We are all endowed “with the same faculties,” Banneker continued, and “however diversified in situation or color, we are all of the same family.” He threw Jefferson’s own words at him, citing the opening words of the Declaration of Independence. “But, Sir,” Banneker wrote, “how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so
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