ftAfk BOOKS 
 
 
 NORMAL SCM STM. 
 
 i, HAMPTON, VA. 
 
THE ELEVATION OF A RACE AND 
 THE REDEMPTION OF A CONTINENT 
 
 AN ADDKESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 JAKTUARY 15, 1878, 
 
 WILLIAM H. ALLEN, LL. D., 
 
 President of Girard College. 
 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY : 
 
 Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 
 1878. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/elevationofracer00alle_2 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen:— 
 
 When Bushrod Washington was elected President of the American 
 Colonization Society, sixty-one years ago, not one of the eminent men 
 who had organized that Society imagined that the colony they were 
 about to plant on the coast of Africa would be an independent nation 
 before the close of the next thirty years. And when, thirty years ago, 
 Joseph Roberts delivered his inaugural address as first president of the 
 infant republic, who would have dared to predict that before twenty 
 years should pass away there •would not be a slave in the United States, 
 and that before the year 1878 there would be schools and colleges and 
 universities in successful operation for the instruction of colored youth? 
 The bold prophet would have been sent to prison as “a person danger- 
 ous to the peace of society,” had he been caught in the South, and in 
 the North he would have been regarded as a crazy enthusiast. The 
 march of history is accelerated in these later years. 
 
 The succession of historical events, which, as Christians, we name the 
 order of Providence, is not unfrequently an evolution of good from 
 evil. God causes the wrath of man to praise Him. Prosperity has 
 sprung from adversity, right from wrong, freedom from slavery. The 
 Hebrew lad, sold into bondage by his brethren, becomes their preserver 
 and benefactor. Saul of Tarsus goes forth breathing out threatenings 
 and slaughter, and returns to preach the faith he had tried to destroy. 
 Almost every step in the progress of civilization has been through tears 
 and blood. The best we have is “ the good of suffering born.” The 
 death of Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light. The cross 
 precedes the crown. 
 
 Let us suppose that a historical problem is to be solved. A conti- 
 nent is to be redeemed from barbarism to civilization, from idolatry to 
 
4 
 
 Christianity. Suppose that the inhabitants of that continent are in- 
 capable of self-elevation, and therefore science, art, social culture and 
 .religion are to be imported from abroad. Suppose further that the cli- 
 mate is insalubrious to foreigners, and therefore science, art, social cul- 
 ture and Christianity will not be imported by them. Suppose, finally, 
 that the people are too indolent to seek such benefits in other countries, 
 and too ignorant to appreciate them if they did. Such was, and to a 
 great extent is, the actual condition of a large part of Africa. How 
 shall her millions be instructed, elevated, civilized, Christianized ? 
 
 Look at the long catalogue of evils and sufferings of which good has 
 been born, and more good is yet to be born, — wars of the native tribes 
 to capture human merchandise; the barracoon, the slave-ship, the hor- 
 rors of the middle passage; the auction block, the rending asunder of 
 families, the consignment to hopeless and hereditary bondage; fierce 
 and protracted political controversy; a bloody and destructive war. 
 Were there no compensation for these tremendous evils we might doubt 
 whether there is a God in history. Let us see what good has come, or 
 is promised, from two centuries of suffering and wrong. By contact 
 with civilization a barbarous but imitative race became in a degree civ- 
 ilized. The bondmen learned of their masters many useful arts, and 
 how the comforts of life are obtained by labor. The descendants of 
 idolators accepted the truths of the Bible with childlike faith, and em- 
 braced a religion, not of the head but of the heart, a form of Christian- 
 ity, sentimental and emotional it may be, but suited to their imperfect 
 mental development. Then amidst the throes of a sanguinary war 
 came emancipation, citizenship, civil rights, equality before the law. 
 education, and for the industrious and frugal the gradual accumulation 
 of property. And now, last of all, thousands are looking earnestly 
 toward the land of their fathers, and preparing to realize the cherished 
 hope and prophecy of this Society,— a self-supporting emigration to 
 Africa. The hardy and energetic will go to better their own condition, 
 or at least the condition of their children ; the educated and philan- 
 thropic, to better the condition of the native Africans by opening 
 schools for their children and preaching the gospel to those who sit in 
 the darkness of ignorance and idolatry. The elevation of a race and 
 the redemption of a continent are the two grand objects which the 
 American Colonization Society has kept steadily in view, and which 
 
5 
 
 the present spirit of emigration, if judiciously directed, promises to 
 realize. 
 
 The thought of redeeming Africa by the instrumentality of her own 
 children brooded in the minds of Christian philanthropists many years be- 
 fore it took shape in this Society. Through all the years of slavery in this 
 country the emancipation of individual bondmen was going slowly on. 
 A few T of the slaves purchased their freedom by the eprnings of extra 
 labor; others were liberated through the gratitude or conscience of hu- 
 mane masters; others by State laws. Thus arose two classes of colored 
 people, free negroes and slaves. The social status of the two classes 
 was very nearly equal. But in the South the free negroes were a con- 
 tinual menace to slavery, and the South did not want them. In the 
 North they competed with white labor, and the North did not want 
 them. The masses at the North had much sympathy for colored peo- 
 ple at a distance, and ill-concealed aversion to them near at hand. But 
 both in the North and South were found true-hearted Christian men 
 who sincerely desired to benefit the colored people, both bond and free. 
 These were the noble men, all of whom have gone up to God, who or- 
 ganized the American Colonization Society in 181 7 ; planted the little 
 colony on the African coast a few years later, and nursed it through its 
 feeble infancy and dependent childhood for thirty years, and has 
 watched its growing youth and contributed to its welfare for thirty 
 years more. 
 
 A nation is not born at once, nor does a child-state grow to manhood 
 in a day. Time is an element in every historic movement. The Su- 
 preme Being is patient; “His mills grind slow, but they grind exceed- 
 ing fine.” The infant commonwealth must draw sustenance from the 
 mother land. When its bones enlarge and harden, and its sinews be- 
 come strong, it will stand alone. Its hand power must grow as its 
 brain power grows, until with the help of both it will protect itself 
 against aggression and violence. 
 
 Liberia has passed its infancy. It can stand alone. It is passing its 
 childhood and gaining strength for self-protection. Its brain power is 
 respectable, as the addresses and other documents writteg by its public 
 men abundantly prove. But it wants more hand power. It needs pop- 
 ulation. It needs men with heads to plan and hands to execute ; men 
 with will and sinew to cultivate the exuberant soil, and add to the 
 
6 
 
 wealth and strength of a growing State. It has a sufficiency for present 
 use of Esquires, and Honorables, and Excellencies. It has enough of 
 traders who cling to the shore and speculate on supplies for arriving im- 
 migrants. In a word, it wants more producers of wealth and less ex- 
 changers of products. 
 
 I congratulate the Society that the time has come to send emigrants 
 to Liberia who know how to take care of themselves. The condition 
 of our colored people has changed ; and our mode of procedure which 
 was necessary some years ago, when few but the poor and dependent 
 were willing to emigrate, may now lie changed with advantage. The 
 time has come to encourage a self-paying emigration, or an emigration 
 at least partly self-paying. Mr. Edward S. Morris of Philadelphia, who 
 probably knows as much of Liberia as any man in America, and who 
 has given the subject of African colonization much time, thought and 
 money during the past quarter of a century, never spoke a truer word 
 than this, “The man who has no money here, will have no money in 
 Liberia.” He, doubtless, meant that since emancipation has placed the 
 destiny of our colored people in their owu hands, the man who has not 
 the industry to earn and the self-denial to save money in America, will 
 be a burden and not a help in Liberia. Our colored people are begin-' 
 ning to practice thrift, to earn and save; and when any one of them 
 shall have earned and saved two hundred and fifty dollars, he will be 
 fit, if his moral character be good, to become a useful citizen of Liberia. 
 If he have courage to go there, send him . Give him a free passage if 
 you please. But do not send the timid, nor the shiftless, nor the lazy. 
 Do not send the dandy valet-de-chambre of a gentleman — one who wears 
 his hat on one side of his head, and holds a little cane in one hand and 
 a cigarette in the other. He is too highly educated to be useful there. 
 He will be a gentleman in caricature. Send stalwart, energetic men. 
 who will not be afraid to go out of sight of ship and shore, who will go 
 straight to the healthy interior with the means, either in cotton cloth, 
 tobacco, or money, to buy a piece of laud, build a house and make 
 crops. 
 
 It is said when the I^uke of Wellington commanded the British army 
 in the war against Napoleon, he ordered a certain regiment to take 
 spades and intrench. They demurred; said they were gentlemen; came 
 to fight, not to dig. Wellington wrote to the minister of war, “ Send 
 
me no more gentlemen, send me men.” He wanted men who could 
 handle a spade as well as a musket. So does Liberia. She wants more 
 men with spade and hoe. Agriculture is the basis of all wealth ; it 
 supplies the material of commerce and manufactures; it is the handmaid 
 of civilization, the support of nations. The wise man said, “ The king 
 himself is served by the field.” 
 
 The exhibit which Mr. Morris made of Liberian products at our Cen- 
 tennial Exposition, demonstrated the ability of that country to supply 
 commerce with a goodly number of articles which the people of other 
 countries desire and will pay for. Coffee, indigo, palm-oil, palm-soap, 
 ivory, cam-wood, India rubber, sugar, arrow-root, ginger, ground-nuts, 
 iron ore, gums and spices are products which the world demands and 
 will consume. These are the promise and prophecy of prosperity and 
 power ; but they are not to be had without labor. The observation of 
 a Greek philosopher, “God gives nothing valuable to men without 
 labor, ” is as true now as it was in the days of Socrates ; as true of Libe- 
 ria as of America. We must not deceive our colored friends by descrip- 
 tions drawn from imagination and not from facts. Liberia is not an 
 El Dorado where gold may be gathered like stones in the highway. 
 Without industry, intelligently directed, there can be no prosperity 
 anywhere. If the emigrant wants food or gold, he must dig for it ; if 
 he wants coffee, he must plant the trees and wait three years for a crop ; 
 if he wants a cabin for shelter, he must build it. There, as here, free- 
 dom means freedom to work, save and enjoy, or to be idle, destitute 
 and miserable. 
 
 The Exodus Associations, now organizing in the United States, are 
 taking steps in the right direction. They contribute money and send 
 delegates to Liberia to examine and report the condition, climate, soil 
 and productions of the country, select healthy localities at a distance 
 from the coast, and ascertain on what terms lands may be purchased, 
 either of the Liberian Government or the natives. If the reports be 
 favorable, large numbers will apply for passage with means to establish 
 themselves in the selected localities, and relieve the Society of all 
 further expense. * 
 
 It has been objected that this exodus will deprive the country of the 
 labor of a valuable class of colored people, and leave behind the idle, 
 the dissolute, the aged and infirm, a burden on the community. This 
 
objection seems, on first view, to have some weight; but when we con- 
 sider that our colored population is between four and five millions, it is 
 obvious that the exportation of one or two thousand a year would reduce 
 the productive force of the country in only an infinitesimal amount, and 
 would cause no serious disturbance of its industrial interests. The exo- 
 dus on any scale probable, or even possible within the lives of the pres- 
 ent generation, will be but a small fraction of the natural increase of 
 the race. 
 
 But if we admit, for the sake of argument, that the exodus of one in a 
 hundred of robust, industrious men and women may diminish produc- 
 tion temporarily in this country in a perceptible degree, its effect on the 
 colored people who remain would be favorable. So far as competition 
 for employment would be diminished, they would be better off. They 
 would receive higher wages, because the labor supply would be less and 
 the demand equal. They would receive better treatment from their em- 
 ployers, whose interest it would be to keep them in the country and in 
 their service. 
 
 But there is no danger of “ a corner ” in the labor market. The com- 
 fortable and contented will not emigrate ; the timid and ignorant will 
 not. They who have young children or aged parents to support will 
 “ rather bear the ills they have than fly to others that they know not of.” 
 The ambitious, aspiring and discontented will emigrate. He who re- 
 sents social ostracism and political inferiority will look to a country 
 where his race is dominant and the government his own. It is not 
 enough that his personal freedom is secure, that all his civil rights are 
 guaranteed, that he has facilities for the education of his children, that 
 his life, property and reputation are under the aegis of law ; the intel- 
 ligent, thinking colored man feels keenly that it is not in the law, nor 
 in his stars, but in himself, that he is an underling. He is one of a 
 depressed race ; and so long as he remains under the shadow of a domi- 
 nant race, so long will he remain an underling. He will go where he 
 will be the peer of the best. 
 
 It would be an error for emigrants to expect, during the first few 
 years of their residence in Liberia, all the comforts of life which they 
 enjoyed in America. Such a mistake would lead to disappointment. 
 The children of Israel were released from bondage, but, weary and 
 footsore, hungry and thirsty, in their desert journey, they longed for the 
 
9 
 
 leeks and onions and fleshpots of Egypt. So the despondent emigrant, 
 during the early part of his residence, may say to our Society as the 
 Israelites said to Moses, “Why hast thou brought us forth to die in this 
 wilderness?” The early colonists who landed at Jamestown and Ply- 
 mouth endured similar and more seveffe sufferings. Even those who 
 heed the dictum, “Go West, young man,” sacrifice something of present 
 enjoyment to future well-being. The feeble in mind or body are dis- 
 couraged; the strong and hopeful work and wj.it and reap their harvest 
 of good in due time. 
 
 A self-sustaining emigration will be of immense value to the present 
 Americo-Africans. The little republic needs men capable of bearing 
 arms; — men to make roads to open up the country, — men of the various 
 mechanical trades as well as farmers, who will contribute to the national 
 wealth by their intelligence and industry. And who can estimate the 
 blessings of such an emigration to the native tribes, especially to those 
 which acknowledge allegiance to the Liberian government ? What in- 
 crease of products by labor more intelligently directed ! What advance- 
 ment in education! What moral and physical improvement! What 
 diffusion of Christian light in the dark places of superstition ! Where 
 industry goes, commerce will follow; where commerce goes, the mis- 
 sionary will follow, — the Bible, the school, the printing-press, the 
 steam-engine, the railway, all will follow in rapid succession. 
 
 There are political considerations which favor a closer connection 
 lhan exists at the present time between Liberia and the United States. 
 But it'" is not probable that either party desires annexation. Liberia 
 would not willingly surrender her independence, however prematurely 
 it was declared. Her citizens would feel themselves dwarfed if their 
 country should become an appendage of a distant and powerful nation 
 in which they would be of no more importance than one of its fifth rate 
 cities. Nor would the people of the United States desire the annexa- 
 tion of an African territory with the responsibility of defending it in 
 the event of a foreign war. Nations are more influenced by interest 
 than by sympathy. They are slow to accept a bargain in which they 
 take all the risk and expense, with but slender prospect of any compen- 
 sating advantage. We are not going to make a railway from Monrovia 
 to Cairo as a gratuity through sheer benevolence. Two and a-half centu- 
 ries were required to prepare this country for a railway to the Pacific, 
 
10 
 
 The railway from Monrovia to Cairo will be built, but it will be built 
 piece by piece, as the needs of commerce and travel demand, and as 
 capital shall find it a paying investment. 
 
 Annexation would not promote the safety of Liberia, but in certain 
 contingencies would increase her perils. Except in conflicts with na- 
 tive tribes, the surest defence of Liberia is her weakness. No powerful 
 nation would wage war against a people too feeble to make even a show 
 of resistance. The whqle world would cry “shame.” But if Liberia 
 were annexed, it would be the most vulnerable part of the United 
 States. An outlying territory, the gate to the rich commerce of a con- 
 tinent, would be strongly coveted, easily seized, firmly held, and never 
 evacuated except as the result of unsuccessful war. A protectorate, 
 in some form, would conduce more to the safety of Liberia, and to the 
 commercial and political interests of the United States than an organic 
 union. We may rightfully say, we ought emphatically to say, to both 
 her native and foreign enemies, if such there be, “Hands off! Don’t 
 touch this foster child of ours.” 
 
 No doubt the English merchants covet Liberia, because they wish to 
 monopolize the trade of all Western and Southern Africa, from the 
 great desert to the Cape of Good Hope. They will defy when they 
 dare, and intrigue when they cannot intimidate. They will lend money 
 to an impecunious government, as the price of its independence; and 
 when pay-day comes they will say, “stand and deliver,” unless we dis- 
 pute the claim. We have a right to share in that profitable commerce, 
 and shall not suffer the gate to be barred against us. Self-interest will 
 induce the United States to protect Liberia against the neighboring 
 tribes, which are peaceable unless made hostile by foreign intrigue. 
 
 Permit me to say in conclusion, Mr. President, that this Society per- 
 ceives in the near future the fruition of its hopes; the consummation of 
 its work. It has encountered obloquy at home and discouragements 
 abroad. In circumstances the most adverse, it has cherished an abid- 
 ing faith in the final triumph of its cause. Its firm trust in God, and 
 love of humanity, sustained it when even the colored people, whose 
 best friend it was, turned their hearts and faces against it. And now 
 the day is dawning. Light breaks in all over the land. Education, 
 industry and frugality are preparing an emigration, of moderate num- 
 bers at first, but gradually swelling to a mighty stream, as Liberia shall 
 
11 
 
 be in a condition to absorb it, until commerce, civilization and Chris- 
 tianity, overleaping the boundaries of the Americo-African republic, 
 shall redeem the continent.