can believe this. It can do no harm to lay a few of these facts before the people, which I now propose to do, and which I will do with your permission, believing that no one who reads these facts will retain any such belief a moment thereafter. Here are the facts:

1. The laws of the slave States do not only deny the right of the slaves to hold property, but makes them property; while the free colored people are free to acquire property of every sort, and to any extent with all others.

2. The slaves are prohibited by law to educate themselves; while the free colored people in the free States are not only allowed education, but encouraged to embrace the opportunity of getting a good education free of charge.

3. The slaves have no legal right to wife or children; while the free colored people have not only the legal right to both these, but are protected in all the rights pertaining thereto.

4. The slaves labor for others life long; the free colored people in the free States labor for themselves, with the legal right to collect the just reward of their labor.

5. In the free States, the colored man's oath is good legal testimony in all cases whatever against or in favor of any body, rich and poor; while in the slave States, the meanest and most worthless white man can kick, abuse, and even kill any colored man or woman, and nothing can be done about it, unless some white person will swear to the fact. I have seen things of this sort with my own eyes.

6. In the free States colored people may travel where and how they please, without molestation; while in the South, even in Maryland and the District of Columbia, they cannot travel a mile anywhere without "a pass" or in the care of some white man. I had a friend of

the first character and standing visit me not long since, and my heart sank within me when this friend told me, with apparent composure, that he was "passed" from office to office, and from man to man, until finally he was handed over and into the hands of an old Irishman, who, instead of signing his name to the "pass," had to make —||—, and who took charge of him to see that he went out of the city and State in the "Jim Crow" car. And yet the Southerners ask the Northerners why they don't treat the free colored people better? But I ask again, which of two classes are the best off, the colored people in the free States, or the colored people in the slave States? Who will dare say the latter? Much more I want to say on this subject, and may say hereafter; but for the present I must close, with the hearty belief that the above facts encourage us to labor on in our progress with hearty good cheer.

U. B.