E 448 
 .P411 
 Copy 1 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 III. Ill i iiiii 11111 '■'■■ ■' ■'■■" ■■■-■ 
 
 011932 635 7 C 
 
 Hollinger Corp. 
 pH8.5 
 
^j~7 
 
 AFRICAN COLONIZATION— ITS PROGRESS 
 AND PROSPECTS. 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 DELITEEED BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. ALLEN, L.L.D., 
 
 JOHN P. CROZER, ESQ., 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETINCx OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 COLONIZATION SOCIETY, HELD 'iN TRINITY 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 
 PWladelplila, October 35, 1863. 
 
 E 448 
 .P411 
 Copy 1 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 WILLIAM F. GEDDES, PKINTER, 320 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 

 ^7 
 
 
j2J7^ 
 
 DISCOURSE OF WILLIAM H. ALLEN, L.L.D. 
 
 JUr. Presideiit and Gentlemen of the Pennsylvania Colonization 
 
 Society : — 
 
 Not quite two and a half centuries since, the first ship-load of Africans 
 was imported into the British colonies of Noi-th America. They landed 
 at Jamestown, Yirginia, and were purchased by the planters. The 
 importation, sale and purchase were regarded as honorable transactions 
 at that time, or winked at, as not specially blameworthy. There was 
 profit for the shipper and profit for the buyer. Other slave-freighted 
 vessels soon followed, and before a century had elapsed slavery had 
 established its base line for the invasion and occupation of the country 
 all along the coast from the Hudson to Florida, and was pushing its 
 oulposts up every navig'able river; a dismal cloud, electrified with ruin, 
 resting on the horizon of our country ; its pent up forces to burst forth in 
 the tumult and carnage which now convulse and sadden the continent. 
 
 Oh, could the sequence of events liave been foreseen, until the harvest 
 from that seedsowiug should be reaped, men's faces would have paled at 
 the ghastly spectacle, and not one foot of a slave would have been per- 
 mitted to touch the shore. Could some seer have predicted an increase 
 of the colored race in this country to four and a half millions in two hmi- 
 dred and forty years, the building up by its labor of a landed aristocracy 
 hostile to republican freedom, the estrangement of kindred communities, 
 the. retrograde movement to an aggressive and ferocious barbarism, in 
 which brute force usurps the throne of reason, and thirst for domination 
 makes and breaks the law ; the passionate debate which degenerates into 
 phrenzied vituperation, and at last the marshaling of mighty armies, the 
 shock and carnage of battle, the destruction of accumulated wealth, the 
 wail of widows and orphans, and the threatened overthrow of a beneficent 
 government — could all these results have been foreseen, what kind of 
 welcome, think you, would have greeted the first and all subsequent slave- 
 ships and their human freights I 
 
6 
 
 But no prophet saw the portent, or if some Cassandra uttered a voice 
 of warning, her words passed by unheeded, as the ravings of insanity. 
 Greed of gold blinded all eyes and deafened all ears. Now see the gold 
 which we have sacrificed so much to gain — where is it ? Melting from 
 our grasp like ice in a furnace ; cast into cannon and mortars ; hammered 
 into muskets and rifles ; floating off and sinking in iron-clad monitors 
 and monsters ; hurrying away in horses and harness and the swift wheels 
 of artillery ; devoured by armies which consume every thing and produce 
 nothing ; springing into gas in the explosion of gunpowder ; and strewed 
 in deadly fragments by the bursting of bomb-shells. 
 
 Go, it must ; five hundred millions a yca,r in the North, and as much 
 more in the South, by a law of moral compensation which no man nor 
 nation can evade, till every dollar gathered by wrong shall be scattered 
 to the winds, or drunk like the dust of Aaron's golden calf in the bitter 
 cup of retribution. Let it go ; and when it is gone, and the cup 
 drained to the dregs, we shall learn that public virtue, true manliness, the 
 upright administration of the laws, the love of man and the fear of God, 
 are worth more than "all the wealth that sinews bought and sold have 
 ever earned." 
 
 But the colored race is with us. The warp and woof of its destiny 
 is woven in the same web with ours. Four and a half millions of a 
 depressed and dependent population, look to the dominant race for the 
 solution of their fate, and we cannot shirk the responsibility. The 
 problem is beset with diflSculties. Implicated as it is with that most 
 exciting of all subjects of agitation, slaveholding, it touches the interests, 
 the habits, the prejudices, and affects profoundly the civihzation of a vast 
 section of this continent. While the colored race exists in the two 
 conditions of freedom and bondage, it is one in sympathy and interest, 
 one in physical and mental qualities, and one in political inferiority and 
 social exclusion. The freedom of the one class is little more than the 
 liberty to choose masters and to change them, while the bondage of the 
 other keeps the adult in bone and sinew a child in intellect and depen- 
 dence. As the numbers of the freedmen receive continual accessions 
 from the ranks of the bondmen, the line which separates the two classes 
 is variable ; while the boundary between the African and Caucasian is 
 
so fixed and impassable tliat every admixture of blood sinks at once to 
 the level of the depressed race. 
 
 The destiny of the free colored people cannot be entirely separated 
 from that of the slaves. Indeed, it would seem that slavery is the Boeo- 
 tian sphynx propounding her fatal riddle to all passers-by. It obtrudes 
 everywhere ; crops out in every form, moral, economical and political, 
 and will not down at the bidding of any exorcist. It underlies all other 
 questions, however profound, and overrides all other interests however 
 prominent. If it were a moral question only, treating of slaves as moral 
 beings and God's handiwork, it might be settled on the immutable prin- 
 ciples of justice and right. If it were an economical question only, it 
 might be left to the keen instinct of self-interest to foster or abolish 
 slavery in the States where it exists, and to introduce or exclude it in 
 States where it does not. If it were a political question only, it might 
 be adjusted by compromise and concession, or the knot might be cut with 
 the sword. But it is all of these together; and its .phases so vary witji 
 the stand-point of the observer, that no two parties can agree upon the 
 premises of an argument, nor join an issue of fact or law. 
 
 Astronomers are accustomed to reduce their observations to the sun's 
 centre, in order that those made at different times and places may be 
 compared -with one another. If it were possible for those who discuss 
 this problem to refer all their observations, whatever their point of view, 
 to the moral centre of the universe, which is God, they would find solid 
 ground, and reach a conclusion. "God hath made of one blood all 
 nations for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined 
 the bounds of their habitation." Every departure from this great truth, 
 every violation of this beneficent decree introduces agitation and disorder 
 into communities, and sooner or later is followed by the penalty of strife 
 and blood. 
 
 Twenty-five years since a young writer* of uncommon originality and 
 vigor of thought, born and educated in a slave-holding State, but at that 
 time a citizen of Pennsylvania, published a book modestly entitled " Some 
 Thoughts on Domestic Slavery." Among other propositions which went 
 
 • John L. Carey, of Dickinson College, Carlisle ; subsequently editor of tlie 
 Baltimore American. 
 
to the pith of the matter, he proved from history and from human 
 nature " Tliat two distinct races of people so unlike that amalgama- 
 tion by intermarriage is im2-)racticable, cannot long dwell together 
 in peace on terms of political and social equality." The one must 
 occupy an inferior position and be in some form in subjection to the 
 other. 
 
 This proposition has been generally accepted as the law of races ; and 
 its application to the populations of this country has attracted the 
 anxious attention of thoughtful men. You may emancipate the slave, 
 you may educate the freedmau, you may pay him just wages for his 
 labor, you may put arms in his hands and teach him how to use them, 
 you may elevate him far above his former condition, but you will not, 
 and ought not, and cannot intermarry with him ; and until you do this 
 and thereby accept him as your equal, socially, you cannot admit him as 
 your equal, politically, without inaugurating a conflict which will be 
 more bitter and deadly as the numbers of the two races approach 
 equality. It is certain, then, that so long as the colored race shall 
 remain in this country, it will be doomed to hopeless depression and 
 inferiority. Such is its condition now, whether bond o}' free, and such it 
 must remain. The interests, the antipathies, the necessities, the very 
 instinct of self-preservation of the white race, will demand and enforce 
 this, right or wrong. The only hope of the American negroes to rise 
 in the social and political scale to the dignity of their manhood, is in 
 removal to a country peopled and governed by men of their own race. 
 Such a country cannot be found on this continent, nor on more than one 
 of the American Islands. You may transport them to Central America, 
 (if the Central Americans will receive them,) but you will only change 
 the locality of their nominal freedom and actual subjection. They will 
 still be farm laborers and household servants — the hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water to a dominant race. You may remove them to some 
 unoccupied territory at the base of the Rocky Mountains, but soon the 
 advancing tide of the white population will pass over and submerge 
 them. You may transfer them to Canada by underground or over- 
 ground railway, but there, in districts where the colored people are 
 numerous, they will discover that the conflict of races has already com- 
 
^6/ 
 
 raeuced, and they will meet a welcome from the whites more chilling than 
 the wintry air. There is no rest for the colored man except where the 
 white man cannot live. There are the bounds of his habitation; and it 
 would secra that Providence has placed pestilence to guard his ancestral 
 home from the intrusion of white men — a sentinel as sleepless as the 
 angel with flaming sword that guarded the gates of Paradise. Africa 
 invites her scattered sons and daughters, the bondmen and bondwomen 
 of every clime, and promises them health, peace and competence. 
 There, in the home of his fathers the black man can live and thrive, 
 while the white man sickens and dies ; there, on a soil of tropical 
 luxuriance, he may grow rich ; there, under a government of equal 
 rights, he may call no man master ; and there he may be the honored 
 instrument, under God, of redeeming a continent from barbarism to 
 Christian civilization. 
 
 The Republic of Liberia is no longer a problem ; it is a success. 
 Thanks to the men who founded and have sustained the American 
 Colonization Society and its branches in the States, they have worked 
 on in faith and hope, in the face of opposition at home and discourage- 
 ments in Africa, until they see the fruits of their philanthropy, in a 
 well-established, self-governing republic of colored men, into which 
 the colony they planted forty-three years ago has grown. Along a 
 coast-line of five or six hundred miles, which, within the memory of some 
 of us, was visited only by slave-ships, and covering an interior occupied 
 by two hundred thousand native Africans, who were divided into hostile 
 tribes engaged in perpetual wars with each other to supply the slave 
 dealers with human merchandise, now no prowling slaver casts anchor 
 to await his prey ; no wars are waged for human booty ; no captives are 
 torn from home and friends to perish in the middle passage, or pine in 
 hopeless bondage ; no blood of slaughtered hecatombs assuages the 
 anger of malignant demons, nor slakes the savage bloodthirst of chiefs 
 more demons than they ; but thriving settlements dot the sea-shore and 
 extend along the banks of the rivers for miles into the interior; the 
 marts of lawful commerce stand on the sites of forsaken barracoons; 
 cotton, coffee and sugar grow on old battle fields ; school houses and 
 churches rise on grounds once devoted to the orgies of a ferocious 
 
10 
 
 superstition; and the voice of prayer and praise ascends to God wliere 
 but few years since were heard the mummeries of idolatry and the wail 
 of victims led forth to the sacrifice. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Colonization Society, which has contributed its 
 share, both of money and counsel, to these cheering results, may be 
 pardoned for a feeling of exultation in a retrospect of its doings on 
 every retui'n of its anniversary. 
 
 Many honest doubts were formerly entertained as to the capacity of 
 the colored people to support and govern themselves, as a permanent 
 civilized community, without the direction and presence of white men. 
 It was predicted that the colony, as soon as it should be left to its own 
 control, would relapse into barbarism. The indolence of the tropical 
 races, the improvidence of the negro, and the overpowering numbers of 
 the native tribes, were arguments to sustain these doubts. But the 
 history and progress of Liberia during the sixteen years of its existence 
 as an independent State, will do much to satisfy the most skeptical on 
 this point. It has framed a constitution and organized a government, 
 with distinct, executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and with all 
 the official machinery of admininstration. It has elected prudent and 
 capable men to the Presidency, who have preserved order at home and 
 secured respect abroad. Its Legislature, composed, of a Senate and 
 House of Representatives, has enacted wholesome laws, adapted to the 
 necessities of the people, and these laws are executed in due form. 
 Courts of record are regularly held, their Judges are respectable, and 
 their mandates are obeyed. 
 
 It has a military organization to enforce the laws, and for protection 
 against the native tribes beyond its borders. It has asserted its superi- 
 ority over the natives within its jurisdiction, in arms as well as in arts, 
 and these now yield peaceable submission to its authority. It has a 
 school in every neighborhood, a church in every village, and a college at 
 Monrovia, its capital. Life and property being secure, the products 
 of its industry are annually multiplying in a greater ratio than its 
 population, and consequently individual and national wealth are increas- 
 ing. Its exportable products, cotton, sugar, rice, coffee, ginger, pepper, 
 indigo, arrow-root and palm oil, may be grown in quantities that have 
 
11 
 
 no limits but those of land and labor; and these commodities being in 
 demand in the markets of the world, will supply the republic by exchange 
 with all the products of other lands which its people may require. 
 
 These are elements of stability and prosperity, and though the begin- 
 nings have been small, there is a continent for expansion. Let no man 
 despise +he day of small tilings. As black men were the Zerubbabels 
 who, under the auspices of the Colonization Society, laid the foundation 
 of this temple of freedom: for their race, so shall their hands finish it, 
 and shall bring forth the head-stone with rejoicing. Fear not that the 
 native populations will absorb this handful of people, and reduce thera 
 to their own level. Civilization, commerce, and Christianity are mighty 
 aggressive forces. In contact with barbarism, ignorance and idolatry, 
 they are always victorious. Where the race is different and its temper 
 intractable, as in the case of the American Indians, they may extermi- 
 nate ; but where the race is identical and its disposition docile and imi- 
 tative, as in the case of the Africans, they will instruct, employ, elevate 
 and absorb. 
 
 But all this is not the work of a day, nor of the forty-five years since 
 the Colonization Society was organized. It is the work of centuries; 
 and they who censure the Society for not working faster and doing 
 more, and who sneeringly ask how long it will take to remove the 
 colored people to Africa, when it has hardly removed a hundredth part 
 of the yearly increase, misconceive the whole question. Suppose that 
 within half a century after the settlement of Jamestown or Plymouth^ 
 it had been predicted that before two centuries more should elapse, the 
 voluntary, self-supported emigration from Europe to this country would 
 average a thousand a day ; would not the prophet have been suspected 
 of madness ? Yet this was the rate of influx during several years 
 between 1850 and 1860; and a majority of these immigrants were in 
 no better condition, pecuniarily, than the free blacks of this country now 
 are. If a tenth part of that number had lauded on our shores during 
 our early colonial times, poor and ignorant as many of them were, 
 they would have perished by starvation. The country could not have 
 supported them, nor furnished them the means to support themselves 
 by labor. An asylum had to be prepared for them ; a free nation had 
 
12 
 
 to grow ; capital had to be accumulated, and a demand for unskilled 
 labor created. After all this was done, and the country rendered 
 capable of absorbing them, they came, first by scores, then by hundreds, 
 then by thousands, in an ever widening stream, until a great army 
 arrived every year. Yet there was no glut in the labor market. Even 
 when the tide of immigration was at the flood, the wages of labor were 
 all the while increasing. 
 
 Who shall say that within two centuries a similar emigration from 
 this country to Africa shall not be witnessed ? First prepare the 
 asylum, and the down-trodden of this land will fly to it from the 
 depressing influence of a dominant race, just as the down-trodden 
 of Europe have fled hither from the despotism of a dominant class. 
 
 Liberia has grown as rapidly as is consistent with its health and long 
 life, and more rapidly than the early colonies of North America. The 
 tree that strikes the deepest roots, and forms the sturdiest trunk, and 
 throws out the widest branches, and lives the longest, is the tardiest 
 grower ; while the gourd that springs up in a night, withers in a day. 
 In the progress of civilization Providence hastens slowly, very slowly. 
 The great movements of history, like the germination of a seed beneath 
 the surface of the ground, begin unseen and silently. Here and there, 
 apparently disconnected, the forces that are to change the world work 
 on, seldom observed and never fully comprehended, until the time 
 arrives for their combination in a grand result. For example, the 
 discovery of America, doubtless the most important event of modern 
 times, required a vast outlay of time and thought, of study and 
 invention, as a preparatory work. But the Divine Being was not 
 impatient at the delay. The fairest portion of all his earth was 
 trodden only by wild beasts and savage men ; but He seemed in no 
 haste to rescue it from them. Here lay the continent in its virgin 
 beauty, 
 
 ' ' Wliere nature loved to trace. 
 As if for gods a dwelling place. ' ' 
 
 Here it lay, the spinal column of the globe, until the fullness of time 
 should come. The art of printing was to be invented ; science was to 
 
13 
 
 be dissem'Tiated ; the form of the earth was to be investigated; the 
 properties of the magnetic needle were to be discovered and applied to 
 navigation; the commercial spirit was to be awakened; and the human 
 mind was to be stirred to new activity in every field of enterprise. And 
 these things were being done, in different countries, by men who knew 
 nothing of each other, and when all were ready — printing, astronomy, 
 magnetism, commerce, enterprise — then Columbus was ready to use 
 them, and unveil a new continent beyond the sea. 
 
 As the redemption of America from savage barbarism to Christian 
 civilization was the greatest fact of history from the fall of the Roman 
 Empire to the American Revolution — standing forth " the single wonder 
 of a thousand years " — so we may believe that the redemption of Africa 
 will be the great leading fact in the progress of civilization for some 
 centuries to come. 
 
 History proves that barbarous countries do not emerge from barbarism 
 by development from within, but by accretion from without. America 
 derived its culture from Western Europe ; the people of Western Europe 
 received theirs from the Romans; the Romans from the Greeks; the 
 Greeks from the Phoenicians and Egyptians; and long before Tyrian 
 merchants trafficked, or Egypt became the school of the world, a high 
 civilization and a profound philosophy had a home beyond the Indus, in 
 the old cradle of mankind. One race hands the torch of science to 
 another ; but no one seems to know how to strike the fire for itself. Had 
 no invader gained a footing in England, that island would have remained 
 in barbarism to this day ; and America had been still the hunting-ground 
 of the savage, had not civilization been imported. Africa is behind the 
 rest ; and yet not very far behind, for in the life of humanity three or four 
 centuries are but as three or four years in the life of a man. She has not 
 made time with her sister contments in the race of improvement, not 
 because she is a sandy desert, for the fertility of her soil is exuberant, 
 capable of enriching commerce with a profusion of valuable products 
 which the world wants ; but because she has been reserved for the habita- 
 tion of black men, and the white men who attempted to explore and 
 colonize her perished. It was written that Africa should be redeemed by 
 her own children ; not those born on her soil, but those who had passed 
 
E 448 
 .P411 
 Copy 1 
 
 14 
 
 througli tlie apprenticeship of servitude in a strange land, and had learned 
 the arts and religion of a Christian nation in the house of their bondage. 
 He who regards slavery as an institution to be perpetuated without limit, 
 and not as a discipline preparatory to freedom,, has not yet comprehended 
 its true relations and meaning in history. As childhood is tutelage for 
 manhood, so slavery is national tutelage for freedom. The children of 
 Israel had never conquered and possessed the land in which their fathers 
 were pilgrims and sojourners, had they not multiplied and been disci- 
 plined in the hard bondage of Egypt ; so our children of Africa, when 
 their leader and lawgiver shall arise, learned in all the wisdom of the 
 Americans, will go forth, not simultaneously in one grand exodus, but 
 gradually, as this country shall be in a condition to part with them, and 
 as Africa shall be prepared to receive them, not as now by fifties and 
 hundreds a year, nor, as some thoughtlessly imagine, by millions, but in 
 a continuous and ever swelling stream — they will go forth to their land 
 of promise, not to exterminate the native inhabitants, but to bless and 
 elevate them. 
 
 It would not be for the advantage of Liberia that a large number of 
 persons just liberated from servitude, and ill fitted for self-direction and 
 self-support, should be thrown at once upon her shores ; nor would it be 
 for the advantage of this country that the exodus should be other than 
 gradual. jSTo nation could bear the loss of millions of its laboring popu- 
 lation at once, without serious embarrassment and the derangement of 
 all its industrial interests. Such an emigration is fortunately impossible, 
 for it would ruin this country, ruin the emigrants, and ruin Liberia. But 
 by degrees the influx of white laborers from abroad, and the increase of 
 our native white population vfill force the colored people into the lowest 
 branches of labor, and finally, in the struggle for existence, will compete 
 with them for these. When that time shall come, as it will, the colored 
 people will not only desire to emigrate, but emigration will have become 
 a necessity. 
 
 But it would be heartless and ungracious to place our hopes for the 
 emigration of the colored people, alone or chiefly, upon their unfortunate 
 condition in this country, and the competition and repulsion of white 
 labor. Thanks be to God, there are attractions in Africa which will 
 
15 
 
 do more than the repulsions in America to promote emigration. The 
 colored people think that the Colonization Society is a scheme to get 
 rid of them. Now there is a good share of human nature in colored 
 people; and if they think you mean to kick them out of the country 
 they were born in, they will obstinately persist in staying where they 
 are. They will bear any number of kicks, but they will not be kicked 
 out. Even the donkey has sense enough to stay by the hay-stack till 
 he sees the corn-crib. The Society must show the corn-crib ; and 
 it can. Adventurous travelers have penetrated Africa from the four 
 cardinal points, and their lines of research have converged almost at 
 its centre. They speak of soils of marvelous productiveness; of a- 
 profusion of animal life; of cotton, coffee, sugar-cane, rice and palm 
 oil ; of ivory, iron and gold ; of men far superior both physically and 
 mentally, to those whose territories have been desolated to furnish slaves 
 for foreign markets; of lakes and rivers, high mountains and fertile 
 valleys, where the maps we studied in childhood marked "unexplored 
 regions" or deserts of arid sand; — in a word, they describe a land 
 abounding in resources to sustain an industrious population and a pro- 
 fitable commerce. 
 
 Another fact which will induce a large emigration, at no distant day, 
 is the demand for tropical products by the inhabitants of the temperate 
 zones. This demand is increasing every year, and outstripping the 
 supply ; while commerce is eagerly searching for new localities of their 
 production and new avenues to reach them. While the interior of 
 Africa, dotted with lakes and intersected by rivers, stands ready to pour 
 out of her abundance, commerce stands waiting impatiently for the 
 deadly coast-belt to be cut through by men who can endure the climate, 
 and land or river transportation from the interior to the sea provided. 
 Then the buyer will meet the seller on the shore, and the exchange of 
 commodities will benefit and enrich both. Commerce is the great 
 pacificator and ci^dlizer. It teaches even the rude barbarian that it is 
 more profitable to barter with men than to butcher them ; and when the 
 warlike tribes which prey upon their weaker neighbors shall discover 
 that they can make more money by exporting raw cotton than raw men; 
 
16 
 
 they will turn from predatory warfare to the peaceful culture of the soil. 
 Emigration will provide teachers to instract them in all this. 
 
 Finally, on this point, the missionary spirit of the age demands the 
 colonization of Africa, Nearly all the white missionaries who have 
 been sent to Africa, died of diseases incident to the climate, or returned 
 home with ruined health. The heroic Cox, who, among others, went 
 forth an apostle and died a martyr, said: "Write on my monument — 
 Let thousands perish before Africa be abandoned. " But the missionary 
 societies have found a better way. They educate colored men and send 
 them. Thus colonization, commerce and Christianity are co-workers in 
 the grand scheme of giving a continent to civilization, and making 
 "Ethiopia stretch out her hands unto God.'' Where emigration goes, 
 commerce will follow; and where commerce can penetrate, the gospel 
 will be at her side. Civilization demands Africa for its future progress; 
 commerce demands Africa to strike the balance of exchanges between 
 the intertropical and wintry regions of the earth ; and Christianity de- 
 mands Africa that her ministers may obey the divine command : " Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
 I regard it only a question of time that the republic of Liberia, and 
 other kindred colonies which may hereafter be planted on the western 
 shores of Africa, shall extend their population and jurisdiction far into 
 the interior, and count their inhabitants by millions. When this time 
 shall arrive, and this teeming population shall place steamboats on every 
 navigable river, and lay down the iron arteries of commerce through her 
 valleys, and the whistle of the locomotive shall echo through the gorges 
 of her mountains, and schools, academies and universities, of which the 
 college now open at Monrovia will be the parent and pattern, shall 
 become luminous points to enlighten the whole land, and the industrial 
 arts shall make the wilderness blossom as the rose, there needs no pro- 
 phet to foretell that lines of steam-ships will leave New York and Phila- 
 de]i)hia for the African coast as regularly as they now leave Liverpool 
 for America. 
 
 I desire to make this record, and if anything I may say shall be remem- 
 bered sojong, I hope it may be this expression of my belief that before 
 the year two thousand a vast commerce between our Northern ports and 
 
17 
 
 Africa will be carried on, and that a voluntary, self-paying emigration 
 of the colored people of this country will set strongly to that continent 
 before the lapse of a century from this day. 
 
 But suppose, for the sake of argument, that emigration will never be 
 self-supporting. Even in that case the removal of the colored people 
 will not be so impracticable an enterprise as many assume. No extra- 
 ordinary skill in arithmetic is required to demonstrate that the money 
 which the present war has already cost the country, both North and 
 South, would have removed every colored person in the land, bond as 
 well as free, to a port of embarkation, given him an outfit worth a hun- 
 dred dollars, paid his passage to Liberia, and left a balance sufficient to 
 purchase a few acres of ground and build a comfortable dwelling for 
 every family. And if the war shall continue two years longer, at the 
 past and present rate of expenditure, it will have cost enough more to 
 purchase every slave from his owner at the average price of five hundred 
 dollars a head for men, women, and children. Let him who doubts this 
 try the logic of figures. 
 
 But a productive soil, a genial climate, and all other physical advan- 
 tages are not sufficient for the building up of a nation. Something more 
 is required. There must be mind to act on and through matter ; intelli- 
 gence to direct labor to useful ends and subjugate the forces of nature 
 for the service of a civilized community. To establish the equilibrium of 
 a prosperous state there must be an even balance of brain and muscle. 
 Labor without thought is unproductive ; and thought without labor only 
 consumes; but combine the two and there is nothing too difficult for their 
 united power to achieve. I infer from published accounts, as well as 
 from the nature of the case, that Liberia needs a greater number of 
 organizing and administrative minds. The disciplmed intellect of the 
 country is not adequate to all the demands of private enterprise, and the 
 growing responsibilities of the public service. While such culture as 
 Presidents Roberts and Benson, Professors Blyden and Crummell, Chief 
 Justice Drayton, and the President elect, Daniel B. Warner, have attained, 
 has placed the capacity of colored men beyond dispute, the want of facili- 
 ties for instruction has kept the supply of such men unequal to the de- 
 mand. As population shall increase, the Republic will require more 
 2 
 
18 
 
 scliool teachers, and those of a higher order; as commerce shall extend 
 and their foreign relations become more complicated, they must have a 
 greater number of educated men to make and execute the laws at home, 
 and to discharge diplomatic and consular functions abroad ; and as they 
 shall penetrate further into the interioi", in their intercourse with the 
 native tribes, they will need moral and religious teachers to dispense 
 light and truth to those who now sit in darkness. 
 
 These wants may be partly supplied, as heretofore, by emigrants 
 previously educated in the United States; but this supply will be 
 inadequate. Liberia must educate her children in her own schools, and 
 her teachers in her own college. She must have a fountain of intelli- 
 gence on her own soil, from which knowledge shall flow to all her bor- 
 ders. Her leading 'men have seen the necessity for this, and her friends 
 have responded liberally to their call. A handsome College edifice has 
 been built at Monrovia, and opened for the reception of students ; a 
 president and two professors have been inaugurated, a class of eight 
 youth admitted, and eight more are in course of preparation. To the 
 chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy, and English Literature, filled by 
 Professor Alexander Cruramell, and the chair of Greek and Latin 
 Languages, filled by Professor Edward W. Blyden, it is desirable to 
 add a chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. Without in- 
 struction in this department the course of study would be radically 
 defective. It might seem more difficult to find a competent man for 
 this chair, than to raise means for his support ; but such is not the case. 
 Professor Martin H. Freeman, a graduate of Middlebury College, Vt., 
 and for twelve years past principal of an institution for the education of 
 colored youth in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, a man fully competent 
 and ])repared for the work, has ofi'ered his services to the new college, 
 and will emigrate to Liberia with his family, whenever a support of 
 eight hundred dollars a year for five years shall be contributed or 
 guaranteed. Our large-hearted President has subscribed a fourth part 
 of the sum required, and I understand that another thousand has been 
 pledged from Vermont. It will be an honor to Pennsylvania if her 
 citizens will make up the two thousand dollars which are still wanted. 
 I can conceive of no possible investment in the cause of humanity which 
 
19 
 
 promises so large a revenue of good as this. When we can count the 
 vahie of the school system which the fathers of New England intro- 
 duced into this country, and of the colleges which fed and sustained 
 that system, we may be able to estimate the benefits which Liberia 
 College and others which will be formed after its pattern, will confer 
 upon Africa. 
 
 The college must also have books. Its want of a library attracted 
 the notice of our respected manager, Edward S. Morris, Esq., of this 
 city, who visited Liberia during the past year; and with characteristic 
 energy he has undertaken to collect and forward contributions of books 
 and periodicals. As the heart, hand and purse of Mr. Morris are in 
 this enterprise, he will know no such word as fail. Through the aid of 
 authors, publishers and owners of libraries, we believe that his efforts 
 will be successful, and that the library of Liberia College will be an 
 enduring monument of his philanthropy. 
 
 Among the obstacles which the Colonization Society has encountered, 
 no one lias been more persistent and disheartening than the reluctance 
 of the free colored people to emigrate. There is something in human 
 nature wlii<-h makes us "rather bear the ills we have than fly to others 
 that we know not of." Only those of manly spirit and respectable edu- 
 cation and standing will say with Professor Freeman : — 
 
 " I prefer, if need be, a log hut, hard labor and poverty, with political, 
 civil and social freedom and equality, to the most easy and prosperous 
 condition attainable by the colored man here, combined, as it must be, 
 with political, civil and social slavery and degradation." 
 
 After the children of Israel were set free from bondage, an appren- 
 ticeship of forty years was necessary to educate them for freedom. I 
 believe that the Africo-Americans, who have already learned the social 
 habits, language and religion, and many of the arts and handicrafts of 
 a civilized community, will prove as apt scholars as they. One genera- 
 tion will do the work, and the life of one generation is but a small frac- 
 tion of the life of a race. The freedmen may retain much of the spirit 
 of slaves, but the children of the freedmen will be freemen. Self-reli- 
 ance, self-dependence and self-respect are not the attributes of slaves, 
 
20 
 
 and are seldom acquired by those who have grown to manhood in 
 bondage. They hug the chain that binds them to a master, because 
 they dare not trust themselves to stand alone, nor to walk without 
 being led. As the young eagle dreads to commit himself to the air on 
 uncertain wings until the parent bird thrusts him forth from the nest, 
 so the timid slave fears to confide in his own power of self-direction, 
 because he has never tried that power and is unconscious that he has it. 
 
 "Because there were no graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away 
 to die in the wilderness ? Let us alone that we may serve the Egyp- 
 tians. Better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilder- 
 ness." Such was the language of those whose courage and manly virtue 
 had been crushed out by centuries of hereditary bondage ; and such has 
 been the language of many an emancipated black man, when, at his 
 wit's end to procure food and clothing, he has thought of the "hoe-cake 
 and possum" of old Virginia. And, as the children of Abraham, when 
 they first came to the border of their inheritance were terrified by the 
 report of their messengers, who said, "It is a land that eateth up its 
 inhabitants ; and all the people are men of great stature ; and the cities 
 are walled and very great ; and there we saw the giants, the sons of 
 Anak ; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers ; and so we were 
 in their sight ;" even so the messengers of ouf colored people who have 
 pretended to search out their land of promise, have brought back an 
 evil report of poor soils and poorer people, of hostile natives and a 
 more hostile climate, of lions, serpents, cannibals and kings of Daho- 
 mey, and I know not how many more sons of Anak, of the race of the 
 giants ; and the ignorant and timid people are afraid. They are grass- 
 hoppers in their own sight. And, as the Hebrew freedmen, who pre- 
 ferred the leeks and onions and flesh-pots of Egypt to liberty and a 
 country, were made to wander in the wilderness until their children, 
 educated in freedom, were prepared to go up and conquer; so it is pro- 
 bable that our freedmen will wander and suffer in the land of their 
 former bondage until their children, who will not have trembled beneath 
 the lash of a taskmaster, shall dare to go up and possess the land of 
 their inheritance. 
 
21 
 
 Let us then take heart, Mr. President, and work faithfully for God 
 and man. Let us pursue steadily the two-fold object for which the 
 Society was organized — the welfare of the colored people of America 
 and the good of Africa — and when the storm that darkens our political 
 hemisphere, and threatens to destroy all our first-born, so that there 
 shall be no house in which there is not one dead, shall have passed 
 away, a new impulse will be given to our enterprise, and it will be seen 
 and known of all men, "That the scheme of Colonization is from 
 God." 
 
 ADDEESS or JOHN P. CROZEH, ESQ. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Colonization Society, the anniversary of which we 
 hold this evening, is auxiliary to the American Colonization Society, 
 founded in Washington about forty-five years ago. The philanthropic 
 men who were instrumental in its origin, have nearly all passed away, 
 but the wisdom of the organization and the far-reaching forecast of its 
 founders were never more apparent than at the present time. The So- 
 ciety has all along had the sympathies of very many men high in charac- 
 ter and estimation throughout the whole IJnited States, leading men in 
 political life, philanthropists and gifted Christian ministers have been 
 amongst its active friends and supporters. The Society has worked 
 modestly but efficiently. The leading object of its ' appointment being 
 to colonize "the free people of color, with their own consent," on the con- 
 tinent of Africa, it has sought, in aiming to fulfil this mission, avoidance 
 of conflict with all, whether in the North or in the South. 
 
 Such was the object sought, and to accomplish this, much labor, and 
 much money have been expended ; and the result is now apparent in the 
 existence of the infant Republic of Liberia. 
 
 The colonization enterprise seems now and in the future to present 
 itself under a somewhat changed aspect, from the changed position of 
 the colored population of this country, brought about by the sad exist- 
 ing rebellion ; but the Society has not, as yet, departed from its original 
 mode of [procedure as laid down by its constitution. Circumstances 
 may, however, induce an early modification and change. 
 
22 
 
 The first effort of practical colonization was in the winter of 1820. 
 In February of that year the ship Elizabeth, a vessel of about four hun- 
 dred tons burthen, was sent from New York by the American Colo- 
 nization Society with eighty-eight emigrants, laden also with implements 
 of husbandry, mechanics' tools, and a variety of such articles as were 
 deemed essential in forwarding the enterprise. Included in them were 
 fancy articles for presents to the native chiefs, with whom the agents were 
 directed to treat for lauds to locate upon. The colonists, after encoun- 
 tering much hardship, succeeded in making a settlement on the African 
 coast. 
 
 I may be pardoned here for remarking that this first expedition is par- 
 ticularly and sadly impressed upon my memory. It was accompanied 
 by my own brother. Dr. Samuel A. Crozer, in the twofold capacity of 
 physician and first agent of the American Colonization Society, and as 
 such he had the chief charge and direction of the colonists. But very 
 early after their arrival on the coast he fell a victim to the climate, and 
 a martyr to a cause in which he was so deeply engaged. 
 
 A nucleus thus formed, it was strengthened from time to time by new 
 emigration from the United States. Not by any spasmodic effort, but 
 by the attractions of the settlement, sustained and fostered by the untir- 
 ing labors of the Society in this country. 
 
 I shall not detain your attention in tracing minutely the progress of 
 the colony. For many years it encountered hardships and privations, 
 such as are incident to new settlements so far removed from sources of 
 succor and supply. Not, however, nearly so severe and crushing as those 
 recorded by the early European emigrants to Virginia ; nor even those 
 in New England in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 But these trials and hardships decreased from year to year until now, 
 aided as the emigrants are, on their arrival in Liberia by arrangements 
 previously made for their reception, their trials are not greater than those 
 of European emigrants to the United States. 
 
 The colony increased slowly at first, but steadily — each succeeding 
 year adding to their number, until in due time it seemed best that it 
 should become an independent Government, enacting its own laws, and 
 to be no longer under the control of the Society in America. And in 
 
23 
 
 1847 they adopted a Constitution and form of government after the 
 model of our own, which has since been acknowledged by nearly all 
 the European Powers, and after much vexatious delay, by the Govern- 
 ment of the United States also, and Liberia now takes rank amongst 
 civilized nations. 
 
 Liberia is an infant Republic, but its constitution and laws, and the 
 wise administration of those laws — its location — its natural attractions 
 as a home for the colored man, and above all the salutary and powerful 
 influence it seems destined to exercise over the more savage tribes of that 
 continent, encourages the belief that, at no very distant day, Liberia is to 
 become a great and mighty nation. 
 
 This Republic is the offspring of. the Colonization Society. It is the 
 child of this organization, and owns no other parentage. It is now inde- 
 pendent of us ; but the Society still renders efficient aid. It aims to 
 foster and strengthen the rising State, and it is our desire to encourage 
 respectable colored people to emigrate more largely from this country. 
 We firmly believe that the Republic of Liberia is very far in advance of 
 all other places as a home for the black man. The new Republic pos- 
 sesses unmolested sway over more than five hundred miles of Atlantic 
 coast, with a most fruitful and productive soil and territory, extending 
 many miles into the interior parallel with the coast. Its seaboard was 
 once a principal mart for traders in human beings ; but this hateful traffic 
 is now expelled and driven away on all this line of coast. 
 
 The Republic, by its proximity to and frequent intercourse with the 
 interior will, under God, be a great instrument in introducing Christianity 
 into these wide wastes of heathenism and habitations of cruelty. The 
 Christian influence of the Colonization enterprise was not, perhaps, pro- 
 minent in the minds of its founders, but now its friends look to this result 
 as of primary consequence. 
 
 The Society feels that it has a great work on hand. To send colored 
 Christian men and women, not especially as missionaries, but as citizens 
 who, in cultivating the soil, or in mechanical or mercantile pursuits, will 
 in their frequent mingling with the natives infuse the principles of the 
 Christian religion amongst them, working as leaven upon the African 
 mind. 
 
24 
 
 It is no Utopian idea for us, as a Society, to look along the vista of 
 future years at the work which has been in progress for almost half a 
 century, but is now extending with greatly accelerated force and power. 
 Its infancy was tender, but not sickly. Its youth was not precocious, yet 
 promising. It now stands before the world in comely proportions of 
 vigor. It has reached the stature of early manhood. 
 
 I believe this Society and the Republic of Liberia are smiled upon by 
 Him, "who made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the 
 face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and 
 the bounds of their habitation." 
 
 I believe that the Almighty Sovereign of all, the Creator of all, inspired 
 our forefathers to establish this Society to aid in elevating the colored 
 race to a position of freedom and equality, and to plant the colony, now 
 the Republic of Liberia, which in the fulness of time is to serve as a 
 beacon to the tribes and nations of Africa, and to introduce the princi- 
 ples of our holy religion amongst these savage people. 
 
 This, brethren, is our work. This our hope — and to this end let us 
 labor and pray. None now living may see the great results here fore- 
 shadowed and in reserve for our reward. But when those now active in 
 the work shall lay down their armor in death others will arise. A cause 
 so noble — so philanthropic, may I add, so holy, cannot die until its mis- 
 sion is accomplished. The Society must not tire or faint, or slacken its 
 labors until the slave-trade and slavery shall no longer exist — when the 
 accursed traffic in human sinews shall terminate forever — Africa be 
 redeemed from ignorance, superstition and cruelty, and Ethiopia stretch 
 forth her hands to God in gratitude for deliverance from the iron yoke of 
 her oppressors, and for the light of the gospel of the Son of God. 
 
ZJ~j 
 
 t 
 
 c^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^v 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 > 
 
 •0 
 
 H^ 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 J 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^' 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 
 
 The Thirty-seventh Anniversary of the Pennsylvania Colonization 
 Society was celebrated on the evening of October 25th, 1863, at Trinity 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. The religious exercises 
 were conducted by the Rev. A. Longacre, pastor of the Church, and 
 by the Rev. S. E. Appleton, rector of the Episcopal Church of the 
 Mediator. 
 
 The Addresses delivered on the occasion are herewith presented, in 
 compliance with the request of the Board of Managers of the Society, 
 unanimously adopted at a meeting held at its Rooms, No. 609 Walnut 
 Street, on Tuesday, October 21th, viz : — 
 
 " Besolved, That the Board return their grateful acknowledgments 
 to William H. Allen, L. L. D., for his appropriate and excellent Dis- 
 course delivered before the Pennsylvania Colonization Society, at its 
 Anniversary on the 25th inst., and that a copy be requested for publi- 
 cation." 
 
 "Besolved, That the thanks of the Board be presented to John P. 
 Crozer, Esq., President of the Society, for his aid and influence in 
 promoting its objects, and that he be requested to furnish a copy of 
 his interesting Address for publication." 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 iilflj 
 
 011 932 635 7 
 
 s 
 
 L 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 932 635 7 
 
 Hollinger Corp. 
 pH8.5