Jefferson's Daughter

'It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the
daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was
sold at New Orleans for $1,000.'-Morning Chronicle.

Can the blood that, at Lexington, poured o'er the plain,
When the sons warred with tyrants their rights to uphold,
Can the tide of Niagara wipe out the stain?
No! Jefferson's child has been bartered for gold!

Do you boast of your freedom? Peace, babblers-be still;
Prate not of the goddess who scarce deigns to hear;
Have ye power to unbind? Are ye wanting in will?
Must the groans of your bondman still torture the ear?

The daughter of Jefferson sold for a slave!
The child of a freeman for dollars and francs!
The roar of applause, when your orators rave,
Is lost in the sound of her chain, as it clanks.

Peace, then, ye blasphemers of Liberty's name!
Though red was the blood by your forefathers spilt,
Still redder your cheeks should be mantled with shame,
Till the spirit of freedom shall cancel the guilt.

But the brand of the slave is the tint of his skin,
Though his heart may beat loyal and true underneath;
While the soul of the tyrant is rotten within,
And his white the mere cloak to the blackness of death.

Are ye deaf to the plaints that each moment arise?
Is it thus ye forget the mild precepts of Penn,-
Unheeding the clamor that 'maddens the skies,'
As ye trample the rights of your dark fellow-men?

When the incense that glows before Liberty's shrine,
Is unmixed with the blood of the galled and oppressed,
O, then, and then only, the boast may be thine,
That the stripes and stars wave o'er a land of the blest.