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 OF THE 
 
 HON. EDWARD'EVERETT, 
 
 Secretary of State, %\^ 
 
 At the Anniversary of the Am. Col. Society, 18th Jan., 1853. 
 
 Mr. President and Gent, of the Col. Soc'y : — 
 
 It was my intention when I was 
 requested some weeks ago, to 
 take a part in the proceedings of 
 this evening, to give to the suhject 
 of the Colonization Society and its 
 operations on the coast of Africa, 
 the most thorough examination in 
 my power, in all its bearings, con- 
 sidering that, whether we look to the 
 condition of this country or the in- 
 terests of Africa, no more important 
 object could engage our attention. 
 But during almost the whole of the 
 interval that has since elapsed, my 
 time and my thoughts have been so 
 entirely taken up and pre-occupied, 
 that it has been altogether out of 
 my power to give more than the 
 hastiest preparation to the part which 
 I am to take in this evening's pro- 
 ceedings. I am therefore obliged 
 to throw myself upon the indulgence 
 of this audience, with such a hasty 
 view of the subject as I have been 
 alone able to take. 
 
 The Colonization Society seems 
 to me to have been the subject of 
 much unmerited odium, of much 
 equally unmerited indifference on 
 the part of the great mass of the 
 community, and to have received 
 that attention which it so well 
 deserves, from but very few. We 
 regard it now only in its infancy. 
 All that we see in this country 
 
 is the quiet operation of a private 
 association, pursuing the even 
 tenor of its way without osten- 
 tation, without eclat ; and on the 
 coast of Africa there is nothing to 
 attract our attention but a small set- 
 tlement, the germ of a Republic, 
 which, however prosperous, is but 
 still in its infancy. 
 
 But before we deride even these 
 small beginnings — before we make 
 up our minds that the most import- 
 ant futurities are not wrapped up in 
 them, even as the spreading oak is 
 wrapped up in the small acorn 
 which we can hold in our fingers, 
 we should do well to recollect the 
 first twenty-five or thirty years of 
 the settlement at Jamestown, in 
 your State, Mr. President, the par- 
 ent of Virginia. We should do 
 well to remember the history of that 
 dreadful winter at Plymouth, when 
 more than half of the Mayflower's 
 little company were laid beneath the 
 sod, and that sod smoothed over for 
 fear the native savage would come 
 and count the number of the graves. 
 I think if you look to what has been 
 done in Liberia in the last quarter 
 of a century, you will find that it 
 compares favorably with the most 
 and the best that wr.s done in "Vir- 
 ginia or in Plymouth, during the 
 same period. These seem to me 
 to be reasons why we should not 
 

 look with too much distrust at the 
 small beginnings that have been 
 made. 
 
 Gentlemen, the foundation of this 
 Society was laid in a great political 
 and moral necessity. The measures 
 which were taken for the suppres- 
 sions of the slave trade naturally led 
 to the capture of slave-ships, and 
 the question immediately arose 
 what should be done with the vic- 
 tims that were rescued from thern. 
 It was necessary that they should be 
 returned to Africa. They could not, 
 each and all, be sent to their native 
 villages. They had been collected 
 from the whole interior of that coun- 
 try, many of them 2,000 miles in 
 the interior, and it was out of the 
 question that they should, immedi- 
 ately be sent to their homes. If they 
 had been placed upon the coast, 
 in a body, at any of the usual 
 points of resort, the result would 
 have been to throw them at once 
 back again into the grasp of the na- 
 tive chiefs who are the principal 
 agents of the slave trade. It was, 
 therefore, absolutely necessary, if 
 the course of measures undertaken 
 for the suppression of the slave trade 
 was to be pursued, that some Col- 
 ony should be founded, under the 
 name and influence and patronage 
 of a powerful European or American 
 State, where these poor victims 
 should be placed at once, safely 
 protected, supplied with necessary 
 provisions of all kinds, civilized if 
 possible, and by degrees enabled to 
 find their way back to their native 
 villages, which some of them no 
 doubt, both from the English and 
 American Colony have from time 
 to time done ; as we know in fact 
 that they have. 
 
 This as I understand it, was one 
 of the first ideas that gave origin to 
 this Society, and as I said before, it 
 was a political and moral necessity. 
 
 Then came the kindred object 
 which was more important because 
 applicable to a much larger numbe? 
 of persons, of providing a suitable 
 home for that portion of the free 
 colored population of this country 
 that were desirous of emigrating to 
 the land of their fathers. This at 
 first, as I understand, for it was 
 before my day, was an object that 
 approved itself almost universally 
 throughout the country, to the Souib 
 as well as to the North, to the white 
 as well as to the colored population. 
 Every body seemed to think at first 
 that this was a practicable, desirable, 
 and most praiseworthy object. By 
 degrees, I am sorry to say, jealousies 
 crept in, prejudices, for so I must 
 account them, arose ; and in pro- 
 cess of time, it has come to pass 
 that this Society has become, I must 
 say, intensely unpopular with a 
 large class of. the colored popula- 
 tion whose interests and welfare 
 were some of the prime objects of 
 its foundation. 
 
 I will not undertake on this occa- 
 sion to discuss the foundation of 
 these prejudices. I will not dwell up- 
 on those, as they are called, oppres- 
 sive laws, and that still more oppres- 
 sive public sentiment in all parts of 
 the country, which render the con- 
 dition of the colored population in 
 every partof the Union, one of dis- 
 ability, discouragement, and hard- 
 ship. In order to meet the objection 
 to the operation of the Society 
 which arises from the statement that 
 it tends to co-operate with, and to 
 strengthen these oppressive laws and 
 this oppressive public sentiment, I 
 will for argument sake, take it for 
 granted that this legislation and this 
 sentiment are correctly thus charac- 
 terized ; that they are as oppressive, 
 cruel, and tyrannical as they are 
 declared to be. 
 
 Taking this for granted, I ask in 
 
^ the name of common sense, in the 
 ^-name of humanity, does this state of 
 things furnish any reason why the 
 < free colored population of the coun- 
 try, should be discouraged from 
 leaving a state of things like this, 
 
 and going to the land of their fath- 
 er O 
 
 ers, a continent of their own where 
 no such legislation, where no such 
 unfriendly public sentiment would 
 exist; agreat and fertile land, aland 
 that is inviting them to come and 
 take possession of it, and in various 
 parts of which there is everything 
 that can attract, and reward the 
 industry of man ? It seems to me 
 that the objection which is urged to 
 the Society, that it co-operates with 
 that oppressive state of things here, 
 furnishes the very strongest reason 
 in favor of the emigration. Let us 
 take a parallel case. Suppose any 
 one had gone among that little 
 company of persecuted christians in 
 England, in the year 1608, who after- 
 wards became the pilgrim church of 
 Mr. Robinson atLeyden ; or suppose 
 any one had gone in 1630 to the 
 more important company of Gov. 
 Winthrop, the great founder of 
 Massachusetts ; had tried to excite 
 their feelings against the projected 
 emigration, had told them that Eng- 
 land belonged to them as much as 
 it did to their oppressors, had led 
 them to stand upon their rights, and 
 if necessary bleed and die for them; 
 had depicted the hardships and suf- 
 ferings of the passage, had painted 
 in the darkest colors, the terrors of 
 the wilderness into which they were ; 
 about to venture ; would that have j 
 been true friendship, would it have j 
 been kindness, would it have been 
 humanity ? Or to come nearer 
 home, suppose at the present day one 
 should go into Ireland, or France, 
 or Switzerland, or Germany, or Nor- 
 way, or any of the countries from 
 which hundreds of thousands of 
 winn. «ii h deprp.fffl&d, destitute hiui 
 
 unhappy condition, are emigrating 
 to the United States, to find a ref- 
 uge, a home, a social position, and 
 employment — suppose some one 
 should go to them and try to stimu- 
 late a morbid patriotism, a bitter 
 nationality, telling them the country 
 where they were born, belonged as 
 much to them as to the more favor- 
 ed classes, inducing them to stay 
 where they were born, telling them 
 that it was doubtful whether they 
 would get employment in the new 
 country, talking of the expenses, 
 the diseases, the hardships of the 
 poor emigrant, and in this way en- 
 deavor to deter thein from this great 
 adventure, which is to end in pro- 
 curing a home and a position in 
 the world, and an education for 
 themselves and their children, would 
 this be friendship, would this be 
 kindness, would this be humanity ? 
 But these are the appeals which are 
 made to the free colored population 
 of this country, and it is by appeals 
 like this that the Society and the 
 colony have become, as I am sorry 
 to say I believe is the case, highly 
 unpopular among them. 
 
 But I must hasten on from this 
 object of providing a home for the 
 free colored population who wish to 
 emigrate, to another which was a 
 very considerable and leading ob- 
 ject with the founders of this So- 
 ciety, and that is the suppression of 
 the foreign slave trade. It is griev- 
 ous to reflect, it is one of the dark- 
 est things that we read of in history, 
 that contemporaneously with the 
 discovery of this continent, and 
 mainly from mistaken humanity to- 
 wards its natives, the whole western 
 coast of Africa was thrown open to 
 that desolating traffic, which from 
 time immemorial, had been carried 
 on from the ports of the Medit- 
 erranean, the Nile, and the Red Sea, 
 and the shores of Eastern Africa. — 
 It is -..I. more painful to reflect that 
 
it was precisely at the period when 
 the best culture of modern Europe 
 was moving rapidly towards its per- 
 fection, that the intercourse of Af- 
 rica with Europe, instead of proving 
 a blessing proved a curse. Have you 
 well considered, Mr. President, that 
 it was in the days of Shakspeare, 
 and Spenser, and Hooker, and Ba- 
 con, and other bright suns in the 
 firmament of the glory of England, 
 that her navigators first began to 
 go forth, and as if in derision, 
 in vessels, bearing the venerable 
 names of "the Solomon" and "the 
 Jesus," to the coast of Africa to 
 tear away its wretched natives 
 into a state of bondage. It was at 
 the very time when in England and 
 France, the last vestiges of the feu- 
 dal system were breaking down, 
 when private war was put an end to, 
 and men began to venture out from 
 the walled towns and dwell in safe- 
 ty in the open country, and to tra- 
 verse the high roads without fear, 
 it was then that these most polished 
 nations began to enter into com- 
 petition with each other, which 
 should monopolize that cruel traffic, 
 the African slave trade, the princi- 
 pal agency of which was to stir up 
 a system of universal hostility ; not 
 merely between nation and nation, 
 but between tribe and tribe, clan and 
 clan, family and family, and often 
 between members of the same house- 
 hold ; for, I am sorry to say, it is no 
 unprecedented thing for these poor 
 creatures to sell their wives and 
 children to the slave trader. 
 
 In this way the whole western 
 coast of Africa became like the 
 Northern and Eastern coast before, 
 one general mart for the slave trade. 
 This lasted for three hundred years. 
 At length the public sentiment of 
 the world, in Europe and America, 
 was awakened. Several of the col- 
 onial assemblies in this country 
 
 passed acts inhibiting the slave trade, 
 but they were uniformly negatived 
 by the Crown. The Continental 
 Congress in 1776, denounced the 
 traffic. The federal convention in 
 1789 fixed a prospective period for 
 its abolition in this country. The 
 example was followed by the States 
 of Europe. At the present day 
 every christian and several of the 
 Mahomedan powers have forbidden 
 it; yet it is extensively carried on, 
 and some authorities say that the 
 number of slaves taken from Africa 
 has not materially diminished ; but 
 I hope this is not true. This state 
 of facts has led several persons 
 most desirous of putting an end to 
 the traffic, to devise some new sys- 
 tem, some new agency ; and all 
 agree — there is not a dissenting 
 voice on that point — that the most 
 effectual, and in fact the only sub- 
 stitute is the establishment of colo- 
 nies. Wherever a colony is estab- 
 lished on the coast of Africa under 
 the direction of a christian power 
 in Europe or America, there the 
 slave trade disappears ; not merely 
 from the coast of the colony, but 
 from the whole interior of the coun- 
 try which found an outlet at any 
 point on that coast. In this way, 
 from the most northern extremity of 
 the French and English colonies 
 down to the most southern limit of 
 the American settlements, the slave 
 trade has entirely disappeared. The 
 last slave mart in that region, the 
 Gallinas, has within a short time, I 
 believe, come within the jurisdiction 
 of the American colony of Liberia. 
 Now, along that whole line of coast 
 and throughout the whole interior 
 connected with it, a line of coast, as 
 I believe, not less than that from 
 Maine to Georgia — from every port 
 and every harbor of which the for- 
 eign slave trade was carried on—with- 
 in the memory of man, it has en- 
 
tirely disappeared. What, Congresses 
 of sovereigns at Vienna, and Aix- 
 la-Chapelie, could not do, what 
 squadrons of war steamers cruising 
 along the coast could not achieve, 
 what quintuple treaties among the 
 powers of Europe could not ef- 
 fect by the arts of diplomacy, has 
 been done by these poor little colo- 
 nies, one of which at least, that of 
 Liberia, has, in latter times, been 
 almost without the recognition of 
 this government, struggling into 
 permanence by the resources fur- 
 nished by private benevolence. (Ap- 
 plause.) I ask what earthly object 
 of this kind more meritorious than 
 this can be named ? And what ca- 
 reer is there opened to any colored 
 man in Europe or America, more 
 praiseworthy, more inviting than this, 
 to form as it were, in his own per- 
 son a portion of that living cordon, 
 stretching along the coast and bar- 
 ring its whole extent from the ap- 
 proaches of this traffic? (Applause.) 
 But even the suppression of the 
 slave trade, all important as it is, is 
 but auxiliary to another ulterior ob- 
 ject of still more commanding im- 
 portance, and that is the civilization 
 of Africa. The condition of Africa 
 is a disgrace to the rest of the civ- 
 ilized world. With an extent near- 
 ly three times as great as that of 
 Europe, its known portions of 
 great fertility, teeming with animal 
 and vegetable life, traversed by mag- 
 nificent chains of mountains, East, 
 and West, North and South, whose 
 slopes send down the tributaries of 
 some of the noblest rivers in the 
 world, connecting on the North by 
 the Mediterranean, with the ancient 
 and modern culture of Europe, pro- 
 jecting on the West far into the At- 
 lantic ocean, that great highway of 
 the world's civilization, running on 
 the South East into a near proxim- 
 ity to our own South American con- 
 tinent, np»-n on thn Enst to the 
 
 trade of India: and on the North 
 East by the Red Sea and the Nile, 
 locked closely into the Asiatic con- 
 tinent, one would have thought that 
 with all these natural endowments, 
 with this noble geographical posi- 
 tion, Africa was destined to be the 
 emporium, the garden of the Globe. 
 Man alone in this unhappy conti- 
 nent has dropped so far into arrears 
 in the great march of humanity, be- 
 hind the other portions of the human 
 family, that the question has at 
 length been started whether he does 
 not labor under some incurable, nat- 
 ural inferiority. In this, for myself, 
 I have no belief whatever. 
 
 I do not deny that among the nu- 
 merous races in the African conti- 
 nent, as among the numerous races 
 in all the other •continents, there 
 are great diversities, from the politic 
 and warlike tribes upon the central 
 plateau, to the broken down hordes 
 on the slave coast, and on the banks 
 of the Congo, and the squalid, half 
 humanHottentot. Butdovou think 
 the difference is any greater between 
 them than it. is between the Laplan- 
 der, the Gipsy, the Caknuc, and the 
 proudest and brightest specimens of 
 humanity in Europe or America? 
 I think not. 
 
 What then can b» the cause of the 
 continued uncivilization of Africa ? 
 Without attempting presumptuously 
 to pry into the mysteries of Provi- 
 dence, I think that adequate causes 
 can be found in some historical 
 and geographical circumstances. 
 It seems a law of human progress, 
 which however difficult to explain, 
 is too well sustained by facts to b« 
 doubted, that in the first advances 
 out of barbarism into civilization. 
 the first impulses and guidances must 
 come from abroad. This of course 
 leaves untouched the great mystery 
 who could have made a beginning: 
 but still as far back as history or 
 tradition runs, we do timi t\tnt thp 
 
6 
 
 first guidance and impulse came 
 from abroad. From Egypt and 
 Syria the germs of improvement 
 were brought to Greece, from 
 Greece to Rome, from Rome to the 
 North and West of Europe, from 
 Europe to America, and they are 
 now speeding on from us to the 
 farthest West, until at length it shall 
 meet the East again. To what ex- 
 tent the aboriginal element shall be 
 borne down and overpowered by 
 the foreign influences, or enter into 
 kindly combination with them, de- 
 pends upon the moral and intellec- 
 tual development of both parties. 
 There may be such aptitude for im- 
 provement, or the disparity between 
 the native and foreign race may be 
 so small, that a kindly combination 
 will at once take place. This is 
 supposed to have been the case 
 with the ancient Grecian tribes in 
 reference to the emigrants from 
 Egypt and the East. Or the inapti- 
 tude may be so great, and the dispar- 
 ity between the natives and the for- 
 eigners may be so wide that no such 
 kindly union can take place. This 
 is commonly supposed to be the 
 case with the natives of our own 
 continent, who are slowly and si- 
 lently retiring before the inroads of 
 a foreign influence. 
 
 Now in reference to this law of 
 social progress, there have been in 
 Africa two most unfortunate difficul- 
 ties. In the first place, all the 
 of her branches of the human family 
 that have had the start of Africa in 
 civilization have, from the very dawn 
 of history, been concerned in the 
 slave trade, so that intercourse with 
 foreigners, instead of being a source 
 of mutual improvement to both par- 
 ties, particularly to the weaker, has, 
 in the case of Africa, only tended to 
 sink them deeper intobarbarism and 
 degeneracy of every kind. This has 
 been one difficulty. Another is the 
 climatH — this vast tHjuHlonnl ex- 
 
 panse — this aggregate of land bej 1 
 tween the tropics, greater than all 
 the other parts of the globe together^ 
 her fervid vertical sun, burning dowri 
 upon the rank vegetation of her fern 
 tile plains, and rendering her shore* 
 and water courses pestiferous to : 
 foreign constitution. This circum- 
 stance also seems to shut Afric? 
 out from the approaches of civiliza 
 tion through the usual channelsi 
 The ordinary inducements of gaim 
 are too weak to tempt the merchau 
 to those feverous shores. Nothing 
 but a taste for adventure, approach 
 ing to mania, attracts the traveller 
 and when christian benevolenc< 
 allures the devoted missionary to thi 
 field of labor, it lures him too oftei 
 to his doom. 
 
 By this combination of influences 
 Africa seems to have been shut ou 
 from the beginning from all thos< 
 benefits that otherwise result fron 
 foreign intercouise. But now, marl 
 and reverence the Piovidence c 
 God, educing out of these disadvan 
 tages of climate, (disadvantages a 
 we consider them) and out of thi 
 colossal, moral wrong — the foreig 
 slave trade — educing out of thes 
 seemingly hopeless elements of phy 
 sical and moral evil, after Ion 
 cycles of crime and suffering,- c 
 violence and retribution, such a 
 history no where else can parallel- 
 educing, I say, from these almot 
 hopeless elements by the blesse 
 alchemy of christian love the ult 
 mate means of the regeneration ( 
 Africa, (applause.) 
 
 The conscience of the Christia 
 world at last was roused ; an end 
 was determined should be put t 
 the foreign slave trade, but not till 
 had conveyed six millions of the clii 
 dren and descendants of Africa tJ 
 the Western Hemisphere, of whoil 
 about one and a half millions hav 
 passed into a state of freedom 
 though born and ednc****". " 
 
iiibt, under circumstances unfavo- 
 ble for moral or intellectual pro- 
 ess, sharing in the main the bless- 
 gs, and the lights of our common 
 irisrian civilization, and proving 
 emselves, in the example of the 
 [berian colony, amply qualified to 
 ; the medium of conveying these 
 essings to the land of their fathers. 
 
 Thus you see at the very moment 
 hen the work is ready to com- 
 ence, the instruments are prepa- 
 ■d. Do I err in supposing that the 
 ime august Providence which has 
 ranged, or has permitted the'mys- 
 rious sequence of events to which 
 have referred, has also called out, 
 id is inviting those chosen agents 
 » enter upon the work ? Every 
 ling else has been tried and failed, 
 ommercial adventure on the part 
 f individuals has been unsuccess- 
 il ; strength, courage, endurance, 
 most superhuman, have failed ; 
 ell appointed expeditions fitted 
 ut, under the auspices of powerful 
 ssociations, and powerful govern- 
 lents, have ended in the most ca- 
 mitous failure ; and it has been 
 roved at last, by all this experience, 
 lat the white race of itself, cannot 
 vilize Africa. 
 
 Sir, when that most noble expe- 
 ition, I think in 1841, was fitted out, 
 uder the highest auspices in Eng- 
 nd, to found an agricultural colony 
 I the confluence of the Niger and 
 le Chad, out of one hundred and 
 fty white persons that formed a part 
 fit, every man sickened, and all but 
 tree or four died. On the other hand, 
 ut of one hundred and fifty colored 
 len, that formed part of the expedi- 
 on, only three or four sickened, and 
 ley were men who had passed some 
 ears in the West Indies, and in 
 lurope, and not one died. I think 
 lat fact, in reference to the civil iza- 
 on of Africa is worth. I had almost 
 aid, all the treasure, and all the 
 nffering of that ill-fated expedition. 
 
 Sir, you cannot civilize Africa,—' 
 you Caucasian — you proud white 
 man — you all-boasting, all-daring, 
 Anglo-Saxon, you cannot do this 
 work. You have subjugated Eu- 
 rope ; the native races of this coun- 
 try are melting before you us the 
 untimely snows of April beneath a 
 vernal sun ; you have possessed 
 yourselves of India, you threaten 
 China and Japan; the farthest isles 
 of the Pacific are not distant enough 
 to escape your grasp, or insignificant 
 enough to elude your notice: but 
 this great Central Africa lies at your 
 doors and defies your power. Your 
 war steamers and your squadrons 
 may range along the coast, but 
 neither on the errands of peace, nor 
 on the errands of war, can you pene- 
 trate into and long keep the interior. 
 The God of nature, for purposes in- 
 scrutable, but no doubt to be recon- 
 ciled with His wisdom and good- 
 ness, has drawn a cordon across the 
 chief inlets that you cannot pass. 
 You may hover on the coast, but 
 woe to you if you attempt to make a 
 permanent lodgment in the interior. 
 Their poor mud-built villages will 
 oppose no resistance to your arms; 
 but death sits portress at their unde- 
 fended gates. Yellow fevers, and 
 blue plagues, and intermittent poi- 
 sons, that you can see as well as 
 feel, hover in the air. If you at- 
 tempt to go up the rivers, pestilence 
 shoots from the mangroves that 
 fringe their noble banks ; and the 
 all-glorious sun, that kindles every- 
 thing else into life and power, darts 
 down disease and death into your 
 languid frame. No, no, Anglo- 
 Saxon, this is no part of your voca- 
 tion. You may direct the way, y^u 
 may survey the coast, you may point 
 your finger into the interior ; but 
 you must leave it to others to go 
 und abide there. The God of na- 
 ture, in another branch of his family, 
 has chosen out the instruments of 
 
this great work — descendants of the 
 torrid clime, children of the burning 
 vertical sun — and fitted them by 
 centuries of stern discipline for this 
 most noble work — 
 
 From foreign realms and lands remote, 
 
 Supported by His care, 
 They pass unharmed through burning 
 climes, 
 
 And breathe the tainted air. 
 
 Sir, I believe that Africa will be civi- 
 lized, and civilized by the descen- 
 dants of those who were torn from 
 the land. I believe it because I will 
 not think that this great fertile con- 
 tinent is to be forever left waste. I 
 believe it because I see no other 
 agency fully competent to the work. 
 I believe it because I see in this 
 agency a most wonderful adaptation. 
 
 But doubts are entertained of the 
 practicability of effecting this object 
 by the instrumentality that I have in- 
 dicated. They are founded, in the 
 first place, on the supposed inca- 
 pacity of the free colored population 
 of this country and the West Indies 
 to take up and carry on such a 
 work ; and also on the supposed 
 degradation and, if I may use such 
 a word, unimprovability of the na- 
 tive African races, which is pre- 
 sumed to be so great as to bid defi- 
 ance to anv such operation. 
 
 Now, I think it would be very un- 
 just to the colored population of this 
 country and the West Indies to ar- 
 gue from what they have done under 
 present circumstances, to what they 
 might effect under the most favora- 
 ble circumstances. I think, upon 
 the whole, all things considered, that 
 they have done quite as well as could 
 be expected; that they have done 
 as well as persons of European 
 or Anglo-American origin would 
 have done after three centuries of 
 similar depression and hardship. 
 You will recollect, sir, that. Mr. 
 Jefferson, in his valuable work, 
 called " The Notes on Virginia," 
 
 states in strong language the intel- 
 lectual inferiority of the colored 
 race. I have always thought that it 
 ought to have led Mr. Jefferson to 
 hesitate a little as to the accuracy of 
 this opinion, when he recollected 
 that in the very same work he was 
 obliged to defend the Anglo-Ameri- 
 can race, to which he himself, and to 
 which so many of us belong, against 
 the very same imputation brought 
 by an ingenious French writer, the 
 Abbe Raynal, whose opinions were 
 shared by all the school of philoso- 
 phers" to which he belonged. Why, 
 it is but a very few years — I do not 
 know that the time has now 
 ceased — when we Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans were spoken of by our brethren 
 beyond the water, as a poor, degene- 
 rate, almost semi-barbarous race. 
 In the liberal journals of England, 
 within thirty years, the question has 
 been contemptuously asked, in refer- 
 ence to the native country of Frank- 
 lin, and Washington, and Adams, 
 and Jefferson, and Madison, and 
 Marshall ; of Irving, Prescott, Ban- 
 croft, Ticknor, Bryant, and Cooper, 
 Longfellow, and Hawthorne, and 
 hosts of others: "Who reads an 
 American book?" It seems to me in 
 view of facts like this we ought to 
 be a little cautious how we leap to 
 the conclusion that the free colored 
 African race is necessarily in a con- 
 dition of hopeless inferiority. 
 
 Then in reference to the other 
 difficulty about the unimprovability 
 of the African. It. is said that the 
 Africans alone of all the branches of 
 the human family have never been 
 able to rise out of barbarism. Sir, I 
 do not know that ; I do not think 
 that anybody knows it. An im- 
 penetrable cloud hangs over the 
 early history of mankind in every 
 part of the globe. We well know 
 in reference to the whole North 
 and West of Europe, and a great 
 part of the South of Europe, 
 
9 
 
 that it was utterly barbarous until 
 the light of the Roman civilization 
 shone in upon it, and in compara- 
 tively recent times. We also know 
 that in very e; rly times one of the 
 native African races, I mean the 
 Egyptians, attained a high degree of 
 culture. They were the parents of 
 all the arts of Greece, and through 
 them of the ancient world. The 
 Egyptians, were a colored race ; — 
 They did not belong to the negro 
 type : but still they were purely a 
 colored race, and if we should judge 
 of their present condition, as unim- 
 provable as any of the tribes of Cen- 
 tral Africa. Yet we find upon the 
 banks of the Nile, the massive 
 monuments of their cheerless cul- 
 ture that have braved the storms 
 of time more successfully than the 
 more graceful structures of Rome 
 and of Greece. 
 
 It is true that some nations who 
 have emerged from barbarism at a 
 later period have attained the prece- 
 dence over Africa, and have kept it 
 to the present day ; but I am not 
 willing to believe that this arises 
 from causes so fixed and permanent 
 in their nature, that no reversal, at 
 no length of time, is to be hoped 
 from their operation. We are led 
 into error by contemplating things 
 too much in the gross. There are 
 tribes in Africa which have made 
 "no contemptible progress in various 
 branches ofhuman improvement. — 
 On the other hand, if we look at the 
 population of Europe — if we cast 
 our eyes from Lisbon to Archangel, 
 from the Hebrides to the Black 
 Sea, — if for a moment we turn our 
 thoughts from the few who are born 
 to wealth, and its consequent advan- 
 tages, culture, education, and that 
 lordship over the forces of nature 
 which belongs to cultivated mind, — if 
 we turn from these to the benighted, 
 oppressed, destitute, superstitious, 
 ignorant, suffering millions, who 
 
 pass their lives in the hopeless foil 
 of the field, the factory, and the 
 mine ; whose inheritance from gen- 
 eration to generation is beggary; 
 whose education from sire to son 
 is stolid ignorance ; at whose daily 
 table hunger and thirst are the stew- 
 ards, whose occasional festivity is 
 brutal intemperance; if we could 
 count their numbers — if we could 
 sum up together in one frightful 
 mass, all their destitution of the 
 comforts and blessings of life, and 
 thus form an estimate of the practi- 
 cal barbarism of the nominally civil- 
 ized portions of the world, we 
 should, I think, come to the conclu- 
 sion that this supposed in-bred es- 
 sential superiority of the European 
 races does not really exist. 
 
 If there be any such essential 
 superiority, why has it been so late 
 in showing itself? It is said that 
 the Africans have persisted in their 
 barbarism for four or five thousand 
 years. Europe persisted in her bar- 
 barism for three or four thousand 
 years, and in the great chronology 
 of Divine Providence, we are taught 
 that a thousand years are but as one 
 day. Sir, it is only ten centuries 
 since the Anglo-Saxons, to whose 
 race we are so fond of claiming 
 kindred, were as barbarous and 
 uncivilized as many of the African 
 tribes. They were a savage, ferocious, 
 warlike people ; pirates at sea, ban- 
 dits on shore, slaves of the most 
 detestable superstitions; worshiping 
 idols as cruel and ferocious as them- 
 selves. And, as to the foreign slave 
 trade, it is but eight centuries, and 
 perhaps less, since there was as 
 much slave trade in proportion, 
 upon the coast of Great Britain as 
 in the Bight of Benin at the present 
 day. The natives of England eight 
 I centuries ago, were bought and sent 
 I to the slave marts, in the south and 
 west of Europe. At length the light of 
 Christianity shone in; refinement, 
 
10 
 
 civilization, letters, arts, and by de- 
 grees ail the delights, all the im- 
 provements of life followed in their 
 train, and now we talk with the 
 utmost self complacency of the 
 essential superiority of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, and look down with 
 disdain upon those portions of the 
 human family, who have lagged a 
 little behind us in the inarch of civ- 
 ilization. 
 
 Africa at the present day is not in 
 that state of utter barbarism, which 
 popular opinion ascribes to it. 
 Here again we do not sufficiently dis- 
 criminate. We judge in the gross. 
 Certainly there are tribes wholly 
 broken down by internal wars, and 
 the detestable foreign slave trade ; 
 but this is not the character of the 
 entire population. They are not 
 savages. Most of them live by agri- 
 culture. There is some traffic be- 
 tween the coast and the interior. 
 Many of the tribes have a respecta- 
 ble architecture, though of a rude 
 kind, but still implying some pro- 
 gress of the arts. Gold dust is col- 
 lected : iron is smelted and wrought; 
 weapons and utensils of husbandry 
 and household use are fabricated ; 
 cloth is woven and dyed ; palm oil 
 is expressed ; there are schools ; 
 and among the Mahomedan tribes 
 the Koran is read. You, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, well remember thai twenty one 
 years ago, you and I saw in one of 
 the committee rooms of yonder Capi- 
 tol, a native African, who had been 
 40 years a field slave in the West 
 Indies and in this country, and 
 wrote at the age of 70 the Arabic 
 character, with the fluency and the 
 elegance of a scribe. Why, Sir, to 
 give the last test of civilization, 
 Mungo Park tells us in his journal 
 that in the interior of Africa law- 
 suits are argued with as much ability, 
 as much fluency, and at as much 
 length as in Edinburgh. (Laughter 
 and applause.) 
 
 Sir, I do not wish to run into para- 
 dox on this subject I am aware that 
 the condition of the most advanced 
 tribes of Central Africa is wretched, 
 mainly, in consequence of the slave 
 trade. The only wonder is, that wiih 
 this cancer eating into their vitals 
 from age to age, any degree of civili- 
 zation whatever can exist. But de- 
 graded as the ninety millions of 
 Africans are, 1 presume you might 
 find in the aggregate, on the conti- 
 nent of Europe, another ninety 
 millions as degraded, to which each 
 country in that quarter of the ofi.be 
 would contribute its quota. The 
 difference is, and it is certainly an 
 ; II important difference, that in Eu- 
 rope, intermingled with these ninety 
 millions, are fifteen or twenty mil- 
 lions possessed of all degrees of cul- 
 ture up to tie very highest, whde in 
 Africa there is not an individual 
 who, according to our standard, has 
 attained a high degree of intellectual 
 culture; but if obvious causes for 
 this can be shown, it is unphilo- 
 sophical to inter from it an essential 
 incapacity. 
 
 But the question seems to me 
 to be put at rest, by what we all 
 must have witnessed of what has 
 been achieved by the colored race 
 in this country ami on the coast of 
 Africa. Unfavorable as their posi- 
 tion has been for any intellectual 
 progress, we still all of us know that 
 they are competent to I he common 
 arts and business of life, to ihe in- 
 genious and mechanical arts, to 
 keeping accounts, to the common 
 branches of academical and profes- 
 sional culture. Paul Cuffee's name 
 is familiar to everybody in m\ part 
 of the country, and I am sure you 
 have heard of him. He was a man 
 of uncommon energy ami force of 
 character. He navigated to Liver- 
 pool his own vessel, manned by a 
 colored crew. His father was a na- 
 tive African slave ; his mother was 
 
11 
 
 a member of one of the broken 
 down Indian tribes, some fragments 
 of which still linger in the corners 
 of Massachusetts. I have already 
 alluded to the extraordinary attain- 
 ments of that native African Prince, 
 Abdul Rahhaman. If there was 
 evei a native born gentleman on earth 
 he was one. He had the port and 
 the air of a prince, and the literary 
 culture of a scholar. The learned 
 Blacksmith of Alabama, now in Li- 
 beria, has attained a celebrity scarce- 
 ly inferior to his white brother, who 
 is known by the same designation. 
 When I lived in Cambridge a few 
 years ago I used to attend, as one 
 of the. Board of Visitors, the exami- 
 nations of a classical school, in w Inch 
 there was a colored boy, the son of 
 a slave in Mississippi, 1 think. He 
 appeared to me to be of pure Afri- 
 can blood. There were at the same 
 time two youths from Georgia, and 
 one of my own sens, attending the 
 same school. I must say that this 
 poor negro boy, Beverly Williams, 
 was one of the best scholars at the 
 school, and in the Latin language 
 he was the be.-t scholar in his class. 
 These are instances that have fallen 
 under my ow n observ tion. There 
 art others I am told which show still 
 more conclusively the colored race 
 lor every kind of intellectual culture. 
 Now look at what they have 
 done on the coast of Africa. Think 
 of the facts that were spread 
 before you in that abstract of the 
 Society's doings, which was read 
 i; ;- e\ en n r. It is only 25 
 years since that little colony was 
 founded under the auspices of this 
 Society. In that time what havi the* 
 done; or rather let me ask what 
 have ilvy not done ? They have es- 
 tablishe I a well-organized c.on>titu- 
 tiou ol Republic; n Govemrm tit, 
 which is administered with abilny 
 and energy in peace, and by the un- 
 fortunate necessity of circumstances, 
 also in war. They have courts of 
 
 justice, modelled after our own; 
 schools, churches, and lyceums. — 
 Commerce is. carried on, the soil is 
 tilled, communication is open to 
 the interior. The native tribes are 
 civilized ; diplomatic relations are 
 creditably sustained with foreign 
 powers, and ihe two leading pow- 
 ers of Europe, England and France, 
 have acknowledged their sovereignty 
 and independence. Would the 
 same number of persons taken prin- 
 cipally from the laboring classes, of 
 any portion of England, or Anglo- 
 America, have done better than 
 this ? 
 
 Ah ! Sir, there is an influence at 
 work through the agency of this 
 Society, and other Societies, and 
 through the agency of the colony of 
 Liberia, and others which I hope will 
 be established, sufficient to produce 
 these and still greater effects. I m. an 
 the influence of pure unselfish chris- 
 tian love. Tins alter all is the only 
 influence that never can fail. Mili- 
 tary power will at linn s be resis- 
 ted, and overcome. Commercial 
 enterprise, however well planned, 
 maybe blasted. State policy, how- 
 ever deep, may be outwitted ; but 
 pure, unselfish, manly, rather let 
 me say heavenly love, never did, 
 and in the long run never will 
 fail, (applause.) It is a truth 
 which this society ought to write 
 upon its banners, that it is not polit- 
 ical nor military power, but the 
 moral sentiment, principally under 
 the guidance and influence of reli- 
 thiii has in all ages civili- 
 zed the v\ or d \ m- , craft, 
 mammon he in wait, and v\ atch 
 their chance, but they cannot poison 
 its vitality. Whatever becomes of 
 the question of intellectual superior- 
 ity. I should insult this audience, if I 
 attemp ed to ar_< ne i tin 1 in i he im ral 
 sentiments, the colon * ra< > stand 
 upon an equality with us. 1 read a 
 year or two ago in a newspaper an 
 anecdote which illustrates this in 
 
12 
 
 so beautiful and striking a manner 
 that, with your permission I will 
 repeat it. 
 
 When the news of the discovery 
 of gold reached us from California, 
 a citizen of the upper part of Louis- 
 iana, from the Parish of Rapides, 
 for the sake of improving his not 
 prosperous foitunes, started with his 
 servant to get a share, if he could, 
 of the golden harvest. They re- 
 paired to the gold regions. They 
 labored together for a while with 
 success. At length the strength of 
 the master failed, and he fell dan- 
 gerously sick. What then was the 
 conduct of the slave in those far off 
 hills? In a State whose constitu- 
 tion did not recognize slavery, in 
 that newly gathered and not very 
 thoroughly organized state of so- 
 ciety, what was his conduct ? As 
 his master lay sick with the typhus 
 fever, Priest and Levite came, and 
 looked upon him, and passed by ou 
 the other side. The poor slave stood 
 by him, tended him, protected him; 
 by night and by day his sole com- 
 panion, nurse, and friend. At length 
 the master died. What then was 
 the conduct of the slave in those 
 distant wastes, as he stood by him 
 whom living he had served, but who 
 was now laid low at his feet by the 
 great Emancipator? He dug his 
 decent grave in the golden sands. 
 He brought together the earnings of 
 their joint labor ; these he deposit- 
 ed in a place of safely as a sacred 
 trust for his master's family. He 
 then went to work under a Califor- 
 nian sun to earn the wherewithall to 
 pay his passage home. That done, 
 he went back to the banks of the 
 Red River, in Louisiana, ani laid 
 down the little store at the feet of 
 his master's widow. — (Applause.) 
 
 Sir, I do not know whether the 
 story is true, I read it in a public 
 journal. The Italians have a prover- 
 bial saying of a tale like this, that if 
 it is not true it is well invented. 
 This Sir is too good to be invented. 
 It is, it must be true. That master 
 and that slave ought to live in mar- 
 ble and in brass, and if it was not 
 presumptuous in a person like me 
 so soon to pass away and to be for- 
 gotten, I wouid say their memory 
 shall never perish. 
 
 Fortunati am bo ! si quid mea rarmina pos- 
 
 sint, 
 .Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet xvo. 
 
 There is a moral treasure in 
 that incident. It proves the capa- 
 city of the colored race to civil- 
 ize Africa. There is a moral worth 
 in it, beyond all the riches of Cali- 
 fornia. If all her gold — all that she 
 has yet yielded to the indomita- 
 ble industry of the adventurer, and 
 all that she locks from the cupidity of 
 man, in the virgin chambers of her 
 snow-clad sierras — were allmoulten 
 into one vast ingot, it would not, in 
 the sight of Heaven, buy the moral 
 worth of that one incident. (Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the Colonization 
 Society, I crave your pardon for this 
 long intrusion upon your patience. I 
 have told you — pardon that word, 
 you knew it before — I have reminded 
 you of the importance of the work, 
 of the instrumentality by which it is 
 to be effected, of the agents chosen 
 as I think in the councils of Heaven 
 to carry it into effect; and now what 
 remains for us, for every friend of hu- 
 manity, but to bid God speed to the 
 undertaking? 
 
 [The honorable gentleman resum- 
 ed his seatamidst loud and long con- 
 tinued applause.] 
 
 Note.— I perceive from a note to the foregoing speech as republished in the Col- 
 onization Herald, that, m speaking from memory of the Expedition to the Niger in 
 1S41, 1 considerably overrated the mortality among the whites. Nearly every white 
 member of the expedition was disabled by sickness from the performance of duty; but 
 forty only died. This mortality, however, required the immediate abandonment of 
 the enterpnze. — E. E. 
 
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