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 THE 
 
 SIN OF SLAVERY 
 
 REMEDY; 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 so"me reflections on the moral influence 
 
 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 
 
 BY ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR. 
 
 Professor of Math, and Nal. Phil., Western Reserve College. 
 
 Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do lo you, do ye even so to 
 them : for this is the law and the prophets. — Jesus Christ. 
 
 ^ NEW- YORK: 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1833. 
 
Entercii according to an Act of Congress, in the year one tliousand eight hundred and Ihijly-lhree, 
 by Elizur Wright, Jr., in the Clerk's Office of the Court ef the United Slates, tor the 
 
 by 
 
 Southern District ol New-York. 
 
 W. OsnORN AKD CO., rRlNTERS 
 
 85 CliuihaTi street. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The American revolution was incomplete. It left one sixth part 
 of the population the victims of a servitude immeasurably more de- 
 basing, than that from which it delivered the rest. While this na- 
 tion held up its declaration of independence — its noble bill of human 
 rights, before an admiring world, in one hand ; it mortified the friends 
 of humanity, by oppressing the poor and defenceless with the other. 
 The progress of time has not lessened the evil. There are now held 
 in involuntary and perpetual slavery, in the southern half of this re- 
 public, more "than 2,000,000 of men, women, and children, guarded 
 with a vigilance, which strives, and with success appalling as it is 
 complete, to shut out every ray of knowledge, human and divine, 
 and reduce them as nearly as possible to a level with the brutes. 
 These miserable slaves are not only compelled to labor without 
 choice and without hire, but they are subjected to the cruelty and 
 lust of their masters to an unbounded extent. In the northern states 
 there is very generally a sympathy with the slave-holders, and a 
 prejudice against the slaves, which shows itself in palliating the 
 crime of slave-holding, and in most unrighteously disregarding the 
 rights, and vilifying the characters of the free colored men. 
 
 At the same lime, slavery, as a system, is (in a certain sense) con- 
 demned. It is confessed to be a great evil, "a moral evil," and, 
 when the point is urged, a sin. The slaves, it is admitted, have 
 rights — every principle of honesty, justice, and humanity, " i7i the 
 abstract,^'' calls aloud that they should be made free. The word of 
 God is in their favour. Indeed, there is no ground claimed by the 
 abettors of slavery, on which they pretend to justify it for a mo- 
 ment, but a supposed — a begged — expediency, baseless as the driven 
 clouds. I say baseless, for while not a single fact has ever been pro- 
 duced, going to show the danger of putting the slaves, all at once, 
 under the protection of law, and employing them as free laborers, 
 there have been produced, on the other side, varied and fair experi- 
 ments showing, that it is altogether safe and profitable. 
 
 In this state of things where has the American church stood? 
 Has she too sympathized with the hearts of the Pharaohs? Or has 
 she, in the spirit of the martyrs of former times, borne an unflinching 
 testimony against this sin ? Alas ! the painful truth stares us in the 
 face. She has come dg.wn from the high and firm foundation of 
 scripture truth, and is professedly at work upon a floating expediency, 
 doing against slavery what can be done upon the unchecked current 
 of popular prejudice. Speaking through the organ of the Coloniza- 
 tion Society, she has admitted all that the most determined slave- 
 
holder could ask, and she is doing just that, and no more, which so 
 far as he understands the subject, he hails with pleasure as a safe- 
 guard to his property in human bodies and souls. This is the testi- 
 mony of slave-holders themselves — most competent witnesses. 
 
 Is further evidence needed ? When the American Colonization 
 Society, as a remedy for slavery, has been called in question, as well 
 it might be for its tardiness, if for no other reason, there has been 
 manifested a determination to hush inquiry. There has been a 
 most pusillanimous shivering and shrinking from the probe. Nay, 
 the few men who, in the uncompromising spirit of Christian benevo- 
 lence, have urged this inquiry, have been slandered as disturbers of 
 the public peace, — have been assailed with abusive epithets, not by 
 slave-holders only, but by their brethren in the bosom of the church. 
 
 A most singular spectacle is presented in this enlightened and 
 Christian age ; a handful of philanthropists, dare to denounce a sys- 
 tem of legalized oppression, and to charge guilt upon all who uphold 
 it ; upon this, not only do the principals in crime, as might be ex- 
 pected, ascribe the whole to sheer malice, but the leaders of the 
 Christian church, as ought not to be expected, endorse, and give cur- 
 rency to the charge, and throw the whole weight of their cold and 
 crushing influence to smother in its cradle this attempt at a gospel 
 reformation. 
 
 What does all this mean ? Are Christians in these northern states 
 interested in upholding slavery ? Are they unwilling to be con- 
 vinced that their colored brethren are better than the slanders of 
 their oppressors would make them? Are they sure, beyond a doubt, 
 that the colonization scheme will relieve our country of the mighty 
 evil which is crushing it? that it is the Christicui way to relieve it? 
 Are the}'^ on good evidence convinced that it is not expedient to say 
 to the wicked, "O wicked man, thou shalt surely die?" Must they 
 have PEACE at any rate — peace, though the groans of millions should 
 ascend and mingle with the muttering thunders of coming wrath ? 
 Will they have it, that if a word is said against a mere experiment, to 
 test the practicability of rescuing the victim by flattering the oppres- 
 sor, the whole cause of Christian benevolence is attacked ? If not, 
 why not welcome inquiry? A thorough investigation — a looking 
 on both sides, would surely do no harm. Those defenders of truth who 
 have shunned such inquiry, have always proved themselves short- 
 sighted. The cause of God courts scrutiny — its advocates are thrown 
 into no unseemly agitation when they are most rigorously silted. 
 
 The subject cries aloud for more earnest consideration than it has 
 yet received. More than two millions of outraged, down-trodden 
 men cry out, shall we die in this sore bondage that white Christians 
 may have the pleasure of attempting to shun God's wrath without 
 repenting of sin? Half a million of free colored men cry out — 
 America is our country — the land for which our fathers bled as well 
 as yours. Why will you seek to banish us? The wrongs of the 
 poor Indian cry aloud. There is no safety in league with transgres- 
 sors ! The present political aspect of the South cries out, that ty- 
 jraiits do not regard law ! Six hundred millions of idolaters cry oul; 
 
10 the American church, " Why pluckest thou the mote out of thy 
 brother's eye, and behold a beam is in thine own !" 
 
 Let us, Christian brethren, for I will not waste an appeal upon 
 those who do not acknowledge the authority of the Gospel, dispas- 
 sionately, and in the fear of God, look this inquiry in the face — Is 
 the Colonization Society dovag what the Gospel requires to be done for 
 the removal of slavery and its concomitant sins? 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SLAVERY A SIN. 
 
 We must first take a view of the evil to be remedied. A very 
 material inquiry meets us at the outset. Is slavery, in all circum- 
 stances, or at least in all the circumstances in which it exists in this 
 country, a sin ? — a violation of the divine prohibition. Thou shalt 
 
 NOT STEAL ? 
 
 In regard to the wretch who steals a man on the coast of Africa, 
 and sells him into bondage, there is no longer any doubt. The 
 curses of all parties meet upon his devoted head. Neither is the 
 slave-merchant exculpated, nor does he deserve to be. His guilt is 
 probably still greater than that of the kidnapper. He sins against 
 greater light. He buys a man, knowing him to be stolen, and sub- 
 jects him to the nameless horrors of the " middle passage." The 
 nations have pronounced his doom, along with that of the pirate and 
 the murderer ; and this notwithstanding any palliating circumstan- 
 ces. Should he plead, when taken on the high seas, that he ac- 
 knowledged the reception of those slaves to be wrong, but he had 
 received them, and what could he do? — should he liberate them in 
 the midst of the ocean ? — he would plead in vain. 
 
 Let us follow up this course of sin, to see, if possible, where it 
 meets those modifying circumstances which take away its guilt. 
 At the next step we see the stolen African standing on the shore of 
 a Christian country. Within sight of Christian temples it is cried, 
 "What will you bid for a man?" Is that man guiltless who bids 
 and buys an immortal being, and subjects him to his own use, as he 
 would a horse? Does he not thus uphold, and justify, and take 
 upon his own shoulders, the sin of the slave-merchant? Nay, does 
 he not stand in the relation of a principal to all the accessary agents 
 who have been concerned in the wicked transaction before him? 
 If the government allows, it surely does not compel him to buy. 
 He liim.seK, in his own voluntary act, is the introducer of slavery; 
 and his guilt loo has been pronounced by the public voice, uttered 
 through the American Colonization Societ3^ That Society has 
 said repeatedly that the guilt of slavery " rests not on the present 
 s-lave-holder.s, but upon those who introdvced the systein." 
 
But let us proceed. Let us suppose, for the sake of simplicity, 
 that the poor African, whom we have been contemplating', and his 
 familj'-, were the only slaves in the land. He ^cas bought — it was 
 the consummation of his wrongs. No matter whether his master 
 be kind or cruel, in regard to the justice of the thing ; the African 
 is an innocent man, and has a right every where to liberty and the 
 safe government of law. What ! will a man claim the right to buy 
 and use his fellow man, at the caprice of his own will, as he would 
 a brute, because, forsooth, he is Jdnd and benevolent 1 Or, will he 
 claim a right to the slave because, contrary to right, he paid for 
 him? 
 
 But we go forward. The poor slave submits to his hard lot. He 
 bows his neck to the yoke. He renounces, along with the inde- 
 pendence, all the responsibilities of a man ; and learns, for his second 
 nature, to anticipate every wish of his master, of whatever kind. 
 He sees his children treated as brutes, and he learns to consider him- 
 self and them as belonging to an inferior race. In the meantime his 
 master, having grown old in his transgression, dies. He had no 
 . claim to be considered a Christian, " for if a man say that he loves 
 I/' God, and hateLh his brother, he is a liar." No, in a land of Bibles 
 '^ he dies amidst the terrors of unrepented sin. His children stand 
 around his dying bed and see the agony of his sinking spirit as hope 
 takes her returnless flight. Where now are the circumstances which 
 justify the children in going forward in the same course ? With 
 their father's damning guilt before them, blazing in the light of 
 God's curse, can they divide among themselves that wretched family 
 of slaves as an inheritance ? If they do, they may well be said to 
 inherit their father's sin — they commence the business of sinning 
 not like their father, upon their own resources, but with an accumu- 
 lated and fearfully productive capital. Why they steal afresh, be- 
 neath the gallows, that very thing for which their father paid the 
 Jast penalty of the violated law ! they dare heaven and earth, be- 
 tween which he was suspended, to do their worst ! ! 
 
 The slaves increase. They furnish now both the excitement and 
 the gratification to their masters' lusts. Industry, economy, and 
 every household virtue, are impaired on the part of the master ; in 
 their place are nurtured sloth, pride, cruelty, and ungovernable pas- 
 sion. The hand of tyranny becomes so heavy that the poor, crushed 
 slave can no longer bear it ; he now gives occasional but terrific 
 proof that he is a man. Henceforward fear and trembling, by day 
 and by night, are the jirice paid for the indulgence of arbitrary power. 
 As generation after generation passes away, the curse of (lod grows 
 heavier, and the thunders of his coming wrath swell to a louder tone. 
 Now, I ask agam, where are the circumstances which go to justify 
 slave-holding ? Are they to be found in the consequences ? — conse- 
 quences fraught with blasting and mildew to the fields, and deep 
 damnation to the souls of the slave-holders ? Are they to be found 
 in the human law, which, we may suppose, has by this time forbid- 
 den the liberation of slaves ? The very question regards the right- 
 eousness of the law. Can an unrighteous law justify an unright' 
 
eous action 1 Does the law speak to the conscience against God, 
 or does God speak to tlie conscience against the law ? With what 
 face can these slave-holders, with all their Bibles, and their lucid 
 facts, and their repeated warnings, and the groans of the prison- 
 house sounding in their ears, lay back the entire guilt upon the in- 
 troducer of slavery — the mere originator of an experiment which 
 they have brought to result in a hell upon earth — and still persevere 
 in the same course? With what face can a slave-holding judge, 
 fed, and clothed, and charioted in splendor by the forced action of 
 bought and sold human muscles, pronounce sentence of death 
 upon the kidnapper who has, it may be, stolen a single African from 
 his barbarous home? Can sin be multiplied into righteousness? 
 
 Again, are the transforming circumstances to be found in the 
 character of the slave-holders? Multitudes of slave-holders are said 
 to be Christians — ornaments to the church of God — forward in 
 every benevolent work. But in estimating their character, what 
 weight has been given to their slave-holding ? Is not that one of 
 the elements of their character? Would it not materially affect 
 our estimate of the piety of the Apostle Paul, if we were to learn 
 that he retained, till the day of his death, in the city of Tarsus, a 
 patrimony of slaves, whom, so long as they remained there, he might 
 not liberate, nor teach to read a syllable of his epistles, on pain of 
 death? Could he have claimed sincerity for his exhortation, "Mas- 
 ters, give unto servants that which is just and equal," if he kept 
 men in involuntary and perpetual servitude without wages? 
 
 "But many slave-holders are kind, and generous, and hospitable !" 
 Must every tyrant of course put on the demeanor of a tiger ? Must 
 every sinner's brow, at all times, be ruffled with the malice of a 
 demon? AVhy, the very tiger is playful with his mates. The very 
 demon knows how to flatter and caress, and put on all the attract- 
 iveness of an angel. Surely, while slave-holding forms a material 
 trait in the character, to justify it on the ground of character, is to 
 beg the question. God has made our state of affection towards our 
 fellow men, embracing the vilest and poorest, a test of our love to 
 him. This lest must be applied, whomsoever it may offend, and 
 whatsoever pretensions it may demolish. Moreoveij it is abundantly 
 confirmed by the history of the past, that the most flagrant trans- 
 gressors may show much respect to God, and be sufliciently just to 
 their equals. God said to his ancient prophet, " Cry aloud, spare 
 not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their trans- 
 gressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, 
 and delight to know my ways, as a nation that dicl righteousness, 
 and forsook not the ordinances of their God ; they ask of me the or- 
 dinances oi justice ; they take delight in approEiching to God." We 
 must then look beyond apparent piety to God, to find a justification 
 for unrighteousness towards man. 
 
 Is not a justification found in the necessities of the case ? Can a 
 man liberate his slaves at the south if he would ? What is there to 
 hinder? Is there any command of God against it? Is public 
 opinion necessity? Are human laws necessities? So thought not 
 
the Christian martyrs. They braved death for doctrines; would they 
 have done less for practice? If slave-holding be a sin, it cannot be ne- 
 cessary ; God never places his creatures under a necessity of sinning. 
 It is necessary to obey God — to live is not alw^ays necessary. This, 
 even in the worst possible case ; but bad as American slavery is, it 
 has not yet come to this. The slave-holder may yet remove with 
 his slaves and emancipate them — the sacrifice of ill-gotten wealth is 
 the sole necessity which can now exist. 
 
 Hitherto we have not come up with any of those potent, but fugi- 
 tive circumstances, which can transmute an abstract sin into a " sa- 
 • cred duty." Whither have they fled ? Have they betaken them- 
 selves to the fields of fancy % Have they found an abiduig place, ai 
 length, in the shadowy limbo of supposed consequences? So I am 
 constrained to think. 
 
 It is heard from the south, and re-echoed from the remotest north, 
 that instant emancipation " would be but an act of dreamy madness" 
 — the fatal match to produce a most appalling and destructive ex- 
 plosion. A reformation so sudden, it is said, would be worse than 
 the sin. But where are the facts? In the name of sacred verity, 
 where are the facts? We must have evidence, the same in 
 kind, and not less in degree, than that which convinces us that 
 the sun will rise to-morrow, before we believe that God has so 
 constituted his creatures, that they must continue in one sin to avoid 
 another, or that there is danger in being just and merciful. In the 
 entire absence of facts which prove them, and in the face of facts 
 which disprove them, I must believe that the evil consequences of 
 immediate emancipation, are confined to the fancies of the apologists 
 of sin. 
 
 If then there is guilt any where, it rests in full weight upon the 
 present slave-holder. In vain he looks around him for those modi- 
 fying circumstances which may change his crime to a misfortune. 
 Out of his own mouth he is condemned. He admits the guilt of the 
 kidnapper, the slave-merchant, the original purchaser — and why? 
 Not simply because their transient agency was marked with cruelty, 
 but because the consequence was the perpetual slavery of a race, and 
 the entail upon fv fair country of a blighting curse — a consequence 
 for which he, in his place, is responsible. Guilt, however, is not 
 measured by the consequences of action, but by some known rule. 
 To say nothing of the voice of conscience, the Word of God is plain ; 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" Who would put him- 
 self under the arbitrary control of an individual, rather than under 
 the mild and steady government of law ? Who would, himself, be 
 willing to labor without wages, and have his own support, and 
 that of his family, depend upon the will of any man, however good ? 
 " Thou shalt not steal," says the supreme law ; but the slave-holder 
 is a ferfelual thief. He steals, not "to satisfy his soul when 
 hungry," but to feast on dainties, to pamper every lust. There can- 
 not be made out a clearer case of violation of divine law, tl\an slave- 
 holding. The very permission given to the Israelites to make ser- 
 vants of the heathen who dwelt about them, is a proof against the 
 
slave-holder. Did God giant an express permission to his people to 
 buy and use oxen 'I An express permission implies that a thing 
 would be wrong without it. But the Bible contains positive 
 instruction on this subject which is applicable to all, — fair exposi- 
 tions of the general law in regard to this very thing. " Is not this 
 the fast that 1 have chosen ? To loose the bands of wickedness, to 
 undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that 
 ye break every yoke ?" — Isa. Ivui. 6. " Masters, give unto your 
 servants that which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also, have 
 a Master in heaven." — Col. iv. 1. In the first epistle to Timothy, 
 first chapter, tenth verse, the Apostle classes mai-stealers with whore- 
 mongers, liars, perjured persons, and the like ; on this passage there 
 stood in the standard of the Presbyterian Church, till 1818, this very 
 appropriate comment : " Men-stealers among the Jews were exposed 
 to capital punishment; and the Apostle Paul classes them with sin- 
 ners of the first rank. Stealers of men are all those who bring off 
 slaves or free men, and keep, sell, or buy them ; comprehending all 
 those who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into 
 slavery, or detaining them in it." 
 
 But m 1818 this note was struck out. That is, when the Gene" 
 ral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church saw that the " thieves" 
 were respectable, " then, it consented with them, and became parta- 
 kers with adulterers." And has God indeed placed a church in the 
 world to say that his law is too severe? Do -his redeemed people 
 tarry in this wilderness on their way to glory, to keep sin in counte- 
 nance by sympathizing with shameless rebels? If God asks the 
 transgressor, what will you do when I shall deal with you ? What 
 will you answer when I shall make inquisition for blood ? Is the 
 church t'o rise up and cry, this is not a religious but apolitical ques- 
 tion — it will exasperate sinners, it will divide Christians, it will 
 grieve the blessed spirit, it will put an end to revivals. Well might 
 God say of such a church, " They draw near to me with their 
 moutksr 
 
 "But we hope better things, though we thus speak." The church, 
 as a body, (I speak without respect to denominations,) has taken her 
 view of slavery, not from the word of God, but from a supposed ex- 
 pediency. She has considered it a political question, settled by an 
 authority with which she has no concern. Moreover she has heard 
 the statement of one party only ; the slave-holder has told his story, 
 but the poor slave has not been heard. Let the doctrines of scripture 
 be now at length preached ; let the facts, the woful, blood-stained 
 facts, be spread out ; let the tale of a slave's wrongs enter the ear, 
 and the church, as a body, will rise in the might of truth. Her tes- 
 timony will be uttered, and heard, and feh. She will speak out, and 
 trust, God for the consequences. 
 
 Again, the guilt of slave-holding may be clearly seen from the re- 
 lation It holds to acknowledged sins. I have already hinted at this ; 
 but let us look it more fully in the face. Why has it come to be a 
 settled point, (in the abstract, the slavery apologists would say,) that 
 man is unfit to be intrusted with despotic power 1 Why, but that 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 this very power stands m the relation of a fruitful parent to all the 
 transgressions of the second table of the law ? Destroying natural 
 affection, exciting anger, lust, extortion, falsehood, and cruel cove- 
 tousness 1 What is the testimony of facts in regard to slavery in 
 republican America? Look at the prodigality and shameless profli- 
 gacy of southern youth. How many a son has been sent to the 
 distant University, surrounded with whatever advantages wealth 
 could procure, and after having been subjected to all that is reforma- 
 tory in discipline, and stimulating in the love of praise, has returned 
 to his house a ruined debauchee, made so by the vices that he carried 
 from his father's roof? Did the parent's heart break? No: it was 
 the heart of a slave-holder — it was too hard ! It thrust away the 
 undutiful child from the scene of his first lessons in guilt, to the riper 
 instruction of hoary-headcd gamblers, profligates, and duellists. 
 Look again at the shameless violation of the seventh commandment. 
 Read the proof in the thousands of mulattos born of black mothers 
 every year — born to be treated like brutes by their own fathers ! 
 Shall I enter into further details? Most easily I might, but the task 
 is needless. The abomination is open, the cry has gone up to hea- 
 ven, the very sun turns pale ! " Shall I not be avenged on such a 
 nation as this, saith the Lord ?" 
 
 But is there no reproving, reforming spirit among them ? Does 
 not the Christian pulpit thunder forth the penalties of the insulted 
 law? Is there not a'n intrepid remnant of God's elect, whose lives 
 are a standing rebuke to the general corruption ? No, the pulpit is 
 spell-bound. The message of God is clothed in pointless general- 
 ities. The righteous are tamer than Lot in Sodom. The prophet 
 dares not to take forth the precious from the vile ; I speak of the 
 general fact. If there are men, and I rejoice to believe there are 
 few, who dare openly to attack slavery on Bible ground, they are 
 regarded as insane by their brethren. Their most celebrated philan- 
 thropists, in view of all the sins of the system, think they have done 
 enough when they have exposed, what every slave-holder knew well 
 enough before, the pecuniary waste which attends it. They hope 
 that a clear demonstration of the pecuniary unprofitableness of sla- 
 very will supersede the necessity of any more direct and hazardous 
 aggression. Vain hope ! Will the loss of property stop the drunk- 
 ard, or the gambler, or the debauchee ? The slaves are held by the 
 lust of power and the lust of pleasure. Are these passions — che- 
 rished, fortified, enthroned in the heart as they are, to be weakened 
 and expelled by the love of money ? 
 
 Let those cherish such hopes who can shut out the glorious sun at 
 noon-day, and illuminate themselves with rushlights. For one I 
 disclaim all respect for such childish absurdity, and cowardly good 
 nature. If man is not a soulless brute, the whole system of slavery, 
 in all its parts, by whatsoever circumstances surrounded, and by 
 whomsoever upheld, is a monstrous sin, a most comprehensive and 
 damning iniquity, for which it is downright treason against God to 
 offer the shadow of an apology, and for which there is no remedy 
 but the uncompromising truth of the Gospel. 
 
11 
 
 Such is the slavery whirh cleaves to our republio, and holds in its 
 rist, defying heaven's wrath, one sixtii part of our population. Who 
 shall gauge the current of its wo ? Who shall calculate the 
 amount of sighs, and tears, and wailings, and of unspoken anguish, 
 that have flowed through it during one hundred and fifty years ? 
 Who shall sum up the bitter complaints which it has poured into the 
 ear of an avenging God ? Who shall despise the coming retribu- 
 tion? Let those do so, if they will, who represent slavery as a 
 curse which we innocently inherit from our fathers — which we can- 
 not throw off, however much we may desire to. I must be permit- 
 ted to "tremble for my country," while I regard it as a crime which 
 has polluted this whole nation from the lakes to the gulf, and from 
 the river to the sea. While I claim the right, nay, while I avow 
 the imperative obligation, thus to denounce slavery, be it understood 
 that it is not on the ground of my own innocence. The conscious- 
 ness of past guilt sometimes impels a man to speak the terrors of the 
 law in the ear of a fellow sinner. Slavery is not the exclusive sin of 
 the South. Northern ships and northern capital helped to introduce 
 It ; and northern capital and northern morality throw the strongest 
 shield around the system at this moment. And is this a reason why 
 northern men, washing their own hands of the guilt, should not 
 raise their voices against it 1 Is it not rather a reason why thej'^ 
 should do it the iiiore earnestly ? If slavery has polluted the moral 
 atmosphere of the nation ; if it has stupified the conscience, and 
 paralized the energy, of the church of God — if it has written " hy- 
 focrisy''' upon the portals of the sanctuary, and thrown doubt upon 
 the very existence of love for souls, (and who will say that it has 
 not?) shall those who see, and know, and feel all this, smother their 
 convictions of duty ? And for what ? 
 
 Or should such language seem too harsh, (for I would not be 
 guilty of uttering truth in words which are too true,) if there is any 
 apparent inconsistency in professing to love God, while we do so 
 little for 2,000,000 of our fellow men, who are laboring under the 
 peculiar disadvantages of domestic servitude, and while, indeed, as a . 
 community, we hardly express so much sympathy with them as with 
 their masters, will it not be expedient for those who can do it con- 
 scientiously, to say that slavery is always wrong — or even viicked — 
 as a sort of foundation for their efforts towards its removal ? I ask 
 those sober men, who have sharpened their vision by looking after 
 consequences and circumstances in the dim field of political expe- 
 diency, was any great triumph ever won in favor of truth, by con- 
 cealing truth? 
 
12 
 C H A P T E K f I 
 
 COLONIZATION A>S A REMEDY. 
 
 ix needs not be said to any wakeful observer of things as they 
 are, that sin always surrounds itself with obstacles to repentance- 
 It lands upon a forbidden shore, burns the ship, drav/s the sword, 
 throws awa^' the scabbard, and proclaims itself under a necessity of 
 rushing forward. The thief is careful, as soon as may be, to trans- 
 tniue the stolen goods, so as to put restoration out of the question. 
 The drunkard has so Jnodified his constitution, that he tnnst^ in his 
 own apprehension, persevere in his course, or, at least, not break ofi' 
 suddenlj^, which amounts to exactly the same thing. The liar has 
 so involved himself in a web of falsehood, that to burst away at once, 
 would, in his view, be worse than to add a little more of the same sin. 
 The prodigal, amidst his riotous excess, fuids moments to think of 
 repentance; but the sneers of the wicked, and the mocker}' of the 
 fools, whom his wasteful expenditure has drawn around him, rise as 
 mighty obstacles in the way of his return. Now, of how much 
 atail would it be to remove these obstacles, without doing any thing 
 else to secure repentance. Do any, or all of them amount to a ne- 
 cessity ? Does the wicked heart, which first broke away from duty 
 of its own accord, grow weary of its course, and would it return but 
 for the insuperable barriers which it has left behind it? .Are the 
 most high-handed tyrants the unfortunate prisoners of circumstances, 
 who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to escape, if 
 some friendly hand without, would unbar the gate? Somethinif 
 very much like this is involved in the proposition, that the American 
 Colonization Society is adapted to remove the sin of slavery. That 
 Society justifies slavery, on the plea of a present rieeessity ; — the ty- 
 rants own plea. It finds this necessity in the laws which forbid 
 manumission, or, perhaps, in the reason for such laws, namely, the 
 alleged fact, that the free blacks in the slave-holding states, are more 
 wretched than the slaves, and that they are dangerous as excite- 
 ments to rebellion. Just what it pretends to do, and 710 more, is to 
 remove this necessity, by removing the free blacks and the slaves as 
 fast as they are made free. Now the question is, has this any ten- 
 dency to secure the abolition, however gradual, of slavery? I an- 
 swer just as much as the following proclamation would have to re- 
 cover stolen property. 
 
 TAKE NOTICE ! 
 
 The person who stole a watch from Y. Z. is hereby informed, 
 that he is considered guilty in the abstract ; but, now that he has 
 stolen it, a necessity prevents the restitution, inasmuch as he is 
 known to belong to a gang of thieves, who have bound themselves 
 not to restore any thing, and as it would be attended with a loss of 
 character — a far greater evil than the retention of the watch : — There- 
 fore, I will carefully abstain from all measures which might occasion 
 
13 
 
 such an unhappy developnipnt. But I am charge<l to recover the 
 watch : and that the necessUy of retaining it may be removed, I pro- 
 mise to ask no questions of the person who shall leave it, when it 
 may suit his convenience, at my office. A. B, 
 
 Agent for the owner. 
 Have not the slave-holders themselves, for more than one hundred 
 and fifty years, been making this necessity stronger ? And does 
 this argue any general willingness to manumit the slaves, if the ne- 
 cessity were removed? What has created and augmented this 
 necessity, but the determination to retain the slaTes in bondage ? 
 Do the "laws against the instruction of slaves, show any willingness 
 to profit by the removal of this pretended necessiiy? 
 
 The very reasons assigned for the laws against manumission with- 
 out removal, are direct proofs of the unwillingness of the great body 
 of slave-holders to manumit their slaves if they could. What is the 
 cause of the extreme " wretchedness" of the free blacks at the South? 
 We have it from the mouth of a slave-holder — want nf employment. 
 Here is the whole secret. If a few negros, from their own indus- 
 try, or the conscientiousness of their master.?, gain their freedom, the 
 whole community of slave-holders turn round and trample them in 
 the dust. They' refuse them employment, without which poor men 
 cannot live honestly, and then complain of them for being thieves ! 
 and point at them as being in worse condition than the slaves ! 
 Does this show any disposition to substitute free for slave labor ? 
 
 Again, the slave-holders fear the free blacks as incitements to ser- 
 vile rebellions. Would they, if they were sincerely desirous to rid 
 themselves of their slaves ? The slaves would rebel, simply to get 
 their freedom. It is unsafe to keep them in bondage. Send away 
 the free — make slavery more safe, and will the ma.ster be more dis- 
 posed to give up the slave ? Will Pharaoh relent when the plague 
 is withdrawn ? Why does he not send his slaves to Liberia ? There 
 would be no danger of the free exciting insurrection among the 
 slaves, if there were no slaves. 
 
 Again . southern colonizationists cannot be serious in proposing 
 the removal of the v^holc colored population, for they well enough 
 know that this cannot be effected without the substitution of a class 
 of white laborers, a problem evidently more difficult than the remo- 
 val of the blacks, and yet their plan takes no cognizance of any re- 
 placement. Indeed, in their own expressive language, they contem- 
 plate nothing more than "a drain for the excessive increase" — an 
 artificial antidote to nature's cure for slavery. 
 
 There needs no further proof that the main body of slave-holders, 
 who create the laws, and give tone to public sentiment, would not 
 be moved a hair toicards the manumission of their slaves by the re- 
 moval of the so called necessity for retaining them. This action of 
 the Society, then, if it takes effect at all, must do so upon the few 
 scattered individuals, too few to form a measurable minority, who 
 do not assent to the laws. From these few, those must be subtract- 
 ed whose consciences are thoroughly awakened, for the removal of 
 this necessity from their way would be plainly a work of superero- 
 
14 
 
 gation There would then remain to be acted on, a class of yiuner^:- 
 who are in the condition of slightly preferring some other sin to that 
 of slave-holding. Relieve them of their " burden," and one conse- 
 quence will certainly follow — they will feel less personal interest in 
 the laws with regard to slavery, so that the formation of a minority, 
 even in the legislatures, in opposition to the laws, and in favor of 
 abolition, will be effectually prevented. 
 
 But I will weary my obliging reader no longer by seriously exa- 
 mining an argument, which owes to a prevalent and wicked preju- 
 dice against the Africans, its salvation from overwhelming contempt. 
 Transfer the scene to the empire of Morocco. How far would it go 
 towards the liberation of a large body of American slaves supposed 
 to be there, to ofler to transport them, not to the land of their fathers, 
 but to their own native land, for which they were pining in despair? 
 Is the parallel denied 1 How can it be accounted for, if it is indeed 
 a fact, that Christian slave-holders, after having broken through all 
 the holy restraints of Christianity, are a more tender-hearted, sjwn- 
 taneously repentant race than the JVIahommedan Moors ? 
 
 But it has been said, the Society exerts a moral in/luencc against 
 slavery. Does it, indeed 1 And where is the moral machinery 
 which it has set at work ? Is it found in the authorized publications 
 of the Society? We are taught by them that slavery is a great 
 evil, and that there was great guili somewhere. But the bolts of its di- 
 rect rebuke — how harmless ! — shorn smooth of every thing that 
 could hurt the proverbial sensitiveness of a tyrant ! 
 
 The following passages are extracted from a very elaborate " de- 
 velopment of the true principles and character of the Society," 
 marked No. 3, in the Appendix to the Fourteenth Annual Report. 
 They embrace all the passages in that paper, in which the Society 
 speaks with any distinctness on the moral character of slavery, 
 along with some of the neutralizing matter which is thrown in quite 
 profusely. The opinions of the founders of the Society are appealed 
 to. Judge Washington had said ; 
 
 "Should it [colonization] lead, as we may fairly hope it will, to 
 the slow but gradual abolition of slavery, it will wipe from our po- 
 litical institutions the only blot which stains them, and in palliation 
 of which we shall not be at liberty to plead the excuse of moral ?ie- 
 cessit]/,{.') until we shall have honestly exerted all the means which 
 we possess for its extinction." 
 
 Mr. Mercer had said, " Many thousand individuals in our native 
 state, you well know, Mr. President, are restrained, asj'ou and 1 are, 
 by the melancholy conviction that they cannot yield to the sugges- 
 tions of humanity, without manifest injury to their country. The 
 laws of Virginia now discourage, and very wisely, perhaps, the 
 emancipation of slaves. But the very policy on which they are 
 founded will afford every facility to emancipation, when the coloni- 
 zation of the slave will be the consequence of his liberation." 
 
 'Mr. Clay had said, " Let the colony once be successfully planted, 
 and legislative bodies, who have been grieved at the necessity of 
 passing those prohibitory laws, which, at a distance, might appear 
 
15 
 
 to stain our codes, will hasten to remove the impediments to the exer- 
 cise of benevolence and humanity." 
 
 General Harper, in his letter, had said, " It tends, and may power- 
 fully tend, to rid us gradually and entirely, in the United States, of 
 slaves and slavery, a great moral and political evil, of increasing 
 virulence and extent, from which much mischief is now felt, and 
 very great calamity in future is justly apprehended. * * * * This 
 great end is to be attained in no other way^ than by a plan of Uni- 
 versal Colonization, founded on the consent of the slave-holders, and 
 of the colonists themselves." 
 
 From the Society's Memorial to Congress. 
 " It is now reduced to be a maxim, equally approved in philosophy 
 and practice, that the existence of distinct and separate castes or 
 classes, forming exceptions to the general system of policy adapted 
 to the community, is a» inherent vice in the composition of society, 
 pregnant with baneful consequences, both moral and political, and 
 demanding the utmost exertion of human energy and foresight to 
 remedy or remove it." 
 
 The same memorial speaks thus, after speaking of the " unfortu- 
 nate condition of the free people of color, and the consequent 
 ■injury to the public welfare" — " The evil has become so apparent, 
 and the necessity for a remedy so palpable, that some of the most 
 considerable of the slave-holding states, have been induced to impose 
 restraints upon the practice of emancipation, by annexing conditions 
 which have no effect but to transfer the evil from one state to another, 
 or by inducing other states to adopt countervailing regulations, and 
 in the total abrogation of a right, which benevolent or conscientious 
 proprietors had long enjoyed under the sanction of positive law, and 
 of ancient usage." 
 
 Mark how the abrogation of the rights of the conscientious, is pal- 
 liated by the tyrant's plea — necessity! But, good reader, let us re- 
 strain our indignation for the present — we may have further use 
 for it. 
 
 From the second Report, " a formal and official declaration of the 
 sentiments of the Society." 
 
 "It(the Society) has been suggested to be an invention of the 
 southern proprietor, to rivet the claims of servitude upon his slaves, 
 as if the circumstances which accompanied the origin of the Society, 
 the character of its members, and their solemn and reiterated decla- 
 rations, did not forbid so unfounded an imputation. It would not be 
 more uncandid to ascribe to them a design to invade the rights of 
 private property, secured by the constitution and laws of the several 
 slave-holding states, and to proclaim Universal Emancipation^^ —^ 
 What is this but to say, that proclaiming universal emancipation is 
 invading rights? What is it but to say, that the right of property in 
 man must not be questioned ? 
 
 Those who established the Society, " had no desire or intention of 
 interfering, in any way, with the rights or the interests of the pro- 
 prietors of slaves." 
 
16 
 
 "They considered slavery a great moral and political evil, and 
 cherished the hope and belief that the successful prosecution of their 
 object would offer powerfid motives, and exert a jrersuasive influence, 
 in favor of voluntary emancipation." 
 
 "It is equally plain and undeniable, that the Society, in the pro- 
 secution of this work, has never interfered, or evinced even a dispo- 
 sition to interfere, in any loay, with the rights of proprietors of 
 slaves." 
 
 " But it may bo said that the Society has expressed the opinion 
 that slavery is a moral and political evil, and that it has regarded 
 the scheme of colonization as presenting motives, and exerting a 
 moral influence at the South, favorable to gradual and vohmtary 
 emancipation. This is true, and it is this, beyond all question, 
 which has secured to it the countenance and patronage of our most 
 profound and sagacious statesmen, and given to this scheme a pecu- 
 liar attractiveness and gloiy in the view of the enlightened friends 
 of their country and mankind." 
 
 " And is the Society to be held up as odious and dangerous, be- 
 cause it entertains and avows the opinion thai slavery is an evil ? Is 
 jiot this a truth inscribed, as it were, upon the firmament of heaven, 
 and the face of the world, mid the heart of man? Would not a de- 
 nial of It be a denial of the fundamental principle of all free govern- 
 ment? And is the Society to be condemned for assuming as truth, 
 what even the Soutkcrn Review does not hesitate unequivocally and 
 repeatedly to avow, while arguing, very ingeniously, in defence of 
 southern rights and southern policy ?" 
 
 Look at this, reader : ponder it well. The Society, on its own 
 confession, goes no farther in reprobating slavery, than do the advo 
 cates of slavery themselves ! By demonstrating this, it has at length 
 "converted" the South. Shall it any longer hold "the friends of 
 their country and mankind" deluded by the vain show of such a 
 moral influence as Saian is willing to exert against himself? But 
 let us look once more at this famous paper. 
 
 "A true son of Virginia has said, '/ ?)iay be jtrrmiited to declare 
 
 that I WOULD BE A SLAVE-HOLDER TO DAY WITHOUT SCRUPLE. 
 
 But I hold it due to candor to say, that if there be a statesman in the 
 United Slates, and I believe there are two or three such, who is con- 
 tent that we shall always hold them in servitude, and would advise 
 us to rest contented with them, us, and our posterity, without seek- 
 ing or accepting means of liberating ourselves and them, he deserves 
 a heavier vengeance than the orator's bile, [the curse of God ? No.] 
 the curses of America counselled to her ruin, and of outraged 
 Africa. Let me not be considered harsh ; for inasmuch as the pi- 
 ratical trader for human beings on the African coast, the master of 
 the slave ship, is the most detestable of monsters in action — so, I must 
 say, is the advocate, by cool argument, of slavery in the abstract, 
 odious in thought?' " r ,• 
 
 The two or three theoretic slave-holders must look out for this 
 thunderbolt— Mfi thousands <V" practical ones are quite safe. 
 
 Bulwhat docs all this mean? What does the Society mean by 
 
17 
 
 talking about a " moral evil,'' capable of being justified by a " moral 
 necessity," when " we siiall have honestly exerted all the meana 
 which we possess for Us extinction?" Does it mean that we cannot 
 cease to do wrong when we please? What means this extreme soli- 
 citude about the rights of slave-proprietors ? What, the apologetic 
 style of all this moral influence ? Is the Society made up of such 
 tenderness of persuasion, such very milk of charity, that it wbuld 
 do violence to its lamb-like nature, by uttering harsh rebuke, even 
 where such rebuke is deserved? See how it treats the foreign slave 
 traders ! — " the most detestable monsters in action /" It leaves no 
 corner of the horrible, unransacked-for epithets, and similes, and thun- 
 derbolts, to be poured upon their forfeited heads. Its agonts take 
 care to exhibit chains wherever they go, to awaken the indignation 
 of old and young against those miscreants who drive their fellow 
 beings from the interior of Africa to the coast, and at the same time 
 to demonstrate the triumphs of the colony in opposing the slave trade. 
 But why does it not show us some of those chains that clink under the 
 windows of the capitol ? Why does it not take them fresh from the 
 victims of the domestic trade, and show the cruel ingenuity of the rings 
 for the wrists, and ankles, and necks — brightened on the inside by rub- 
 bing against the bone, and foul and black on the outside with dusty 
 gore? Is it not simply because these chains cannot be spared ? Why 
 then not tell us the sad story? Are there, indeed, throngs of chained 
 and driven wretches in our own Christian land, who are so thoroughly 
 given over to despair, that their case must not be mentioned in the ear 
 of Charity? Must our sympathies and pity be borne away from the 
 cries of distress that mingle around us, and stun our ears, to the 
 mere accessory, trans-ocean traffic? No, no! no matter how sincere, 
 the Colonization Society is too pusillanimous to deserve the high 
 station which it has assumed. It is afraid to speak the whole truth. 
 And if the mass of American Christians are to have any thing to do 
 in setting free two millions of oppressed men, the American Coloni- 
 zation Society must be given up, or it must retire into the compara- 
 tive insignificance, I might say cringing sycophancy, of the object 
 proposed in its constitution ; it must leave the ground of operation 
 against slavery clear to a society which shall use a more aggress- 
 ive moral influence. What! Is that to be dignified with the name 
 of a moral influence, which abstains from a correct representation of 
 its object, lesi the equanimity of those whom it would persuade should 
 be disturbed? — lest passion should be excited, and the ground of hos- 
 tility should be taken ? Here is a most singular phenomenon ; a so- 
 ciety professing to exert a moral influence against slavery, and yet 
 afraid to state facts, and when compelled to state facts, afraid to use 
 language appropriate to them. A society which, when speaking of 
 the most odious system of oppression, takes special care to avoid the 
 words sin, crime, guilt, and speaks of it as a burden, a curse, a sore 
 " ci'iZ." Is such a " moral" remedy for sin likely to eflfect a cure? 
 Arc the slave-holders in reality not slave-holders, but virtuous men, 
 keeping their slaves merely under that name, from necessity, till it 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 shall be practicable lo enlarge them ?- Can this be proved of a single 
 individual ? 
 
 But the Society, instead of exerting any efficient moral influence 
 HI favor of emancipation, is exerting a most pernicious influence 
 against it, by the doctrines of its authorized publications. It is un- 
 derstood by the slave-holders, so far as it gains their confidence, to 
 admit the right of property in men, as fully as it admits any right 
 whatever. It is of no avail for the secretary to say, when ques- 
 tioned by northern philanthropists, that it merely admits the legal 
 right. It is careful not to tell the planters so. To question the legal 
 right, would be sheer ignorance or idiocy. It was the moral ques- 
 tion which the ])lanters feared, and on this they required a pledge of 
 silence, and suppose they have obtained beyond this a full admission. 
 What right they have to the supposition, such passages as the fol- 
 lowing will show. 
 
 " It was proper again and again to repeat, that it was far from 
 the indention of the Society to aftect, in any manner, the tenure by 
 which a certain species of property is held. He was himself a 
 slave-holder, and he considered that kind of property as inviolable, 
 as any other in the country. He would resist as soon, and with as 
 much firmness, encroachments upon it, as he would encroachments 
 upon any other property which he held. Nor was he disposed even 
 to go so far as the gentleman, (Mr. Mercer,) who had just spoken, in 
 saying that he would emancipate his slaves, if the means were pro- 
 vided for sending them from the country." [Speech of Henry 
 Clay, one of the founders, and published by the managers in their 
 first Annual Report.] 
 
 Quotations of the same import might be multiplied without end. 
 But there is no need ; if further proof is required, that these traitorous 
 admissions do respect the moral right, look at the treatment received 
 l)y abolitionists. They have never called in question the legal right, 
 much less have they used force, or threatened it, or coimselled the 
 slaves to use it. And yet they are clamorously accused of interfe- 
 rence with rights, and by none more bitterly, or vehemently than the 
 Amierican Colonization Society, through its accredited pubhcations. 
 Take the following specimen. 
 
 " But we have not, we do not, and we will not, interfere with this 
 delicate, this important subject. There are rights to be respected, 
 prejudices to be conciliated, fears lo be quelled, and safety to be ob- 
 served, in all our operations. And we protest, most solemnly protest, 
 against the adoption of your views, as alike destructive of the ends 
 
 of justice, of folicy, and of humanity^ {Af Kcp. Vol. vii. 
 
 page 101.] 
 
 Abolitionists then, plainly, do that which the Colonization Society 
 does not ; but they exert only a moral influence, they only deny the 
 moral right of slavery : therefore the Society does not deny the moral 
 right — yea, the moral right is the subject of its reiterated admission. 
 Can any moral influence be more adverse to repentance, than thus to 
 tell the sinner he has a right to sin? 
 
 But, says the worthy secretary, " the Society calls the attention oi 
 
19 
 
 ihe south, to the subject of the whole colored population," that is 
 to say, it may prove the occasion of bringing them to reflection ; — 
 it constitutes a good point of suggestion. So might a fawning 
 hypocrite be a good point of suggestion to remind the dissolute of 
 religion! Alas! what abominable mockery of sacred rights — the 
 rights of the poor and defenceless ! Truly, in the language of the 
 prophet, " the right of the needy do they not judge." 
 
 The fact that the Society advocates gradual emancipation, is 
 proof that it exerts no efficient influence m favor of emancipation 
 at all. "But, what will you do with the facts?" some one asks. 
 " Do they not prove that the Societ}^ has persuaded some slave- 
 holders to give up their slaves ?" No, most surel}'- they do not ; 
 and for this plain reason, the Society has used no persuasives. Its 
 friends are challenged now, as they have been challenged long, in 
 vain, to point out with the finger, in all the authorized and approved 
 publications of the Society, a sftigle paragraph which urges a per- 
 suasive to manumit slaves, at any definite time, or which condemns 
 slavery as a sin, without excuse. For the sake of keeping peace 
 with the slave-holders, it has brought no charge against slavery, 
 which they have not always, of themselves, readily admitted. How, 
 in the name of common sense, can it have persuaded any man of 
 his error when, in immaculate good faith, it has never meddled with 
 the question of slavery at all ? Just as well might a man take to 
 himself credit for pleading the missionary cause with success, who 
 should slip a contribution box into the church door, and leave it to 
 the fate of catching a handful of coppers. The plain matter of 
 fact is, that this is a land of Bibles. The principles of immediate 
 abolition stand out on the face of all the law, and the prophets, and 
 the Gospel; and in spite of the apathy of the church, and the 
 silence of its ministers, they must needs make here and there a 
 convert. Moreover slavery is a blighting curse, hostile to agricultu- 
 ral thrift and domestic economy. So strong is the light shed from 
 the condition of the free labor states, on this point, that it would be 
 strange if some holders, without any movings of humanit}'-, should 
 not become willing to emancipate their slaves. The Society oflfer- 
 ing its services to remove the emancipated, the emancipators what- 
 ever their motives, avail themselves of its aid. Among all the 
 tenders of liberated slaves for the colon}'-, which are published with 
 so much care in the African Repository, is there to be found a 
 single note of penitence — or the most distant intimation that the 
 slaves in question, owed their liberty to a conviction wrought in the 
 mind of the liberator, by the Society's moral influence 1 If there is, 
 let it be pointed out. It will be precious to the Society's cause. It 
 will present the singular anomaly of a sinner convicted of his guilt, 
 by the concealment or absence of truth. Of conversions, so called, 
 there is no lack ; but they are conversions without change. A man 
 supposes the Society to interfere with the " rights" of the masters, 
 or to "meddle" with the delicate question of slavery; he finds him- 
 self mistaken, and is said to be converted ! By making such conver- 
 sions, the Society is becoming quite popular at the south. The appre- 
 
20 
 
 hension of the Society's, moral influence, sensitive ns are the tyranfii', 
 never amounted to a fear — it never called forth legislative rewards 
 for the heads of the managers — now, it only calls forth contempt. 
 
 But emancipation is not a new thing, got up since the special 
 ^^ facilities'^ afforded by the Colonization Society. In 1782, Virginia 
 passed a law, authorizing the manumission of slaves, — that is, au- 
 thorizing its citizens, to use one of their "inalienable" rights, and, 
 we are told, on the testimony of Judge Tucker, that 10,000 slaves 
 gained their freedom, in this state alone, between this j'car and 1791 
 [See Holmes' Annals, vol. ii. page 342.] — Without any elaborate 
 jinvestigation, for which I have not the means at hand, it may be 
 concluded, with cejtainty, from the number of free blacks in the 
 country, (from 3 to 400,000) that emancipations were formerl}' far 
 more frequent than now. It is equally obvious, that these emanci- 
 pations have been beneficial to the emancipated. .More than 70,000 
 colored persons are members of the Methodist Church alone. I 
 quote this fact, because it happens at the present moment, to fall un- 
 der my eye. These colored members, are either bond or free ; if 
 bond, they must be^t^ for freedom, or else they are not fit to die; if 
 free, their freedom cannot have ruined them. Again, of the 300,000 
 colored persons in the land, only a small fraction have been convicted 
 under law of crime ; the law, of course, judges the majority of them 
 innocent — fit for freedom. He who would discourage emancipation, 
 then, on the ground of the criminality of the free, would reverse the 
 maxim of the law, that " it is better to let ten guilty escape, than to 
 punish one innocent man." The American Colonization Society, 
 must have the credit of originating the doctrine that emancipation, 
 to be proper, must be on the condition of exile. Since this noble 
 and magnanimous discovery, emancipation has received a notorious 
 check. If there is any thing plain in the world, it is that the Colo- 
 nization Society, is exactly adapted to, and actually does, shield 
 from public odium, the laws against emancipation without exile ? 
 And then, with marvellous assurance, it turns round and assigns these 
 very laws, as a reason why it should seek to expatriate all the 
 colored people ip the land, so fast as they become free \ 
 
 But, of the emancipations, which have taken place since the 
 origin of the Colonization Society, few and far between, that Socie- 
 ty has not the right to take credit. What child does not know, that 
 it is because the Gospel gives a now to all its requisitions, that it 
 succeeds at all ? Say to the sinner, this course of sin in which yon 
 have so long indulged is an "«vi/," a great ^'- misfortune^,'' and can be 
 justified on no plea but that of " necessity ;" you must therefore get rid 
 of it as soon as you can " safely ;" and, think you, he will set about 
 and execute a plan of gradual reformation ? If he does, other ar- 
 guments than yours must have moved him. It is a truth, obvious 
 as the sun at cloudless noon, that all the gradual reformation in 
 practice, which has blessed the world ; has been the fruit of stern im- 
 mediatism in doctrine. What, then, can the fruit of gradualism itself 
 be, but everlasting procrastination ? What can better please Satan 
 and his minions, than to preach under the authority and vestments 
 
21 
 
 of Christian philanthropy, the gradual abolition oj sin. Wh}' ! that 
 arch deceiver would blush to ask more of us ! 
 
 On these grounds, then, I am forced to conclude, that the Coloni- 
 zation Society, whatever may be its motives, or its hopes, in regard 
 to slavery, either has not courage enough to state facts as they are, 
 or, it has made the unwarrantable assumption that auch a statement 
 is not necessary, and consequently can claim no relationship with 
 that wise and effectual remedy for sin revealed in the Scriptures. 
 
 Now, shall the Society, embodying, as it does, an overwhelming 
 weight of character, justify itself by saying that it does the best the 
 case will admit? — 'that it finds slavery grown into the very sub- 
 stance, the " frame-work" of society, and that it would be in vain, 
 iiay, childishly absurd, to hope for any success by direct aggressive 
 action? So have other sins grown into the " frame-work" of society. 
 So are other sins fortified by all that is redoubtable in earth and hell. 
 Idolatry has formed the character, and given shape to the customs, 
 of more than three fourths of the race. But those who would act 
 on the part of the living God have no option. They are not to 
 choose their own mode of operating against idolatry. They are 
 not at liberty to propose a system of amelioration or of gradual renun- 
 ciation. Nor are they at liberty to despair. They must not, on 
 pain of their Master's fierce displeasure, shun to declare the full 
 truth, though it may exasperate. " Is not my word like a fire, saith 
 the Lord ? and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces 1 
 Take forth the precious from the vile, and thou shalt be as my 
 mouth" — is the command and the promise of Jehovah. 
 
 But let us descend from a consideration of the doctrines of the 
 Society, to the tendency of its actual practice. The question is 
 simply this. What effect must it have upon slavery, to remove far 
 off the free blacks and the slaves so fast as they become free? To 
 consider this apart from the doctrines of the Society, let us suppose 
 that the removal is effected by some unseen hand, some invisible 
 agency, by which the subjects of it are known to be (as in reality 
 they are not) transferred to comparative happiness. Is it not obvi- 
 ous that this agency would remove that class of freemen who would 
 most naturally sympathize with the slaves, and excite in their 
 breasts a feeling adverse to the authority of their masters? If so, 
 the removal would tend to allay the fears of the masters, and thus 
 destroy a motive which almost always stands first in the order of 
 feelings which lead to repentance and reformation. And would not 
 the masters be ready on such terms to part with the " excessive in- 
 crease" of their slaves, taking care to turn off for deportation, the 
 most turbulent and the most idle — the dangerous and the unprofita- 
 ble ? If so, not only fear would be allayed, but interest would be 
 subserved. Slavery would be rendered profitable, so far as the sys- 
 tem is capable of yielding profit. The natural tendency of the 
 increase of population, is to advance be3'^ond the means of support. 
 In regard to American slavery, this tendency will soon produce a 
 redundancy of slaves, and a consequent depreciation of their value. 
 To maintain their value, deportation must be resorted to. 
 
 But is this the observed tendency of the Society's action? Heve 
 
22 
 
 we must rely on testimony. It is the only evidence which the na- 
 ture of the case admits. The Society itself has furnished this 
 evidence in publishing the speeches of its slave-holding friends, 
 delivered at its anniversaries. — [See extract from Mr. Archeis 
 speech at the end of this pamphlet.] 
 
 Whatever may be said of the motives of Mr. Archer, or of the Socie- 
 ty's not being responsible for his sentiments, his tcstimon.i/, and his 
 own lucid argument resting on it, must be received. And the con- 
 clusion is, not that the Society desifi-ns to perpetuate slavery, but that 
 nothing could be more wisely adapted to that very end, than its 
 present and contemplated actions. Let any mtelligent man, without 
 regard to this controversy, set himself at work to devise a plan for 
 the perpetuation and security of slavery; could he, with all the wis- 
 dom that was ever allied to rectitude, arrange a more effectual train 
 of means, to gain his nefarious end, than just such a scheme of 
 colonization to Africa ? (Not to Hayti, nor Texas, nor Canada, 
 for the too near proxnnity of black freedom might be dangerous to 
 slavery !) And in the execution of such a plan, could the man 
 abstain from any moral interference with the claims of the masters 
 more completely than the Society' has done? He must necessarily 
 speak of slavery as an ei-il — must show, in stubborn arithmetic, the 
 rapid and dangerous increase of the slaves — must depict the horrors 
 of servile insurrection, and, indeed, must do every thing short of 
 charging downright guilt upon the infatuated masters, in order to 
 awaken them to a prudent regard for their own safety. If then the 
 American Colonization Soeiely does not design (and I should have 
 to confess my own guilt before I could charge its non-slave-holding 
 members with au}^ such design) to perpetuate slavery, its friends 
 must reflect, that its plan, as to all its practical features, so exactly 
 comports with such a design, and, as to all its collateral results, is 
 so little inconsistent with it, that its motives are fairly exposed to im- 
 peachment by those who are prone to judge of the tree b}'' its fruit 
 — greenish though it may be. 
 
 Shall the Society defend itself triumphantly against this argu- 
 ment, by showing the opposition it meets with from the great majori- 
 ty of slave-holders ? This opposition is exactly what might be 
 expected. Why do slave-holders oppose the Society ? Not, surely, 
 because the action of the Society affects injuriously any of their 
 claims, for this is not pretended ; but because they suppose its motive 
 to be benevolent. They well know that tlie Society ought to be 
 hostile to slavery, and they fear that at some time or other it may 
 be — tim.ent Danaos etiam dona ferentes — they fear that the Society, 
 when it sees the utter inefficiency — rather the mischievous reaction — 
 of its plan, will abandon it, and resort to aggressive measures — and 
 there ought to be sufficient reason for this fear. Therefore, the op- 
 position of slave-holders, on account of the motive, no more proves 
 (by the rule of contraries) the tendency to be good ; than the opposi- 
 tion of some good men, on account of the tendency^ proves the 
 motive to be bad. If good men advocate "plans of bad tendency, 
 how can they fail to place themselves between two ranks of oppo- 
 nents? Can they plead persecution for righteousness sake on both 
 
23 
 
 sides? Manifestly unsubstantial as this defence is thus found to be, 
 it must be said, in truth, that the colonizationists have rallied behind 
 it as their strongest point. Veril}^, if I were contending for the 
 love of it, 1 would fain spare them a rock or two from the fortifica- 
 tions of abolitionism, just to save them the mortiticaliou of being ta- 
 ken behind a breast-work, which proves itself too weak to stand 
 alone. Glory is not to be found in routing an enemy from such a 
 fort of straw. 
 
 Again, colonization, as a remedial plan, is subject to no slight ob- 
 jection, in regard to its action upon the character of those who 
 apply it. I speak now, more especially, of the Colonization Socie- 
 ty, as composed of non-slave-holding men. There pervades the 
 whole community, a strong prejudice against the colored race. (If 
 there were any doubt of this, it would only change my argument to 
 the " ad homineni^ foim.) The Societj', not only acknowledges the 
 existence of such a prejudice, but it pronounces it unconquerable. 
 It asserts, without reserve, that this prejudice is sufficient forever to 
 prevent the blacks from rising to .an equality with the whites, in 
 this the native land of both. " The* Gospel never can do for them 
 here," in this land of Bibles, " what it can do on a heathen shore." 
 Now this could not be true, if there were left exempt from this pre- 
 judice a body of men so powerful as the Colonization Society. 
 Moreover, the prejudice is certainly wicked, for it counteracts the 
 Gospel. Therefore the Colonization Society, in applying its remedy 
 for slavery, himors its own tcicked jirejudicc. In what light is a 
 remedy to be regarded, which, while it has no chance of curing 
 the evil for which it was intended, absolutely poisons the person 
 who administers it 1 How useless the charge, " be ye clean tha t 
 bear the vessels of the Lord," if reformers may leave their own 
 breasts polluted with an unholy prejudice — a palpable unwillingness 
 to obey the fundamental law of Christian brotherhood? Is this "the 
 best that can be done in the case?" Wo, then, to the world, in .spite 
 of infinite wisdom, almighty power, and redeeming love! — The 
 blood of Calvary was wasted, and hell is triumphant ! ! In view of 
 this subject I must be permitted solemnly to say, that I do confess 
 my own guilt, in the cold and cruel prejudice with which I have 
 suttered myself, in time past, to advocate the unchristian principles 
 and the mischievous plans, of the American Colonization Society. 
 If there are men of pure benevolence, who have in the sincerity of 
 their hearts sought to do good, and made this Society the channel 
 of their liberality, let them be aware that such night-born as theirs 
 can prove its genuineness only by welcoming the light that now be- 
 gins to shine, and shrinking with horror from the unholy company 
 with which the morning finds it unconsciously proceeding. 
 
 I have all along taken it for granted that the motive of the Socie- 
 ty is good. I have not questioned the benevolence of its officers, 
 nor the sincerity of their expressed wish to remove slavery. But 1 
 might have taken stronger ground. A majority of the Society, at 
 its establishment, consisted of slave-holders — of slave-holders who 
 took special care to have it understood that they did not renounce 
 
24 
 
 the sin — thai they considered the right of the master sacrtd ! At\6, 
 from year to year, they have assured their southern friends that the 
 Society has not chanj^ed its character. Now the character of any 
 Society — its motive — is to be judged of, so far as man can judge of 
 motive, from the majority, the ruhng influence of its board of mana- 
 gers. This majority has been, and is slave-holding ; it is therefore 
 impossible for us to concede to them purity of motive in this thing. 
 Their own practice condemns them. Are thei/ holding on, and wait- 
 ing for the growth of Liberia? Then the right of a man to his liberty, 
 depends upon the contingency of a foot-hold for him 4000 miles 
 off! — a doctrine as damnable as it is absurd. What ! does the So- 
 ciety apply to itself, as " the best the case admits," the same remedy, 
 which, on the plea of their hopeless obstinacy in sin, it apphes to 
 slave-holders at large ? Verily this must be a new and improved 
 kind of repentance. The recipe for it might run thus. First, for- 
 tify yourself in sin, so that there shall be no hope of your yielding 
 to the demands of God's law ; then make your own terms — repent 
 and repair to suit your own convenience, and all will be well ! We 
 protest against making a combination of such men, the almoners of 
 our charity to Africa, and much more, to the Africo Americans— 
 our own countrymen. We hold their professions of philanthropy, 
 as cheap as we do those of the Grand Turk. The saying is no less 
 true than trite, that a good cause is not to blame, because some pa- 
 tronise it with bad motives. Nor is it less true, that a bad causecannot 
 be justified because many patronise it with good motives. No scheme 
 arising out of that miscalled morality, which apologizes for slavery, 
 can ekher be right of itself, or be made so by the patronage of all 
 the saints on earth, or the angels in heaven. It is r^anifest from 
 the condurA of the members, that the molive of the Society, in its 
 operative and responsible capacity, can be nothing better than to 
 escape the righteous curse of God, in some other way than by a 
 direct repentance, confession, and reparation of injury — the only 
 way which he has appointed. How can the Church of God with- 
 hold Its protest against this palpable subversion of the first principles 
 of the Gospel ? 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EFFECT OF COLONIZATION UPON THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 
 
 In the former chapter I have spoken of the colonization scheme 
 in its relation to the crime of slave-holding. In this I propose, very 
 briefly, to consider its bearing on the free people of color, the osten- 
 sible objects of its charity. This is necessary, because some who 
 acknowledge that the Society is worse than useless in regard to 
 slavery, contend that it confers invaluable blessings upon the free 
 
25 
 
 people of color. They would balance the Society's benefits against 
 Its " defects," as they are pleased to call them. I cannot faithfully 
 plead the cause of the poor slave, without exposing the fallacy of 
 this pretension, and also of that which is maintained in regard to 
 Africa. 
 
 These United States have been boasted of as the asylum of the 
 oppressed of all nations. And, in many points of view, there is not 
 a more desirable retreat on the globe for the victims of poverty or 
 persecution. The population is yet sparse, the soil is fruitful, the 
 rivers, and forests, and mines, present infinite resources for the acqui- 
 sition of wealth, the climate is salubrious, the means of education 
 are widely diffused, the laws are mild and equitably administered, 
 property is secure, both from private and public spoliation, the rights 
 of conscience are most fully guaranteed, and most eflfcctually guard- 
 ed by the jealousy of rival sects ; in short, there is no country on earth, 
 where a man can reap more fruit of his own honest labor, nor where he 
 can enjoy it with less interference on the part of others. Even if a 
 man were to possess none of the franchises of this republic, he might 
 repose under the protection of its laws with more security than he 
 could feel in any other nation under the sun. It would seem, from 
 the very nature of our government, that it must always be peculiar- 
 ly the friend of the poor, for by all its usages and laws it frowns 
 on aristocracy. It would seem, then, that there must be some very 
 strong reason, when it is proposed to colonize back to the old world, 
 over a thousand weary leagues of ocean, 400,000 of our fellow citi- 
 zens—aye, more than 2,000,000 who " of right ought to be" so. 
 Are they poor 1 Here is the place of all the world to enrich them. 
 Are they ignorant ? Here is the place to enlighten them. Are they 
 vicious? Here is the place to reform them. Are they unrighteous- 
 ly despised ? Here is the place, if any where, to bring popular pre- 
 judice into subjection to the dictates of humanity and religion. The 
 reason why all these things cannot be done here, is involved in a 
 single syllable — they are black. They are despised and ridiculed, 
 because they are black. They are in most states denied every civil 
 franchise because they are black. They are told, (by a Society em- 
 bodying the benevolence of the land,) that they can never rise here, 
 and must be colonized to Africa, because they are black. That is 
 to say, on account of the single circumstance of dissirnilarity in. 
 external appearance, which marks them as brethren of the slaves, 
 the slave-holding spirit in our land holds them at a distance, refuses 
 to communicate to them any of the privileges and responsibilities of 
 our free society, and denies them those means of instruction which 
 are requisite to bring them upon the same moral and intellectual 
 level with ourselves. Now it is undeniable that the color of the 
 negroes does distinguish them from the pale race of Europe. But 
 the distinction, so far as divine Providence is concerned, is merely 
 one of externals. It ought to stop here; The negroes are none the 
 less men, nor are they the less Americans on account of their color. 
 If their right to a residence here, and to all the sympathies and aids 
 which their condition demands, is abridged by their blackness, then 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 ours depends upon our whiteness — that is to saj, our boasted, in- 
 alienable, indefeasible rights, lie skin-deep — they reside in the color- 
 ing matter of the external integuments! — they are just as inaliena- 
 ble and indefeasible as our hides, and no more. Wo to them, if our 
 bare backs were once exposed to a nine-lashed slave whip ! Intole- 
 rable as is thb doctrine, which leads so directly to these contemptible 
 inferences, it is, nevertheless, held by a large portion of our citizens. 
 There are plenty of respectable persons who will not blush to say, 
 that Providence never designed black and white men to live together 
 on equal terms in the same republic. And what is remarkable, the 
 voice of humanity has hardly ventured to speak against such wick- 
 edness. Why, one would think that the man who, in this land, 
 should utter such narrow, bigotted, selfish, swinish absurdity, would 
 be glad to avail himself of his own littleness, to escape the com- 
 mingled hisses of scorn which such a doctrine would certainly call 
 forth. But so it is not. iVIen who would have us think their worth 
 lies more than skin deep, deliver this paltry nonsense with the most 
 oracular gravity. And the consequence is, that the poor blacks are 
 degraded and down-trodden. They are robbed and wounded, and 
 thrown out to welter, and fester, and rot in the public highway — 
 and the priests and levites pass by on the other side. Yes, among 
 all our benevolent efforts, for the Indian upon our frontier, and the 
 far-olF Hindoo — for the sailor of the ocean, and the boatman of the 
 river — efforts worthy to be increased a thousand fold — we have for- 
 gotten the stranger, who, having fallen among thieves in the midst 
 of us, has at length iDeen left stripped and helpless, a present and urgent 
 provocation to our charity. We have not engaged in any general 
 and well concerted plan to raise the character of our colored popu- 
 lation. Yet, in spite of our prejudice and apathy, they have gene- 
 rally demeaned themselves among us, as quiet, industrious and use- 
 ful citizens. With more motives to hate us, and less to submit to our 
 laws, they have, beyond all question, been guilty of fewer crimes, than 
 an equal number of the most ignorant of the whites. They have attach- 
 ed themselves to our country, with a patriotism, as ardent as it is un- 
 questionably genuine. Just now a Society comes forward, and says to 
 these wronged and insulted, but patient men, There is a prejudice 
 against you in this land, which can never be overcome. If you re- 
 .main here, you must ever remain a distinct and degraded class. 
 Even religion cannot help you here. But emigrate to the coast of 
 Africa, and you may form a nation by yourselves ; there, you may , 
 enjoy the rights which are denied you here ; there, you will be rid 
 of that sense of inferiority, which binds you down here; there, you 
 will stand forth as men, and have strong motives to exert yourselves 
 in the pursuit of wealth and honor, which you can never have here. 
 And the whole community of whites, with all their wisdom, and 
 piety, and disinterested benevolence, so called, second the proposal ; 
 and exhort the Society to go forward and aim at the removal of the 
 entire black population — loiih their free conxent, to be sure — while 
 not a finger is raised to help them here — not even a syllable is lisped 
 against the unrighteous laws which are grinding them in the dust, 
 
27 
 
 or banishing them from their homes — hunting them from state to 
 state ! 
 
 Patrons of the Colonization Society ! you form a body sufficient- 
 ly powerful to wage a successful war with this popular prejudice. 
 You may procure the repeal of every oppressive law, if you please ; 
 you may open the door to fair competition in all the arts of life be- 
 fore the colored race, and persuade them to enter it, if you please ; 
 you may bring them all under the blessed influence of divine truth, 
 if you please. Do that ; at least, attempt it, before you claim bene- 
 volence as the motive of your colonizing scheme. Till you have 
 made the attempt, whatever may be said of the African skin, it has 
 never been used to conceal hypocrisy, so loathsome and putrifying 
 as yours, if, haply, you yourselves are not the victims of a miserable 
 delusion. It grieves me to the heart to bring charges of this kind, 
 which I have reason to believe will be appropriated to themselves — 
 and too justly — by many, whom, in other things, I respect and love. 
 But facts are stubborn, and the principles of God's word, are un- 
 bending. Even if an angel from heaven were to embark on the 
 principles which the Colonization Society has avowed, in regard to 
 the free blacks, he would sink. 
 
 Let us not be told that the colored men go voluntarily to Liberia. 
 There is not Jesuitism enough in the world to conceal such a lie 
 from any, but the willingly blind. The plain fact is this, and every 
 colored man, at least, knows it very well, the white community, un- 
 der the name of " The Colonization Society," merely receive the 
 volunteer emigrants — no compulsion — all fair ; but mark, the same 
 community, without this 7iame, sanction the oppressive laws, utter 
 the public sentiment, and point the finger of scorn, which, together, 
 amount to a bitter persecution, and covifd the poor blacks to voluw 
 teer. Wliat a convenient thing is a name, which can be put on and 
 off at pleasure. Here is my poor neighbor, a simple, good-natured 
 man, dwelling securely by me. I heartily despise him, and would 
 gladly have him out of the way; but how to do it, is the thing. 
 The problem may be thus solved. In every-day life, I am Mr. Pre- 
 judice. Under this name, I tell lies about my neighbor, and make 
 sport of him at the taverns and grog-shops ; 1 abuse and mortify him 
 on all occasions ; I throw down his fences, filch away his cattle, 
 and refuse redress, till his life is a burden to him. But, on the Fourth 
 of July, and some other great occasions, I am Mr. Generosity. I 
 go to my neighbor with ray new name, and my best Sunday suit, 
 and say to him, " You know Mr. Prejudice is very powerful in 
 these parts; he cannot be resisted; you had better emigrate, and if 
 you will do so, I will generoushj bear the expense. If, in the sim- 
 plicity of his heart, my neighbor mistakes me for a different man 
 from his old enemy, my success is almost certain. If he does not, 
 perseverance in this double dealing will wear out the most mulish 
 pertinacity. 
 
 That similar duplicity is justly chargeable upon the Colonization 
 Society, is evident from the fact, that it not only does not condemn, 
 but ithails with pleasure, those oppressive enactments which aredesign- 
 
28 
 
 ed to banish the colored race.* Is the conckisiveness of iliis.argumeut 
 doubted ? Take an illustration. In the recesses of yonder grated 
 and gloomy pile, there is a spacious room, hung round with name- 
 less furniture, into which curiosity is not permitted to pry. By the 
 light of a single ta2ier, you may see the pale, half naked prisoner ; 
 the monkish executioner, fiendishly busy ; the instruments of torture 
 — the trickling blood — the quivering lip — the very anguish of the 
 soul. But what has that man in black to do with the scene, who 
 sits sedately by, and as he sees limb after limb stretched upon the 
 rack, and screw after screw applied, and turned, and tightened to 
 the bone, says to the executioners, " Take courage, brethren, we 
 shall get the confession soon," and to the prisoner, " Only confess 
 now, and you will for ever bless God for his mercy on your soul !" ? 
 
 Say you, this' flight to the inquisition is a flight of fancy ! Then 
 let it go for that; but, after all, in sober sense, how can the Societj' 
 approve, or how can it even fail to condemn that prejudice and op- 
 pression which render its interference necessary % Let the organs of 
 the Society, at length, answer this question. Surely, it has been ask- 
 ed by friends, and asked by them in vain, till, in many cases, they 
 have waked up in the ranks of the Society's decided enemies. To 
 put the case in the most favorable light, by the supposition that 
 the sin of the legislators is, by the Society's scheme, overruled for 
 good, has the Society any right to rejoice at the sin ? Does not the 
 divine justice condemn the sinner, and does not the divine compas- 
 sion weep over him, even while the divine wisdom brings good out 
 of his evil? On the example of the Society, when we do evil from 
 which good may be extracted, we have a right to calculate on the 
 approbation of all those angels of mercy, at least, whose business it 
 may be to bring glory to God out of the wickedness of men. 
 
 On these grounds, it is concluded that the Society's plan is adjust- 
 ed to the wicked prejudices of the community against the people of 
 color, and, of course, that its action cherishes these prejudices to the 
 injury of innocent men. 
 
 But if the evils which hang around the colored American were 
 irremediable here, it is still a forlorn alternative that the Society has 
 to offer. Let us divest the colony of the poetry which is thrown 
 over it so profusely by the advocates of the Society, in their public 
 addresses, and see what remains. Let us suppose ourselves in the 
 room of the emigrants, and see what inquiries would arise in our 
 own minds. 
 
 " Is not a temperate more favorable than a tropical sun to the health 
 and mental development of man ? Is not the climate of Africa con- 
 fessedly dangerous'? Is not the colony surrounded by jealous 
 savages, always ready to shed blood, and who must be propitiated 
 by a traffic in RUM ? Is not the prosperity of the colony regarded 
 as extraordinary by all intelligent men ? What will its guarantee 
 of protection, and its offer of civil franchises be worth, if its inci- 
 pient prosperity should call to it an unmanageable accession of un- 
 principled and ignorant men ? What if the Colonization Society 
 «hoidd set down on the coast of Africa at once, the whole black 
 + Sec Appendix, 
 
29 
 
 population, or even tlie yearly increase of it, or even the tenth part 
 of that increase ? Under all the circumstances of the case, is it pro- 
 bable that in my own life, or that of my children we can enjoy there 
 the privileges which, in spite of prejudice and pers.ecution, we enjoy 
 here ? Is there not vastly more probability of a return to truth and 
 righteousness of public sentiment in this christian land, than of the 
 colony's escaping the ten thousand evils to which a colony in such 
 a situation is liable 1 Is not the risk of an African voyage some- 
 thing ?" Let history answer. These American colonies, planted 
 under far more favorable circumstances, in regard to climate and the 
 character of the colonists, had for a long time to struggle against 
 fearful odds. The amount of privation and suffering endured by 
 the pioneers can scarcely be imagined ; it defies calculation. Even 
 after the colonies had been established, and had gained strength and 
 opulence, they ran a feariul chance of becoming the vassals of a 
 foreign power. What if, instead of being pious, learned, enter- 
 prising, the very cream of the English race, the first settlers of New- 
 England had been from the lowest grade of society, driven off because 
 they were a nuisance at home ? Where would have been the stern 
 virtue to resist the numberless temptations that came upon them in 
 their new abode ? Where the wisdom to impose upon themselves 
 salutary restraints ? Where the moral courage to meet the many 
 critical emergencies of their first fifty years ? Is not the success of 
 these American colonies to be attributed, under God, to qualities 
 moral and mental in the colonists, which, according to the Coloni- 
 zation Society, are not possessed by the colonists of Liberia, nor by 
 any that are likely to be added to them ? Let it not be said that 
 the wisdom of the society can make up the deficiency. It may now 
 guide the tottering steps of the infant colony ; but it will be quite 
 another thing to direct its energies, and repress its waywardness, 
 when it shall have gained the physical power without the discretion 
 of manhood. Successful sc//-government is a thing which cannot 
 be achieved by proxy. One of two things must take place ; either 
 the colony must fall (remain ?) under trans-ocean vassalage, or it 
 must be thrown completely upon its own discretion — upon thcv will 
 of a people who are declared to be unfit even to be incorporated with 
 an already existing and firmly established republic. 
 
 In taking the testimony of history on this point, we must learn 
 not only that great nations have arisen from small and almost hope- 
 less beginnings, but we must also ascertain what proportion the cases 
 of failure bear to those of success. History preserves every case of 
 success of course ; but from the well known nature of the human 
 mind, multitudes of failures are utterly forgotten. Yet every careful 
 reader of history must have perceived that, for every successful pro- 
 ject of colonization which occupies its page or its chapter, scores of 
 unsuccessful ones are dismissed in a sentence. Certainly it will 
 not be considered remarkable in the year 1900, to find such a para- 
 graph as the following in a pretty elaborate history. 
 
 " In the earlier part of the late century, a colony of Africo-Ame- 
 r.icans, at the mouth of the St. Pauls, attracted much attention, and 
 
30 
 
 prospered to the extent of gaining a large territory and numerous 
 A'illages ; but owing to the excessive desire of the white Americans 
 to rid themselves of the descendants of Africa, it was overpeopled 
 with ill-qualified emigrants and ruined." 
 
 I ask again, poetry apart, is there any thing in the rational pros* 
 pects of Liberia to entice an intelligent and industrious colored man 
 away from these enlightened shores, the home of his ancestors as 
 well as ours, while a foothold is left for him ? Will he prefer the 
 liberty/ of making a home and a government for himself, on a distant 
 shore, in a sickly climate, to remaining here and urging yet longer 
 his just claim to a home and a country already made? 
 
 It may be more than suspected that a chill would strike the hearts 
 of those men, who, in such glowing rhetoric, recommend to the blacks 
 emigration, if in a moment, by the blackening of their own skins, 
 or the turning of the tables, they should themselves be exposed to 
 the motives which they so vehemently urge upon others. In sober 
 earnest, is it not essential and unmixed cruelty, to urge upon simple 
 and ignorant men, such an arduous and hazardous enterprise? The 
 present boasted prosperity of the colony, may do well enough to 
 grace a public parade, but it satisfies no intelligent man, of ultimate 
 success — it makes no white man envious of the lot of his colored 
 neighbor, (if it did, doubtless the colony would be little secure from 
 white intrusion,) nor does it prove to any but the unreflecting, that 
 the cause is righteous. 
 
 It will be seen, that if these arguments have any force, they sperad 
 it against the position, that Africa is a favorable place for raising the 
 free people of color to refinement, intelligence, and religion — more 
 favorable than this, the native land of most of them. 
 
 That there are obstacles, and serious ones, in the way of effectual 
 exertions for the colored people here, is not denied. But they are not 
 physical ones. They are such as must be met in every good work. 
 Let us compare them with some of those which will certainly exist 
 in Liberia. 
 
 To raise the character of a whole people, under the most favorable 
 external circumstances, demands a profusely expended and long con- 
 tinued moral influence, the mass of the population must be brought 
 within the full bearing of the Gospel : there must be not only a 
 sufficient number of preachers but teachers of every grade ; there 
 must be not only suns and moons, but innumerable stars. Accord- 
 ing to all past arremgements of divine Providence, the process of 
 kindling up such a flood of light as is poured upon the most favored 
 spots of Christendom, is very slow and painful. Now if the most 
 unenlightened part of our community is to be sifted out, and to be 
 insulated by heathenism, at the distance of 4000 miles, it is plain 
 that we can furnish them, in consistency with the wants of the 
 world, only a few living missionaries — a coal or two, a mere kindling 
 spark. Whereas, here we may, if we please, open upon them at 
 once, all the warmth and light of day. Is it replied, that what 
 ought to be done, can be done ; that we can furnish every thousand 
 •of the colonists with a living preacher of the gospel, and every 
 
31 
 
 hundred with a sclioolinasLer ? How much tuoie then cau we do it 
 here ! for surely a man who can be persuaded by the love of souls, 
 to encounter the pestilence of an African climate, can be persuaded, 
 on the same principle, to encounter the prejudices of his fellow 
 Christians. Let four hundred worthy ministers, and four thousand 
 schoolmasters, in this land, rise up and assert the rights of colored 
 men, and devote themselves, in a gospel way, to their interests, and 
 whatever prevents their elevation here, would be like the mists of 
 the morning. The absurdity of making heathens* of 400,000 of our 
 countrymen, for their own good, would then be seen in daylight. 
 
 The special advantages of Africa, as a home for the free colored 
 people, are claimed to be, that there he can enjoy the rights of 
 citizenship, there he can have a voice in making the laws under 
 which he is to live, there he will not be disheartened by a compari- 
 son of himself with his superior white neighbors. Place him on the 
 shores of Africa with these advantages, and 3'ou make a new man 
 of him — you draw out his latent energies — you make him willing 
 and able to do all that can be expected of the most enlightened and 
 Christian philanthropist in his circumstances. 
 
 If, indeed, there is inherent in man, so strong a desire to be the 
 " artificer of his own fortune," as this argument implies, so strong 
 that he needs only to be planted in a wilderness to occasion its full 
 development ; what a surpassing pity it is, that the ignorant, the 
 lazy, and the vicious — no trifling fraction of our white population — 
 cannot be colonized ? Under what discouragements do they not 
 labor, when they see the wealth, and power, and intelligence of their 
 more industrious and virtuous neighbors ? — from which they would 
 doubtless be delivered, by being set down some where in Patagonia, 
 CafFraria, or Arabia Felix, with provision for a year, and plenty of 
 rum and gw/ipowder. I have supposed that it must be stern necessity 
 which drives men in such a case to exertion, as it seems to have 
 been in Botany Bay ; but I am mistaken — and the poor of England 
 are mistaken too, or they would petition their government to transport 
 them to Botany Bay, rather than accept a passage as the miserable 
 alternative of hanging. The intelligence, superior art and wealth 
 of the higher class of the community, in this and other free coun- 
 tries, it seems, tends to grind the lower class in the dust, repressing 
 even the desire to rise. But place the poor alone, unrivalled, unex- 
 celled, and they will at once become instinct with living ardor ! 
 What new light has the wisdom of some men, employed in behalf 
 of the oppressor, struck out from the obscuritj' of human nature ! ! 
 
 Again, if the right of suffrage will work such wonders as are 
 attributed to it by the colonizing scheme, it is a thousand pities that 
 in this country it should be shackled and restricted. Why not 
 apply its elevating virtue to the whole of our own population ? Are 
 there not hundreds, nay, thousands of white men in our country to 
 
 * The reader will perhaps recollect Knickerbocker's story of the honest Dutch- 
 man, who, for the sake of overleaping a small liUl, went back three miles to get a 
 start ; but when he arrived at the foot of the hill, was obliged to lie down and rest 
 before i)erforming his wonderful feat. The story finds its moral here ! 
 
32 
 
 wliom the privilege of suffrage is not allowed ? And do not many 
 of these men need elevating 1 Here is the motive by which they 
 may be elevated. If the right of suffrage be so powerful a stimu- 
 lant in a feeble, dependent, hand-to-mouth multitude of ignorant 
 and ill-assorted men, thrown together by no agency of their own, 
 on a barbarous coast, what would it not be in a long established, well 
 regulated, opulent and Christian republic ? Yes, yes, on the ground 
 of this argument for colonization, any friend of humanity, who can 
 see deeper and feel deeper than the skin, might even venture to ask, 
 why this elevating power is not applied to colored men here ? Sheer 
 hypocrisy prevents it, says Truth. The men who bring this argu- 
 ment, are the very men who do not plead for the complete enfran- 
 chisement of the blacks here ; which clearly shows that their pre- 
 tensions in this matter, are either so meanly subservient or so grossly 
 inconsistent, that they are unworthy of a serious refutation. As 
 the very best that can be said of them, they have so completely 
 parted with common sense, that they do remarkably illustrate why 
 the Bible calls the wicked fools. 
 
 Here, then, 1 must reiterate the charge, that the Colonization So- 
 ciety, by holding out an unsubstantial, fatal lure, is seeking to 
 banish from their country 4OO,U0O of our own native born fellow 
 citizens, nay, to banish 2,400,000. 
 
 But there remains another charge; The Colonization Society 
 basely slanders the whole body of the free people of. color. It 
 makes them a degraded, vicious, incurably besotted class, who not 
 only never can rise, but never can be raised, and are properly to be 
 got rid of as a nuisance. How would the welkin have rung with 
 peals of indignation if such a charge had been uttered against any 
 class of our white fellow citizens? Even if it had been true, how 
 would it have been represented as abusive and unchristian ? But 
 no candid man needs to be told that against the free men of color 
 the charge is false, and calumnious as it is cruel. There is, as might 
 be expected of necessarily poor and ignorant men, goaded by preju- 
 dice and persecution, much vice among them. They do not belong 
 to that class of refined and innocent victims of oppression, which 
 abound in novels, it iTiay be ; neither is their depravity sufficiently 
 dignified to suit the lovers of romance ; but it is an ill-looking, every- 
 day, matter-of-fact thing. They need the same moral discipline 
 which is needed by any other portion of the community. But 
 amidst all their faults there are redeeming qualities, which must put 
 to shame every white man who has not lost the power to blush. 
 No field in the world is richer in instances of stern moral courage, 
 unbending decision of character, exact integrity, unassailable 
 fidelity, self-sacrificing patriotism, ardent thirst for knowledge, disin- 
 terested benevolence, and unfeigned piety, than the history of our 
 free colored brethren. Multitudes of them have risen spontaneously 
 from the lowest depths of slavery, have bought their freedon:i by years 
 of toil, have risen amidst unmeasurable reproach and obloquy to an 
 eminence that has extorted the admiration of their oppressors. 
 Others have braved dccith for liberty, have been hunted from moun- 
 
33 
 
 tain to mountain, have been ferreted from city to city, by monsters 
 attracted by the price set upon their heads, till at length they have 
 foiled all the advantages of their pursuers, and have planted them- 
 selves as quiet and industrious citizens of our northern republics. 
 Some of them have borne away the palm of genius, by their own 
 unaided endeavors. As a class, they have moved steadily forward, 
 till they have consummated a union, whose voice, by its dignity and 
 manful energy, has arrested the attention, and called forth the ad- 
 miration of the wise and good in both hemispheres. 
 
 The defence, however, does not rest here ; the calumniatgr may 
 be convicted out of his own mouth. No sooner has he taught the 
 community of white men to regard their black brethren as an ex- 
 crescence, a gangrene, an intolerable nuisance, to be removed at what- 
 ever expense, than, in marvellous consistency, he turns around and 
 urges their removal for the good of Africa. Every one of them, he 
 says, "will become a missionary to Africa, carrying with him cre- 
 dentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institu- 
 tions." * With the most dignified composure, he assures us that the 
 same voyage which relieves our shores of a curse, lands an equal 
 blessing upon the shores of Africa. Thus does the Society not 
 only " kill two birds with one stone," but it throws one and the 
 same stone, at the same time, in opposite directions. It has made 
 the important discovery, that ignorance and vice, which bid defiance 
 to the concentrated force of Christianity, at home, when thrown 
 upon a heathen shore, are the very leaven to produce Christianity. 
 That is to say, Christianity cannot convert and elevate 400,000 free 
 blacks, in the most favorable circumstances, much less, then, can it 
 convert Africa : but these 400,000 unconverted blacks can do it ; 
 hence, they can do more for the cause of Christ, than Chris- 
 tianity itself. Yes, poor Christianity has come to be best propa- 
 gated by its vilest enemies. Most exquisite absurdity ! ! 
 
 The Society is presented with this alternative — either to confess 
 itself a calumniator, or give up its missionary pretensions. From 
 this dilemma, there is no escape, except by the childish supposition, 
 that some marvellous change takes place during the voyage to Li- 
 beria. The probability of a great change for the better, those will 
 easily appreciate, who have themselves witnessed the effects of 
 emigration. Had the absurd suppositions of the Society any ex- 
 istence, in fact, the world might probably be converted, not by the 
 sacrifice of our comforts, but of our curses. 
 
 Again, ■ the Society presents the colony, as it now stands, as a 
 proof of what may be done (as soon as funds and the consent of 
 the blacks themselves may be somehow obtained) in regard tj all 
 the free blacks of the land. But it is said that the morals of the 
 Colonj'-, are better than those of the United States. Therefore, 
 either the Society deals falsely in arguing from the success of Li- 
 beria, to what may be done for all the free blacks, or it must allow 
 that the morals of the colored people here, are as good as those of 
 
 ♦ Speech of Henry Clay. 
 5 
 
34 
 
 their oppressors, or, in other words, that it is a cakimniator. That 
 is to say, if it has told the truth about Liberia, it has either con- 
 victed itself of a cakimny against the free blaclcs here, or of a false- 
 hood, when it has pretended that their emigration could benefit 
 Africa. From this net of its own making, the Society can come 
 off clear only by showing that the Colonists, now settled in Libe- 
 ria, were an ignorant, vicious, degraded set while here ; that they 
 are now eminently the reverse, and that they became so in the very 
 act of setting foot on the coast of Africa. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add, thai blushes and confessions could 
 hardly make it plainer, than do these tortuosities of the Society, 
 thai it has been for sixteen years pouring out calumny and defama- 
 tion against our brethren and countrymen, the free men of color. 
 
 And who are the objects of all this abuse ? The strong, the 
 proud, the haughty, the tyrannical ? No : they are the weak, the 
 humble, the defenceless. Magnanimous work indeed for the edu- 
 cated, the refined, the pious, the dignitaries of every profession, to 
 scour the country for the sake of reviling the poor in public ha- 
 rangues ! Such a work costs no sacrifice except that of conscience ; 
 (one which seems to have been made in the lump by the Coloniza- 
 tion Society,) and, to drop irony, it is as despicable as it is cheap. 
 
 Virulent and persevering as this persecution has been, it is re- 
 freshing to every lover of his race, to know that it has failed of its 
 object. With the exception of a few of the goaded and abused 
 colored men of the South, who, as an English writer well remarks, 
 "are glad to jump out ot the fryingpan into the fire" — out of civil 
 and religious persecution into Liberia — they have promptly nega- 
 tived every offer to remove them ; have attached themselves more 
 closely to the country, and have been stimulated to the most lauda- 
 ble endeavors, to educate their children and elevate themselves. 
 The friends of the free people of color are not afraid to compare 
 the proceedings of the general convention of that people, in Phila- 
 delphia, v/ith those of any other body of men whatever. Com- 
 pare them, candid reader, with the proceedings of any of the annual 
 meetings of the American Colonization Society, and say if, laying 
 aside all evidence but the authorized minutes, you would not judge 
 the latter to be a combination of unprincipled demagogues, seeking 
 under the guise of benevolence, to remove from our land a respecta- 
 ble class of industrious and peaceable citizens, who, in their united 
 capacity, defended themselves with a firm dignity, and exposed the 
 nsidious attacks of their enemies, in the fearless composure of per- 
 secuted honesty ?- 
 
35 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EFFECT ON AFRICA. 
 
 I COME now to the Society's last resort — its citadel when hotly 
 pursued by northern philanthropists. It is almost certain that the 
 non-slave-holding friends of the Society are, to a man, painfully 
 conscious of a perpetual obscurity, like a Newfoundland fog, hang- 
 ing around the point of the Society's tendency to remove slavery. 
 Not even the figures, that are so often pompously paraded to show 
 what may be done, can clear it away. Both the how, and the lohen, 
 are beyond the reach of figures. The consummation so devoutly to 
 be wished for, is a semper fugiens, to the Colonization Society, more 
 evanescent than the silver cups at the end of the rainbow, and which 
 leaves the silly arithmetician out of breath, and bewildered in his own 
 pursuit. This, evidently, is not the aspect of the Society on which 
 its friends like best to dwell. Nor is it less sure that they feel con- 
 siderable embarrassment, in regard to its action on the free colored 
 people. Especially is this true, if they happen to be well acquainted 
 with colored men, and to know, as in this case they must, that to 
 persuade them to emigrate, every benevolent regard, and every 
 neighborly kindness, must be withholden, except on the express con- 
 dition of going to Liberia. Men, who have a drop of the milk of 
 human kindness in them, cannot but have some misgivings when 
 they act with a Society, which, to secure its object, is obliged to ap- 
 plaud, or at least not to disapprove, the most iniquitous legal enact 
 ments. This again is a point which they are willing enough to 
 have passed by. But, after all, the plan is adapted to benefit Africa. 
 
 1st. It will introduce Christianity there. Even here, much ol||^uri- 
 ty beclouds the how? The Society does not very sedulously ex- 
 plain the precise adaptation of the means to the end ; it does not 
 show hoio the spark at Liberia, so singularly feeble, is to kindle to 
 a blaze, a mass so singularly incombustible as the population of 
 Africa. The material proposition that it will, is taken for granted. 
 And as Africa and its geography have scarcely a place among our 
 matters of fact, imagination takes the liberty to portray, in her own 
 colors, the triumphs of the Gospel as it spreads from tribe to tribe, 
 carrying the blessings of civilization in its train. Errant fancy 
 threads the Niger, traverses the desert, climbs the mountains of the 
 moon, and every where ; her enchanted eyes rest on cities, villages, 
 and rural dwellings, people/' by regenerated, enlightened and Chris- 
 tian men— ?nd all th's, from the Societj'' ^ colony. He who would 
 spoil such a aream, by obtruding upon it the unwelcome inquiries of 
 common sense, is very gravely called upon to lay his hand upon his 
 heart, iuid ansv/er to his Maker for such gratuitous mischief! 
 
 Nevertheless, some plain inquiries must be urged, in behalf of 
 2,000,000 of slaves, whose rights are kept in abeyance, and in be- 
 half of 400,000 freemen, who are being sacrificed in detail for the 
 
36 
 
 sake of this mighty experiment on Africa. The equivocal charac- 
 ter of the '■'■Missionary^ colonists has already been spoken of But 
 supposing their character all that could be wished, is a com- 
 mercial colony adapted to christianize a savage people? If there 
 is any example of this kind on record, there are advocates of the 
 Society sufficiently profound in history to lay the finger npon it. 
 Why have they not done so ? The familiar examples with which 
 we are acquainted, certainly look in a different direction. What 
 colonies in the universe should produce this result, if not those of 
 New-England ? Some of them received their charters for the ex- 
 press purpose of benefittmg the aborigines. Many of their ministers 
 were devoted missionaries, who labored and prayed without ceasing 
 for the conversion of the Indians. Brit, as we well know, their 
 efforts were thwarted, and almost nullified, by the proximity of the 
 white settlements. The superior skill in trade, of the foreigners, 
 awakened the jealousy of the natives. Wars were the consequence, 
 of which we know the disastrous res'ilt. To be brief, the history 
 of Christianity most clearly teaches us, that no colony can benefit 
 ignorant and savage men, till it is itself so thoroughly christianized, 
 in all its members, as not only to be honest, but to be so " in the sight 
 of all men," and to abstain totally from Avar and ardent spirits. 
 This is not true in regard to the colony at Liberia, nor can it be 
 expected to be, on the plan of the Society. We are told of a brisk 
 and successful trade with the natives in trinkets, powder and shot, 
 and RUM, and that many of the colonists ate growing rich by it 
 No matter whether this is authorized by the Society or not, we are 
 told that it cannot be frevented — not even thesellingof rum. Wluit 
 would become of any Christian mission, and what of the heathen 
 around it, if its members could not be prevented from selling^ rw.«j ? — 
 if they enriched themselves by dealing in trinkets ? — if they not 
 only ibid the materials of war, but had their mission house fortified 
 with deadly ordnance? What would become of their claim to bene- 
 volence? Why, such a missio)i would be a scandal, a shame, a 
 curse — -the very worst obstacle that the devil could throw in the way 
 of the Gospel chariot. The blessed Saviour, who came into this 
 world, "not to do his own will," is impiously outraged by any 
 such proceedings in his name. Would he, think you. Christian rea- 
 der, have stood in that fort, where the first colonist repelled a host 
 of savage assailants, adjusting, loading, aiming, and applying the 
 match to that artillery which spent its deadly force on compact 
 masses of living human fiesh? No, he never would have built a 
 fort. It was his practice, and that of his followers, to gain the con- 
 fidence of men by showing confidence in them. He never asked 
 for his disciples the protection of hell's engines of murder. When- 
 ever they have asked it, he has withdrawn from them both his sword 
 and his shield, and they have ceased to be victorious in his war- 
 fare. 
 
 Alas! poor Africa! Was it not enough that Christian robbers 
 should chain and drive away thy strong men and women, murder- 
 ing the grandsire, the mother, and the suckling together, and leav- 
 
37 
 
 ing the ashes ol" their dwelling, reeking in their innoronl blood? — • 
 Was it not enough that they should utter to thy parched lips the 
 scalding beverage of devils, turning thy peaceful villages into scenes 
 of murderous riot, and poisoning thy domestic bliss with universal 
 suspicion and fear of treachery? Must Christian missionaries, in 
 their first attempt to redress thy wrongs, bring with them the same 
 blood-stained weapons — the same infernal drink? But 1 cannot pro- 
 ceed — my heart is pained — that first African blood — nay, fresher 
 blood than that,is crying, like Abel's, in the ears of eternal justice. 
 The colony was stained with blood in its infancy — shall it proceed ? 
 Shall it grow up a murderer? No, says the voice of heaven-born 
 charity, let it die a thousand deaths, rather than shed another drop 
 of fraternal blood ! ! Let it throw away its carnal weapons, and 
 humble itself before God, and bare its bosom, and extend its naked 
 hand in fraternal afi'ection, in the spirit of evangelic martyrdom, or 
 else let American Christians renounce the pretence of christianizing 
 Africa by its means. The very reason assigned by the Society, why 
 the colored men cannot be elevated and evangelized here, is, that 
 there exists an invincible antipathy, prejudice, and hatred, against 
 them in the breasts of the whites — or, in other words, that the 
 whites are so wickedly proud, and the blacks are sb wickedly degra- 
 ded in consequence of it, that the Gospel cannot act. And what is 
 the tendency of that gainful traffic in poison, of that fort on the 
 cape, with its powder and balls, and guns, and martial array, if it 
 be not to raise up the same hostile prejudice there? Will a mere 
 similarity of color neutralize this adverse influence ? Will a few 
 feeble rays of instruction, addressed to those savages, make a deeper 
 impression upon their minds, than the bullets shot through the living 
 flesh ? There is, confessedly, in our own Christian country, a pesti- 
 lence, antagonist to the life of the Gospel. Along with the Gospel,shall 
 we inoculate the nations with this pestilence, which we may be 
 sure, from their deep depravity, and a hundred experiments, will 
 grow to the entire exclusion of the living principle ? Why, in sober 
 earnest, the colony is the most serious hindrance of the Gospel on 
 the African coast. If the Christian church wishes to blot out the 
 hopes of the heathen, let it carry every where the worldly princi- 
 ples of nominal Christianity along with its " worldly gear." 
 
 2d. The Colonization Society is claimed to benefit Africa, by its 
 tendency to destroy the slave trade. The first ground of this claim, 
 is its alleged tendency to christianize Africa, which I have already 
 considered. Secondly, the Colony does now defend a number of 
 miles of coast from the slave traders, from which the traffic is en- 
 tirely excluded ; (the matter is far enough from being proved,) hence, 
 it is argued, that if such colonies were planted all around Africa, 
 the trade would be broken up, finished, annihilated. What simpli- 
 city ! It reminds me of the scenes of childhood, when a number of 
 ingenious babies of us, formed the design of damming a certain small 
 brook, with a view to catch the fish, as the water below the dam for- 
 sook them. It was manifest that a single sod thrown in stopped the 
 water in that place, so we calculated on the certainty of stopping 
 
38 
 
 the whole with a sufficient number of sods. But how sadly were 
 we disappointed when, a fine dam being built, before the water had 
 time to recede beneath, that from above came pouring over with 
 fresh impetuosity. The disappointment taught us that damming a 
 stream is not the way to dry it up. A little of the Infant School 
 philosophy, which was then less rife than now-a-days, would have 
 taught us that water runs by virtue of an attraction, and that, if we 
 could have found the means to destroy this attraction, we should not 
 have been troubled with the water from above. In regard to that 
 wide stream of human wo, the slave traffic, in which the Coloniza- 
 tion Society, in the simplicity of perpetual babyhood, is always 
 dabbling, the attraction may be removed. It lies within the reach 
 of human agency. It lies in the price paid for human cattle ! 
 Abolish slavery ; make it penal to hold human beings as property, 
 and you stop the traffic henceforth and for ever. It is the market 
 which calls the supplies. What ! do we hold slaves at home — bu}' 
 and sell them as things, drive them in herds from state to state, work 
 and feed and lodge them as beasts, and yet wonder that they are 
 brought to us across the ocean for sale ? What boots it, to brandish 
 the sword of justice in one hand, while we hold out the golden bribe 
 in the other ? As there must be perpetual fluctuations in the de- 
 mand for labor, wherever labor is supplied by slaveiy, there must be 
 a slave trade. If it could be banished from the ocean it would 
 flourish the more at home. It would separate husbands and wives, 
 parents and children, and open every where fresh sluices of unut- 
 terable wo. Nay, in one horrible particular, the domestic outdoes 
 the foreign traffic : we do not learn that it is common for African 
 fathers to sell their own children, but it is quite common for a plant- 
 er, in one of our southern stales to sell his own offspring — even after 
 the most solemn promises to the sable mother that such a thing 
 should never be done ! ! 
 
 It may even be questioned whether this miserably inconsistent op- 
 position of the foreign traffic, has not increased the evil. In spite 
 of the cruisers, the market has been svpjilied. This is all that 
 would Imve been done at any rate. But to effect this the slaves 
 have been the more cruelly "packed" and hundreds have been thrown 
 overboard in chains, when the slaver was pressed with pursuit. I 
 merely suggest this consideration to those who wish us to treat the 
 subject of slavery with great delicacy — to touch it with caution, if 
 at all, while they are making pictures of slave ships, stowed to the 
 full, and rattling African slave chains from every pulpit. Consis- 
 tency is a jewel. Let it not be understood that I oppose the call- 
 ing of the foreign traffic piracy, or the measures taken to drive this 
 piracy from the ocean. This ought ye to have done, but by no 
 means to have left the other undone. If the trader is a pirate, the 
 lolder is a felon, and should be called so. 
 
 I was just closing this chapter, when I heard some one at^k, (it 
 eemed to be a female voice,) but do we not restore to Africa her 
 ong lost children ? No, kind madam, &. figure of speech has de- 
 'ived us here. Africa, when stripped of its personification, is mere 
 
39 
 
 inanimate rock and soil — and some of that very sandy — which hag 
 never had any right of property in the men who have inhabited it, 
 much less in their descendants born on another continent. Accord- 
 ing to the constitution of the United States, every man belongs to 
 himself. Every man owns himself as much as he owns his horse 
 or his watch. If a thief should take your watch and retain it a 
 long time, would you not think it a strange restitution, if he refused 
 to restore it to you except on the spot where your grandmother was 
 born; perhaps a thousand miles oil'? Again, if we must hold to 
 the figure, and restore to Africa her children, why not to Europe, 
 hers 1 Would they be any more welcome in one case than in the 
 other? Would an armed colony of Europe's children, on the coast 
 of France, or England, planted there expressly to introduce a new 
 order of things, excite more jealousy, than will an armed colony of 
 Africa's children, on the slave coast? And more, if Africa is to 
 have her children, and Europe hers, what is to become of America's 
 children ? 
 
 This subject is capable of a much clearer development ; but I 
 conclude, on the view we have taken, that the benefit to Africa is 
 exactly what might be expected of a robber holding to his 
 
 ROBBERY. 
 
 CHAPTER V . 
 
 IMMEDIATE ABOLITION. 
 
 Since I have shown so little respect for a scheme considered by 
 the bulk of the Christian community, as the last resort, and the only 
 hope against the system of slavery, it may be expected that 1 
 should point out something better. The expectation is reasonable 
 and shall not be disappointed. Under the government of God, as 
 exhibited in this world, there is bitt one remedy for sin, and that is 
 available only by a repentance, evidenced by reformation. There is 
 no such thing as holding on to sin with safety. It is not only to 
 be renounced, but the very occasions of it are to be avoided at what- 
 ever sacrifice. If thy right hand cause thee to oflTend, cut it off" — if 
 thy right eye, pluck it out. The dearest human relationships are 
 to be broken through when they interfere with the relation which 
 a man bears to God, and through him to his rational creatures. 
 This being the case, we might naturally expect that the entire agency 
 which God has provided to reclaim the world should be adapted to "^xo- 
 AwcG immediate repentance. It certainly is so, if we take the testimony of 
 the Bible. When the Apostle of the Gentiles attacked idolatry, he said, 
 " The times of this ignorance God winked at, (that is, used no special 
 agency to prevent it,) but now commandeth all men every where to 
 
40 
 
 repent. The living ministry, instituted by the author of Christianity, 
 and propagated from age to age, was designed to reform and save 
 the world by preaching repentance — immediate, thorough repent- 
 ance. When it gives up this message, whatever other means it 
 may use, it does anything but reclaim men from sin. Throughout 
 all the recorded messages of God to men, he expresses the utmost 
 abhorrence of sin — there is no compassionate promise even, which 
 is not based upon the condition that sin be forsaken as an abomina- 
 ble evil. The entire and total wickedness of men, is the subject of 
 the first paragraph in every exposition of Gospel grace. Those men 
 who are so excessively cautious not to disturb prejudice, who would 
 remove sin while the wicked are asleep, stealing around the bed and 
 effecting a reformation beforehand, so that the sinner may repent at 
 his leisure without hindrance when he wakes, derive their authority 
 elsewhere than from the word of God, as indeed they must derive 
 their hope of success elsewhere than from the natural history of 
 man. The doctrine of the immediate abolition of slavery asks no 
 better authority than is offered by scripture. It is in perfect har- 
 mony with the letter and spirit of God's word. 
 
 The doctrine may be thus briefly stated. It is the duty of the 
 holders of slaves immediately to restore to them their liberty, and to 
 extend to them the full protection of law, as well as its control. It 
 is their duty equitably to restore to them those profits of their labor, 
 which have been wickedly wrested away, especially by giving them 
 that moral and mental instruciion — that education, which alone can 
 render any considerable accumulation of property a blessing. It is 
 their duty to employ them as voluntary laborers, on equitable wages. 
 Also, it is the duty of all men to proclaim this doctrine — to urge 
 upon slave-holders immediate eviancipation^ so long as there is a 
 slave — to agitate the consciences of tyrants, so long as there is a 
 tyrant on the globe. 
 
 Though this doctrine does not depend, in regard to the slave- 
 holder, upon the safety of immediate emancipation, nor, in regard to 
 the non-slave-holder, on the prospect of accomplishing any abolition 
 at all, but upon the commands of God, yet I shall attempt to estab- 
 lish it upon those lower grounds. I am willing to rest the cause on 
 the truth of the following propositions. 
 
 1. The instant abolition of the whole slave system is safe, and 
 the substitution of a free labor sj'stem is safe, practicable and pro- 
 fitable. 
 
 2. The firm expression of an enlightened public opinion, on the 
 part of non-slave-holders, in favor of instant abolition, is an effectual, 
 and the only effectual means of securing abolition in any time what- 
 soever. 
 
 1. Immediate abolition is safe. 
 
 Were I speaking to a Christian public, who believed half they 
 professed, I would not insult them by a labored argument on this 
 point. It would be enough to have shown that emancipation is the 
 duty of slave-holders, to arouse these Christians to plead the cause 
 
41 
 
 of the oppressed, even at the peril of dungeons and gibbets. But 
 the Christians of this age, must have not only a " thus saith the 
 Lord," but a guarantee — safe as a real estate mortgage — that the 
 performance of the duty shall not injuriously affect certain tempo- 
 ralities, which, taken together, little and great, are supposed to make 
 up the public weal. No matter how many millions writhe in the 
 last distress, the public safety is the paramount claim, the supreme 
 law. And of this public safety — not God, but the public, is to be 
 judge. With a thorough going Christian of the apostolic school, 
 whatever is right, is of course ezpedietit ; but with the modern bap- 
 tized "gnat strainer and camel swallower," nothing is right, which 
 cannot be wire-drawn through his own apprehension of expediency. 
 For the special benefit of such, I proceed lo this argument. 
 
 The immediate abolition of slavery is safe, because, without giv- 
 ing to the slaves any motives to injure their masters, it would take 
 away from them the very strong ones which they now have. Why 
 does the white mother quake at the rustling of h, leaf? Why, but 
 that she is conscious that there are those around her, who have been 
 deeply enough provoked to imbrue their hands in her blood, and in 
 that of the tender infant at her breast ? And this, while all is crin- 
 ging servility around her — while every want is anticipated, and the 
 most menial services are perfonned with apparent delight. But well 
 she knows that it is a counterfeited delight. Well enough she knows, 
 that were she subjected to the same degradation to which she sub- 
 jects others, vengeance would fire her heart, and seek the first occa- 
 sion to do its fellest deed. All the instincts of animal nature cry 
 out, that oppression is dangerous. The natural history of man cries 
 out, that there is a point, beyond which endurance would be miracu- 
 lous. 
 
 But the slaves are now, not only under the motives common to 
 humanity, to throw off their 3'Oke, but they are urged on by the 
 boasts and taunts of their masters. They must either yield up every 
 pretension to manhood, and contentedly think themselves brutes, or 
 they must apply to themselves, and be aroused to action, by those 
 panegyrics on liberty, and that proud contempt of slavery, which 
 meet them on every side. No matter how many laws may be thrown 
 around the slave to keep out every ray of knowledge — yon may 
 prevent the knowledge of letters — you may withhold the book of 
 God, and every other printed book — but yon can no more shut out 
 a knowledge of the fundamental propositions of human rights, by 
 laws — you can no more shut out the spirit of liberty, than you can, 
 by law, cause the sun not tO'Shine, or the rain not to fall. The 
 masters, in all their movements, their celebrations, their elections, 
 their orations and conversations, on all occasions — are living and 
 breathing sermons lo the slaves, on the value of liberty. Does a 
 tyrant, as for example the autocrat of all the Russias, who wishes 
 to keep all his subjects quiet, harangue, m their hearing, on the 
 value of his own liberty to do as he pleases — <loes he contemn those 
 who have the meanness to submit to his despotism ? Or, does he 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 speak of his love for his people, as having induced him to take this 
 course or that? — and attribute all his actions to an ardent devotion 
 to the public weal? Manifestly, the latter. Why, you might as 
 well think of keeping*powder for ever amidst the sparks in a black- 
 smith's shop, as of keeping slaves forever in such a republic as ours. 
 It is said, and with evident truth — educate the slaves, and they are 
 free. The slave-holding legislatures, aware of this, and alarmed at 
 some feeble individual attempts to communicate knowledge to the 
 slaves, as if the universal prejudice and despotic power of the indi- 
 vidual masters were not sufficient to repress the evil, have enacted 
 
 LAWS AGAINST TEACHING THE SLAVES TO READ. This is a mOSt 
 
 capital blunder. It gives ominous pledge, that such tyranny as 
 theirs is soon to be swept from the face of the earth. Had they 
 let the matter alone, or had they made laws in favor of educating 
 slaves, about as operative as the school laws of some of the states, 
 the effectual degree of ignorance might have been secured. But 
 they have, in effect, taught the slaves, in language which they can 
 understand, what letters are good for — what printed books can do 
 for men. And there will now be a desire to learn letters, and to 
 read printed books, which the inquisitorial power and skill of all the 
 popes could not repress. It might as well be expected to keep the 
 ocean from wetting its shores, as to keep the floods of printed books 
 from reaching the slave population. 
 
 There is another very striking point of view in which these move- 
 ments may be regarded. So long as the slaves are left entirely to 
 the control of individual masters, some kind and lenient, freeing now 
 and then a slave, and promising fr^dom to others, and exercising a 
 sort of patriarchal authority, while others are, each in his own way, 
 more harsh and severe, the unity of the slaves, as a body, is broken. 
 They have no common cause. Every conspiracy will be detected 
 early, by means of those who, being kindly treated, have a blind 
 attachment to their masters. But these legislative enactments are a 
 common oppression. They form the slaves into a single body, give 
 them a common interest, and break the claim of individual kind- 
 ness, as well as attach, in the view of the slaves, an immeasurable 
 importance to a knowledge of letters. Go on, then, tyrants — con- 
 nect into one mine the explosive materials beneath you — dry the 
 powder — increase the pressure — lay trains of the best fulminating 
 mixtures, and wait for the spark, or the blow that is to annihilate 
 you. Already have your abused, outraged vassals such motives to 
 rid themselves of your yoke, that your knees smite together in spite 
 of the boasted stoutness of your hearts. Go on, then, refuse to 
 emancipate, add insult to injury — add stings to desperation — make 
 death easier than bondage— for, in so doing, you assuredly hasten 
 the day, when the American bill of rights shall mean what it 
 says. 
 
 But if , you recod at the prospect — if sanity has not yet bid adieu 
 to your heads, and the milk of human kindness is not quite dried up 
 from your breasts — look at the other side, Immediate emancipation 
 
43 
 
 would reverse the picture. It would place a motive to love you m 
 tlie room of every one which now urges the slaves to hate you. 
 They would then become, for you well know how grateful they are 
 for even the slightest favors, your defenders instead of your mur- 
 derers. The law which now represses their crimes, would then 
 more effectualy secure their good behavior, not being counteracted 
 by the exasperating influence of individual irresponsible oppression. 
 Your fields which now lie sterile, or produxe but half a crop, because 
 the whip of the driver, although it may secure its motion, cannot 
 give force to the negro's hoe, would then smile beneath the plough 
 of the freeman — the genial influence of just and equitable wages. 
 Mark, that I say nothing of the amount of human happiness which 
 might be reared by Christian instruction on this ground of justice, 
 mercy and ertiial rights applied to 2,000,000 of men. Your own estates 
 would be worth double the cash. The capital which you have ex- 
 pended in slaves — scarcely less than the value of your land — is sunk ; 
 for your slave labor after all costs more than free. And, besides, the 
 waste arising from involuntary labor is prodigious. Make all labor 
 free, and the purchaser can afford to, pay for your land what he must 
 now pay for the land and slaves together. Even in a pecuniary 
 point of view the change from the slave to the free labor system 
 would be profitable, and that upon your own comparison. * 
 
 Do you say these are idle speculations of men who know nothing 
 of facts — the dreams of visionary enthusiasts? Do you say the 
 remedy would be worse than the disease ? — that violence, rapine, 
 murder — nay, universal massacre, would be the consequence of uni- 
 versal, immediate emancipation ? Gentlemen, you mistake ws much 
 and our argument more. We are matter-of-fact people, and on the 
 ground of well attested, unmagnified, undistorted facts, we defy 
 jou. Show us the stain of a single drop of any master's blood shed 
 by an emancipated slave ! Why silent ? Why dumb ? Why no 
 motion of the finger 1 — Do you at length venture to point us to St. 
 Domingo 1 It is too late. We have a better edition of the history 
 of St. Domingo than j-ours, and one which you dare not impugn. 
 The blood of the whites shed in St. Domingo was due either to the 
 civil wars which preceded the act of emancipation, or to the un- 
 righteous attempt of the French to reduce the negros to slavery 
 after they had quietly enjoyed their liberty for several years. 
 Not one drop of it was shed by that act which in a moment made 
 500,000 freemen of as many slaves. Nay, it is testified by French 
 proprietors themselves, that the negros, without a known exception, 
 went directly to work for their former masters, on wages — and even 
 without wages or overseers they quietly cultivated those plantations 
 which had been deserted by the whites. St; Domingo is a blazing 
 beacon in favor of instant abolition, and against that monstrous in- 
 fatuation and fiendish cruelty, which would attempt to repress the 
 upward tendencies of the human soul by brute force. 
 
 * See the " West India Clucstion, by C. Stuart," where this subject is admi- 
 rably discussed and for ever settled. 
 
44 
 
 In the French colonies of Guadaloupe and Cayenne, the slaves 
 were liberated at once and with the same safety. Mexico made her 
 slaves free at a blow — but with the galling drawback that the mas- 
 ters should be remunerated for their loss ! ! and yet we have heard 
 of no evil consequences. 
 
 Large bodies of slaves were einancipated at once, in Colombia, 
 during the revolution — no blood was shed but that of the enemies of 
 the republic. There are 600,000 enfranchised Africans in Brazil, 
 diffused throughout the body politic, enjoying its honors as well as 
 doing its labors — who are respected and happy — no blood shed. In 
 the colonies of Sierra Leone and Liberia, it is notorious that con- 
 siderable bodies of emancipated slaves have been incorporated into 
 regular governments — and under very unfavorable circumstances. 
 
 I might fill a volume with instances, but I repeat it, we are not 
 only matter-of-fact people, but we enjoy a complete monopoly of 
 facts ; that is to say, of all past facts, for of the future we say no- 
 thing any more positively than we would predict the sun's rising to- 
 morrow. We would speak modestly here, and say, that inasmuch 
 as the sun always has risen once in twenty-four hours, the probability 
 i«, to our minds, that he will rise again to-morrow. Those may doubt 
 our prediction who please. Just this and nothing more we would 
 say in favor of immediate, unprepared-for emancipation. We knov) 
 it always has been safe, and we confidently expect it will always be 
 so. If such emancipations as I have referred to, in most or all of 
 which justice was hampered and partial, were safe and happy, 1 
 beg to be told whether a complete and magnanimous act of justice 
 on the part of our country, by which the slaves should be placed 
 under the equitable government and firm protection of law, and by 
 which the balm of our disabused bill of rights, should be applied to 
 their lacerated feelings, would result in ruthless violence and butch- 
 ery ! He who can be persuaded of any such thing — nay, he who 
 can fancy it, must be something else than a natural fool — he must 
 have been stultified by inoculation. 
 
 Holders of stolen men ! do you still point us to the degraded free 
 blacks of the South, and say they are more miserable than the 
 slaves ? We deny the assertion. We appeal to yourselves whether 
 there be any suffering even unto death which you would not endure 
 rather than be slaves — rather than to he fed and fattened slaves — 
 rather than to wear a single link of the slave's chain — rather than 
 to submit to slavery even in the abstract principle, apart from all 
 matters of reality. But granting the assertion to express a fact. 
 You are not the men to plead it. You have made this fact with 
 your own blood-stained hands — made it for the very purpose of dis- 
 paraging the slave's freedom in the view of the slave, and the view 
 of the world ! This shall be proved from your own lips. J. A. 
 M'Kinney, Esq., says, " Let them [the free blacks] be maltreated ever 
 so much, the law gives them no redress unless some white person 
 happens to be present to be a witness in the case. If they acquire 
 
45 
 
 uvfoperty, they hold it by courtesy of every vap:abond in the coun- 
 try; and sooner or later are sure to have it filched from them. * 
 
 But what if it were true, that the free black at the South is more 
 miserable than the slave? It would be no argument against that 
 sort of emancipation for which we plead. We plead for no turning 
 loose, no exile, no kicking out of house and home, but for complete and 
 hearty justice. Justice requires that the masters who have shut 
 out the light of knowledge from their slaves, should now freely com- 
 municate it; that they should follow up their acts of emancipation 
 by giving employmcmt and affording the means of education. A 
 wise and vigorous system of free labor and of primary instruction, 
 should be immediately erected on the dark pile of oppression, which 
 we urge them instantly to demolish. Nothing like this has been 
 done heretofore, either at the South or the North, on any extensive 
 and liberal scale. Ts it a wonder then, that these poor enslaved men, 
 when thus turned adrift, have in so many instances missed the path 
 of moral and mental improvement? Is it not rather marvellous that 
 they have not sunk, as a class, deeper in vice than we find them ? 
 We hold the masters bound, individually and in the aggregate, first 
 to LIBERATE and then to enlighten the immortal minds that 
 have been abused and debased by their avarice and lust ! Justice 
 hitherto has been clogged, defaced, mutilated ; but the day of her 
 power rolls on. — Her sun is above the horizon ! 
 
 Shame on you, proprietors of men ! Do not add to your inhuman 
 cruelty the useless hj'-pocrisy of professing to wish the free blacks 
 away for their own good ! Say, in plain English, for we cannot be 
 much longer deceived, that your sole object is to rid yourselves of 
 colored freedom, lest your slaves should be provoked to think them- 
 selves men, and discover that they too have rights. Shame on you 
 loo, benevolent colonizers ! Do not add to your unchristian prejudice 
 the gratuitous sycophancy of doing their foulest deeds lor men- 
 stealers ! Say in plain English, for it will be believed whether you 
 say it or not, that you succumb to arrogance, and are recreants to 
 the Master in whose rrame you have been baptized ! 
 
 If, after reading these thoughts, any candid mind should feel a 
 lingering doubt whether emancipation, instant and unconditional, be 
 safe, I beg such a mind to hold its decision in suspense till further 
 facts, which have been unaccountably shut out from the public eye, 
 are brought forward, which, I trust, will be at no distant day. 
 
 2. The firm expression of an enlightened public opinion on, the 
 part of non-slave-holders, in favor of instant abolition, is an effectual, 
 and the only effectual means of securing abolition in any time what- 
 soever. 
 
 Many men, very wise men in their own estimj(,tion, dismiss aboli- 
 tion as a " wild" project, a " theory," a mere closet theory. Coloni- 
 
 * See his speech in the African Repository. See also Mr. Brodnax's speeches 
 before the Virginia legislature, and Mr. Archer's speech before the American Co- 
 lonization Society. 
 
46 
 
 z.ition is a praclical business — therefore they ore for colonizatioti. 
 But is speaking //-////^ a theory ? Is calHng things by their right 
 names a closet theory ? How passing strange that one of our state 
 legislatures should otfer $5,000 for the abduction of a mere theorist ! 
 For my own part, I had supposed that such large pecuniary trans- 
 actions involved practical business. I had supposed that this reward 
 mi^ht be viewed in the light of a steam-gage, which indicates the 
 efficiency of the moving force. I had supposed it might be a ne- 
 cessary and practical part of the business of reclaiming wicked men, 
 to say something which they would not choose to have us. 
 
 If "northern men, as a body, would become abolitionists, and if 
 they will not, what security have we that they will not become 
 slave-holders? If they would speak out as abolitionists, would the 
 people of the South regard it as a mere unpractical ilieory ? May 
 it not be that they now hold their slaves by virtue of our theory 
 against immediate emancipatio?i, expressed a thousand times through 
 the Colonization Society and in other ways ? If we, that is to say, 
 all our wise and prudent men, have justified slavery, why should they 
 condemn it? But if the cry, c//.m tacent, clamant, of 2,000,000 of 
 oppressed men should enter our ears ; if all our philanthropic men 
 and women should be moved from the bottom of their hearts, and 
 pour out the deep current of their united sympathy for the slave ; 
 and if the cautious and the timid, and the immovably prudent, 
 should be, as they always are, borne along with the tide, might it 
 not have a very practical bearing on the common sense and con- 
 science of the southern people? How do we know that there are 
 not hundreds and thousands among them, who. need only to be backed 
 by northern sentiment to become martyrs in the cause of humanity? 
 Are we to be told that the most benevolent men at the South depre- 
 cate any such interference on our part ? Let us have the proof that- 
 they are benevolent men. We cannot take their word for it, nor 
 any man's word for it, till it is shown that those men are not slave- 
 holders, and that they have no sympathy with slave-holders as such ; 
 otherwise, we are merely told of benevolent robbers, — a thing in- 
 credible, especially on the testimony of the robbers themselves. But, 
 waiving this point, it is said they are on the ground, and know bet- 
 ter than we what ought to be done, and how it ought to be done. 
 " Why should men who have never set foot south of the Potomac or 
 Ohio, pretend to know more about slavery and its remedy, than 
 those who have been born and bred in the midst of it ? Insuffera- 
 ble presumption !" This reminds me of a certain person— a mi- 
 7iister of the gospel, reader— in this vicinity, who, on being asked to 
 subscribe for an abolition newspaper, said he had not yet read enough 
 on the subject to know whether a man could have a right of pro- 
 perty in man or not ! accordingly, he very sagely concluded not to 
 take the newspaper till he had investigated the matter more tho- 
 rouo-hly,— probably, to see whether or not it was worthy of mvesti- 
 gatfon! Should such a man visit the South, and see with his own 
 eyes, he would doubtless be well satisfied that man can have pro- 
 
47 
 
 perty in man. What is a man's honesty good for, if he needs W 
 make a pilgrimage to Georgia to learn whether stolen property 
 ought to be given up? 
 
 Others exclaim, " But how can your scheme of immediate, instant 
 abolition be practicable? Can a handful of northern men, or even 
 the combined North, expect to overturn southern society from its 
 foundation in a vioment ?—\n the twinkli?ig of an eye ? What fools ! 
 Forsooth you will do nothing against slavery, unless you can do 
 every tiling, all at once ! Heaven deliver us from such Quixotism ! 
 We are for the gradual abolition, for not attempting more than we 
 can effect." W^hat a pity that the great body of evangelical preach- 
 ers of the gospel cannot learn wisdom of such counsellors. They 
 preach immediate, entire repentance; of course they exiuci, "what 
 fools!" to convert the whole world at a blow! Why do Me?/ not 
 confine themselves to the doctrine of gradual repentance, and not 
 attempt more than they are able to effect ? 
 
 Now if 1 may be allowed to make a distinction too elementary to 
 be overlooked by an infant, a doctrine is one thing, and a plan is 
 another. When we say that slave-holders ought all to emancipate 
 their slaves immediately, we state a doctrine which is true. We do 
 not propose a flan. Our flan, and it has been explained often 
 enough not to be misunderstood, is simply this : To promulgate the 
 true doctrine of human rights in high places and low places, and all 
 places where there are human beings. To whisper it in chimney 
 corners and to proclaim it from the house-tops — yea from the mouiv 
 tain-tops, To pour il out like water from the pulpit and the press. 
 To mix it up with all the food of the inner man, from infancy to 
 gray hairs, — to give "line upon line and precept upon precept," till 
 it forms one of the foundation principles and parts indestructible of 
 the public soul. Let those who contemn this plan, renounce, if they 
 have not done it already, the gospel plan for converting the world ; 
 let them renounce every plan of moral reformation, and every plan 
 whatsoever, which does not terminate in the gratification of their 
 own animal natures. 
 
 By prosecuting the plan described, we expect to see the benevo- 
 lent, one by one at first, and afterwards in dense masses, awaking, 
 gathering up their armor and rushing to the standard with the reso- 
 lution to make up for lost time ; we expect to see, at length, the full 
 tide of public sympathy setting in favor of the slave. We expect 
 to see him, when escaped from his cruel servitude, greeted by the 
 friends of liberty, at the North, equally with the more courtly re- 
 fugee of European tyranny. We expect to see the free colored 
 American so educated and elevated in our own land, that it shall be 
 notorious that the slave is brother to a man f In the meantime 
 we expect to see the great body of slave-holders exasperated, foam- 
 ing with rage and gnashing their teeth, threatening loudly to secede 
 from the Union ! ! madly prating about the invasion of sacred 
 rights, the disturbance of their domestic quiet, and the violation of 
 solemn compacts ; and with blind infatuation, riveting tighter the 
 
48 
 
 fetters of their helpless victims. Nevertheless, w^e expect to sec 
 some tyrants, conscience stricken, loosen their grasp; we expect, 
 with God's good help, to hear the trumpet of the world's jubilee 
 announcing that the last fetter has been knocked off from the heel 
 of the last slave. 
 
 Thus I have endeavored to develop the nature of the evil to be 
 remedied, and have held up, side by side, the remedies proposed. The 
 reader is called upon to judge between them. It is a question in 
 which he cannot fail to be interested till he ceases to be a man. The 
 remedies are fundamentally opposite. The one is physical, and 
 aims, contrary to nature, to withdraw 2,500,000 laborers from a 
 fruitful soil and a healthful climate, and plant them under a tropical 
 sun, in a soil trampled and spoiled by civilized rapacity and still the 
 resort of robbers, and all for the sake of avoiding the just vengeance 
 of Heaven, without giving up that wicked prejudice which lies at 
 the bottom of the sin. The other is moral ; * it addresses — not the 
 slave, but the master] it seeks not to abolish slavery by a forced le- 
 gislation, but to correct that public opinion on which law in a free 
 country is based ; it applies to the subject the principles of the Bible, 
 in the spirit of the Bible ; it holds no compromis^e with the open viola- 
 tors of God's law. Let public opinion be corrected and the requisite 
 legislation will be easily applied, and a complete substitution of free 
 for slave labor, without a removal of the laborers will be the conse- 
 quence. Till that time let every slave-holder who becomes convinced of 
 his sin act upon the principles of justice. No law can justly compel 
 him to regard his fellow men as property — to buy and sell them. 
 Let him say then to his slaves that they are slaves no longer, that he 
 will treat them as free, and protect them in his employ as free labor- 
 ers, to the extent of his ability. If the law interferes, on others the 
 responsibility will rest. But the friends of free labor at the South, 
 for they are certainly numerous, might combine on the plan of a 
 mutual pledge, like the temperance pledge, to abstain from treatmg 
 their fellow men as property, to advocate their indefeasible claim to 
 liberty under law, and to open to them the field of knowledge. This 
 must be done, or human nature must be left to right itself by phy- 
 sical FORCE. Slavery cannot exist forever. If the slaves were all 
 free to-day, it would be as vain to expect that they could be rooted 
 up from the soil with their own consent — without an act of direct 
 oppression — as it would be to expect the fish to betake themselves 
 to the mountains. But unless the emigration is altogether free, a 
 God of justice will not aid us. If we would have his favor, we must 
 go for immediate emancipation upon the soil. 
 
 After all, many well-meaning people cannot, for their lives, see 
 why emancipationists and colonizationists should not go together. 
 This is merely because they do not see things as they are. 1 must 
 be allowed to tell them a story, 
 
 ♦ See Appendix D. 
 
THE TWO DOGS. 
 A Fable. 
 
 A shepherd, whose flock was infested nightly by a wolf, pro- 
 cured a spaniel to defend it. This dog, who seemed remarkably 
 aflectionate and obedient in presence of his master, was of little 
 service to the poor sheep ; for, tliough he barked furiously vvhile 
 the wolf was in the inclosure making his insidious attack, he no 
 sooner saw him fairly otl" with the prey, than he ran to him and 
 fawned upon him, and even at length received and devoured small 
 bits of the torn flesh, and, to save appearances with his master, 
 brought back in his moutli some of the pieces which the wolf had 
 thrown away, and laid them down in the inclosure. 
 
 Grieved to see his flock still molested, the shepherd procured a 
 niastifl' — a dog of much liercer countenance, and of unflinching 
 mettle. His first growl agitated the wolf exceedingly, whereupon 
 that old robber oflered a large reward out of his plunder to any one 
 who would bring the mastiff bound to his den. The spaniel, hear- 
 ing of this, lamented the imprudence of the mastifl", and expressed 
 his regret that any thing should be done to exasperate so fero- 
 cious an enemy as the wolf. The mastifl', however, was not to be 
 intimidated. Expressing the sturdiest indignation, both against 
 the wolf and his pusillanimous apologist, he set out to attack the 
 robber in his den. At this moment the spaniel, seeing the reso- 
 lute countenance and lofty bearing of his fellow, whined in a very 
 soothing tone, why can we not go together ? BECAUSE, growled 
 the mastifl", you have been for a dog^s age the protector of this 
 flock, and have never had a price set upon your head ! 
 
 FINIS. 
 
ATPENDIX. 
 
 (A.) See page 22. 
 Extract from the speech of the Hon. Mr. Archer, of Virginia, at the fifteenth 
 annual meeting of the American Colonization Society. (" Bound up with" the 
 Fifteenth Annual Report!) 
 
 " Mr. Arclier said, that he was not one of those, (however dcsirahle it miaht he and 
 was, in abstract speculation,) who looked tn the complete removal of slavery from 
 among us. If that "consummation, devoutly to be wished," were to be considered 
 feasible at all, it was at a period too remote to warrant the expenditure of any re- 
 source of contemplation or contribution now. But a great benefit, short of "this, 
 was within reach, and made [)art of the scope of operation, of the plan of the So- 
 ciety. The progress of slavery was subjected to the action of a law, of the ut- 
 most regularity of action. Where this progress was neither stayed, nor modified 
 by causes of collateral operation, it hastened, with a frightful rapidity, disproportion- 
 ed, entirely, to the ordinary law of the advancen:ent of population, to its catastrophe, 
 which was repletion. If none were drained away, slaves became, except under pe- 
 culiar circumstances of climate and production, inevitably and speedily redundant, 
 first to the occasions of jirofitable employment, and as a consequence, to the faculty 
 of comfortable provision for them. No matter what the humanity of the owners, 
 fixed restriction on their resources must transfer itself to the comfort, and then the 
 subsistence, of the slave. At this last stage, the evil m this form had to stop. To 
 this stage (from the disproportioned rate of nmltiplication of the slaves — double that 
 of the owners in this country) it was obliged, though at ditierent periods, in ditler- 
 cnt circumstances, to come. When this istiige had been reached, what course or 
 remedy remained 1 Was open butchery to be resorted to, as among the Spartans 
 with the Helots 1 Or general emancipation, and incorporation, as in South Ameri- 
 ca 1 Or abandonment of the country by the masters, as must come to be the case 
 in the West Indies 1 E.ithcr of these was a deplorable catastrophe. Could all of 
 them be avoided, and if they could, how 1 There was but one way, hut that might 
 be made eti'ectual, tortunately ! It was to frovide and keep opeti a drain for the 
 excess of increase beyond the occasions of projllable empluynicnt. 'I'his might be 
 done efl'ectually by extension of the plan ol' tiie Society . 'I'he drain was already 
 opened. All that was necessary would be, to provide lor the enlargement of the 
 channel, as occasion might demand." 
 
 (B.) See page 28. 
 
 At the last meeting of the American Colonization Society, on motion of the Hon. 
 Mr. Chambers, it was 
 
 Resolved, Tiiat the Society view, ivitli tlie liii;liPPt prruificntion, tlie continued efforts of the 
 Plate of Marylaiiil to acconiiilisii iicr (j:i(r!ouc tii;il lj«i;t\oii nt squill iii itfiaiil tr, lior colored po- 
 pulation, and that tlie late apiiropriHtloii by that Htate, of two liundied tliousaiul dollars in Hid of 
 Alricaii colonizalion, i.s hailed !iy llie I'riends of tlie sysltui, as a hriglit cviunple to other states. 
 
 In support of this resolution, Mr. C, among other things, said, 
 
 " Sir, 1 reside in a slave State, alive to all the jealousies which a consideration of 
 this kind must excite. No other State would "be more sensitive at the slightest 
 ellbrt to withdraw from its own jieculiar cognizance, the exchi.sive and entire con- 
 trol of all questions toucliing this species of property ; none will go farther to sus- 
 tain her right to such exclusive jurisdiction ; and no citizen of the State would vin- 
 dicate that claim with more untiring zeal and firmness, than the individual now 
 before you. But, sir, the apprehension is groundless — your Constitution avows, 
 and your whole history proves that no such ])urpose exists. This Society interferea 
 with" the rights and interests of no one. Who has ever claimed for the Society or 
 for tU« National Government, opcratins through its agency, tho rijiht to interfere 
 
51 
 
 with, or control State legislation on the sulijoct of slavery t There may be individu- 
 als in llii.s Society, as there are out of it, who intempcrately urge the subject of 
 emancipation, and would desire to see it advance quite beyond the limits of pru- 
 dence and safety. Such enthusiasts may be witling to make any Institution, So- 
 ciety, or Government, auxiliary to their wild and mischievous projects ; but the 
 Colonization Society, is not responsible for these intemperate fanatics : nor docs it 
 countenance or encourage thtir schemes: — It interferes in no way with the rights or 
 the interests of owners of slaves. That in the prosecution of its legitimate opera- 
 tions, and by aflbrding the prospect of comfort and respectability to the man of 
 color, it may exert an influence altogether of a moral nature favorable to eman- 
 cipation, with a view to colonization, may be admitted. It imposes no restraints, 
 makes no demands, assails no man's rights, nor seeks to invade the volition which 
 he indulges, or to disturb the enjoyment of what the laws secure to him. Its sole 
 and single object is the colonization of the free, and with their full consent." 
 
 It will be plainly seen by the following extract from the Maryland Act, how the 
 " full consent" of the "free" colored people is to be obtained. The most " benevo- 
 lent" thing in the law appears to be this: it gives the slave the alternative of re- 
 maining in bondage if he does not consent to be an exile from his native land ! 
 
 " or in case the said •person or persons shall refuse to be so removed, 
 
 then it shall be the duty of the said board of managers to remove the said person or 
 persons to such other place or places beyond the limits of this State, as the said 
 Board shall approve of, and the said person or persons shall be willing to go to, and 
 to provide for their reception and support at such place or places as the said board 
 may tliink necessary, until they shall be able to provide for themselves out of any 
 money that may be earned by their hire, or niay be otherwise provided for that 
 purpose, and in case the said person or persons shall refuse to be removed to any 
 place beyond the limits of tliis State, and shidl persist in remaining therein, then 
 it shall be the duty of the said board to inform the sheriff of the county wherein 
 such person or persons may be, of such refusal, and it shall thereupon be the duty of 
 the said sheriff forthwith to arrest or cause to be arrested the said person or persons 
 so refusing to emigrate from this State, and transport the said person or persons 
 beyond the limits of this State ; and all slaves shall be capable of receiving manu- 
 mission, (br the purpose of removal as aforesaid, with their consent, of whatever 
 age, any law to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 (C.) See page 45. 
 The following extract from the speech of Mr. Archer, before referred to, reveals 
 the reason why the free blacks at the South are " worse off" than the slaves. It 
 seems that those who have heretofore emancipated, have neglected to employ and 
 educate ; they have " turned loose ;" they have thrown the emancipated, while 
 liberty was in the bud, directly beneath the influence of that system which blasts 
 like the Upas ! It is not the air and sunshine of liberty which has done this mischief 
 to the freedman, but the poison tree, which must be torn out by the roots ! 
 
 But where were the free blacks to find occupation in the slave-holding States, 
 in which they abounded the most 1 in the other States, they might be ab- 
 sorbed to some extent, in ilomestic or mechanical service. This could"take place 
 to no extent, that deserved to be named, in the slave-holding States. There all 
 the avenues of occupation were filled. Even were there space, a necessary and 
 
 OBVIOUS POLICY RESTRAINED THE INTERMIXTURE OF THE SEVERAL CASTS IN OC- 
 CUPATION. The free blacks were, therefore, destined, by an insurmountable barri- 
 er— a_^.red pale of social law to the want of occupation— thence to the want of 
 food — thence to the distresses which ensue that want — thence to the settled depra- 
 vation vvhich grows out of these distresses, and is nursed at their bosoms : and this 
 condition was not casualty, but fate. The evidence was not speculation in political 
 economy — it was geometrical demonstration. 
 

 53 
 
 (D.) See page 45. 
 
 It is cried that abolition is a party question — that it belongs to polilica, not t« re- 
 ligion. 1 cannot better reply to this, than by quoting a passage from the London 
 Christian Observer, directed against the same cry in England. 
 
 " But be [the Quarterly Reviewer] is averse to their system of diffusing a know- 
 ledge of thp real nature of slavery through the land; nay, ' he decidedly reprobates 
 it.' And why docs he reprobate it 1 The reason is curious : ' We do not object,' he 
 says, ' in the slightest dtgrce, to a deep rooted hatred of slavery, or a tliorough 
 knowledge on that or any other .subject.' This is precisely the preface to be ex- 
 pected when a man is about to defend slavery, or to plead against diffusing a know- 
 lege of it. He, therefore, proceeds — 'But we protest against this thorough know- 
 ledge, or deep rooted hatred, being confounded with religious feeling, or employed 
 for PARTY ruRPOSEs.' There is really something ludicrous in this sort of protest. 
 Does the Reviewer mean that we are not to decide the question of slavery on reli- 
 gious trrounds'] That in this case alone we are not to try our conduct by thi: im- 
 mutable princi[)les of right and wrong, which are laid down in the word of Godl 
 That in this case alone we are not to nppeal to the Christian maxim of doing to 
 others as we would that they should do unto us]' That here alone we are not to 
 bring into operation that divine charily, which seeks to relieve our fellow creatures 
 from tem|ioral misery and oppression, from mental degradation, and from spiritual 
 death 1 And what, again, does he mean by party purposes? Is it that the energies 
 which are enlisted in favor of the freedom and happiness of miuikiml, in fivor of 
 the oppressed against his oppressor, are to be likened to a scramble for place, or 
 some paltry question of party pohlics 1 * * * * Party politics ! Yes, the purposes 
 of truth, and justice, and humanity — the promotion of the universal freedom of 
 man — the cause of morality and religion — the cause of their country — the cause of 
 God! May the people of England, young and old, be ever found devoted to such 
 purposes ! the zealous, unswerving, unshrinking partizans of sHch a cause !" 
 ^ ^ , [Voh 24, p. 576. 
 
 An extract from the address of Bolivar to the legislature of Peru, or Bolivia, on 
 the formation of their constitution in 1826. 
 
 " I have Ictt untouched that law of laws — equality, without which all other gua- 
 rantees perish, as well as all other rights. To her we are bound to make sacriiices. 
 1 have laid prostrate at her fret the infamous state of slavery. 
 
 " Legislators! — slavery is the infringement of all laws. A law having a tenden- 
 cy to preserve slavery, would be the grossest sacrilege. What right can be alleged 
 in favor of its coniinuancel In whatever view this crime is considered, 1 am per- 
 suaded that there is not a single Bolivian in existence so depraved, as to pretend 
 that such a signal violation of the dignity of man can be legalized. Man to be pos- 
 sessed by hi.3 fellow man — man to be made property of! The image of the Deity to 
 be put under the yoke ! Let these usurpurs show us their title deeds ! The coast of 
 Guinea has not sent them to us; for Africa, devastated by fratricide, exhibits 
 nought but crimes. After these relics of African tribes are transported hither, 
 what law or power can sanction a dominion over these victims'? The act of trans- 
 mitting, proroguing, and perpetrating this crime, with its admixture of executions, 
 forms the most shocking outrage. A principle of possession, founded on the most 
 serious delinquency, could not be conceived without overturning and upsetting all 
 the elements of right, and without a perversion of the most absolute notions of duty." 
 
 Have Protestant Christians of North America no blush ? 
 
 CORRIGENDA. 
 
 Page 10, line 10, for hou-ic read home. 
 " " line 29, for arc few read are a few. 
 " 17, lino 17, for clink read clank. 
 " 23, from Uie bottom, line 10, after niffhl-born insert irtnocenit. 
 
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