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AFRICAN COLONIZATION 
 
 AND 
 
 Christian Missions; 
 
 A^ 
 
 BY J. BERRIEN LINDSLEY, M.D., D.D. 
 
 In the entire history of Christian effort and philanthropy, 
 we doubt whether another instance occurs of such deep-seated, 
 persistent, and long-continued misunderstanding and mis- 
 representation as in the case of the American Colonization 
 Society. From the very conception of this great and humane 
 enterprise to the present day, the objects, purposes, views, 
 desires, and hopes of its projectors, advocates, and friends 
 have been perverted, distorted, and hence opposed by able 
 men from widely different points of view, and for very differ- 
 ent reasons. So varied, so intense, so artful, so forcible, so 
 plausible, so malignant have been these multiform attacks 
 that nothing but the great Christian miracle of patience in 
 the hearts of its few but faithful friends, and the inherent 
 excellence of the cause itself, could have enabled it to keep 
 head above water during the half-century since the project 
 first took practical shape in the mind of a true-hearted, hum- 
 ble, Christian educator. 
 
 Unhappily, just about the time that the philanthropic and 
 devout Finley, of New Jersey, was attempting to get the atten- 
 tion of American statesmen and churchmen to what he then 
 conceived, and what we now know, to be one of the widest- 
 reaching and most pregnant schemes of the prolific nineteenth 
 century, the questions connected with the famous Missouri 
 Compromise debate also began to agitate the country, literally 
 
 * From the Theological Medium, for October, 1873, a Cumberland 
 Presbyterian Quarterly, Nashville, Tenn. 
 1 
 

 African Colonization 
 
 from center to circumference. The odium theologicum lias long 
 been a by-word with moralists, and an opprobrium and 
 stumbling-block with unbelievers. We hold, however, that it 
 is as honey to gall when compared with political virulence, 
 and that, indeed, it is ordinarily and truly but an oftshoot, or 
 else constituent part, of the latter. So it came to pass that 
 jaundiced eyes were immediately turned upon the founders of 
 the Society and all connected with it, although it was also at 
 once indorsed by many most prominent and influential public 
 men. It was directly concerned with Africans, and thus with 
 slavery ; and when this is written the whole tale is told, for 
 upon this subject we all understand that the whole great 
 American people have for some fifty years been either 
 demented or else, in the righteous providence of God, for wise 
 and gracious purposes, given over to wild delusions. Nations 
 have their personal religious experience as well as individuals. 
 Let us hope that the infatuation has passed away, and that 
 speedily afiliction will have wrought its proper work, and that 
 all this mighty nation will awake to righteousness, gird its 
 loins, and go about its heaven appointed work of conveying 
 the light of Christian civilization to the great continents on 
 its right-hand and left. 
 
 One singular misconception, prevailing from the start until 
 this very day, and, because of its bearing upon the productive 
 ability and hence financial interests of the nation at large, 
 adapted to arouse insidious and deeply self-interested opposi- 
 tion to the colonization scheme, is the idea that its advocates 
 wish and intend to transport the vast African population of 
 the United. States to its original seat. President Dew, of Wil- 
 liam and Mary College, published an exceedingly interesting, 
 well-written, and powerful pamphlet against the Society, based 
 upon this view. I read it, twenty odd years since, on one of 
 the old-time, magnificent packets between New Orleans and 
 Nashville, being kindly favored with its use by a planter. It 
 was a perfectly stunning argument, showing, as clearly as that 
 two and two make four, that the Colonizationists were as vis- 
 ionary as any of Dean Swift's Laputan philosophers, since, 
 by the elastic law of population, just as fast as a few thousand 
 liberated slaves #ere conveyed by slow-sailing ships to Liberia 
 
And Christian Missions. 3 
 
 their places would be refilled by the increased fertility of the 
 race caused by this very removal itself. And thus the good 
 Finley, with Henry Clay, and all the rest of them, were merely 
 engaged in rolling up the stone of Sisyphus, and with no bet- 
 ter success. "We have since read the same line of argument 
 inVillerme and other eminent publicists, but by none of them 
 have we found it so thoroughly elaborated and so well expressed 
 as by President Dew. Of course, it was to us afidmen brutum, 
 as we knew very well what Dr. Finley and his associates pro- 
 posed and what they did not propose. They proposed then, 
 as now, to remove Christian African freedmen to Africa, for 
 the sake of promoting the highest interests of these freedmen, 
 and for the sake of Christianizing the great and populous con- 
 tinent of Africa. The friends of Liberia have never been so 
 ignorant of history and political science as to suppose that it 
 was either desirable or practicable to remove three or five mil- 
 lions of men, women, and children across a wide expanse of 
 ocean, unless there was a greater stimulus behind these mil- 
 lions than was either in Finley's time or is in ours. Strange, 
 indeed, would have been such an error, for the founders of 
 the American Colonization Society were among the most emi- 
 nent educators, divines, and statesmen of the day. They had 
 their head-quarters in the City of Washington, and were in 
 every way so situated as to be just the very last men to make 
 so gross a mistake. 
 
 . If a great and deeply-learned man like Dew, of William 
 ar}d Mary, should thus misjudge the scheme of Finley, we 
 need not be surprised to find similar perverted ideas taking 
 possession of narrower minds connected with leading and 
 influential current magazines and journals. Since undertak- 
 ing, a few months ago, to prepare this article for the Theolog- 
 ical Medium., a quarterly to aid which every Cumberland 
 Presbyterian minister should hold himself ready when called 
 upon, I have met with a long article in a leading !N"ew York 
 dail}', from the pen of a traveling correspondent in the South- 
 ern States. I laid it aside, intending to copy it here, but time 
 and its length forbid. It is a forcible delineation of .the great 
 evil which the Colonization Society will inflict upon the South 
 by tempting away from its limits sober, industrious laborers 
 
4 African Colonization 
 
 just at the time when such useful citizens would be most val- 
 uable in repairing its waste places. This argument and objec- 
 tion, in fewer words, I have met perhaps a thousand times 
 since the memorable year 1865, repeated by writers in every 
 part of the land. Now, if these people, who are so stingily 
 afraid of bestowing a little of American enlightenment upon 
 that Africa which has done so much to create American wealth, 
 will carefully read President Dew's able pamphlet, above- 
 mentioned, they will at once dismiss all such fears. The 
 American Colonization Society may, during the next decade, 
 and the next, assist so many Christian-minded freedmen to 
 their forefathers's land as to dot it from tropic to cape with 
 mission-stations, and yet the African vote and the African 
 labor in the South remain undiminished.* 
 
 * President Dew was one of the profoundest and most influential writ- 
 ers of his day on government, history, and political economy, although 
 he died under forty-four years of age. He furnishes an illustrious exam- 
 ple of the stupidity and lethargy of our Southern people in all matters 
 intellectual. While his lectures and essays, written in the quiet of a vil- 
 lage college, inaugurated, according to John Quincy Adams's opinion, a 
 new era in the history of the country, yet no pains have been taken to 
 collect and print them ; and his fugitive pieces, as well as his larger works, 
 are but little known to students and general readers. Even Allibone, 
 equally noted for minute accuracy and untiring industry, makes two indi- 
 viduals of him, and then gives but a meager and imperfect idea of his 
 life and merits; nor is he to be blamed, since materials for judgment 
 were not at hand, as in the case of all English and Northern authors. 
 Our great vehicles of daily mind-food a year or so ago passed around a 
 sharp paragraph from the New England aristocratic iconoclast, Wendell 
 Phillips, in which he terms the whites of the late Confederate States eight 
 millions of dunces. It is very true that this is absurd enough as a whole- 
 sale description of the people whose Washington founded the republic, 
 and gave luster to the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world and for all 
 time; whose Madison, by consummate wisd6m, unequaled prudence, and 
 profound knowledge of political science, did more than any or all others 
 to shape and indite the best Constitution of human government ever 
 committed to writing, and is justly called its father; whose Jefferson dis- 
 played, in the Revolutionary Congress, at the French court, and in the 
 Presidential chair, diplomatic and administrative ability which won the 
 plaudits of the world, and more than doubled the territory and glory of 
 his country; whose Marshall, during thirty-five years as Chief justice of 
 the land, won laurels for the legal profession not more by the high moral 
 qualities which so richly adorned his character than by the profound 
 
And Christian Missions. 5 
 
 From 1830 to 1860 the American Colonization Society was 
 exposed to pitiless attacks by fanatical and selfish parties on 
 precisely difterent grounds in the antagonistic sections of the 
 
 learning and strong intellect exhibited in his decisions; whose Jackson, 
 by unsurpassed bravery and military skill, at the head of a small army 
 of Western riflemen, saved his country from the assaults of Wellington's 
 veterans, and as President, in times of violent dissension, won the high 
 eulogium, reechoed from ocean to ocean of late, to the effect that had 
 Providence given us a second Jackson in 1856 we would have been spared 
 an Iliad of woes; whose Polk, the very type of a pure-minded ruler, 
 extended the boundaries of the empire westward to the confines of the 
 populous Orient; whose Clay, by his eloquence, swayed alike the senate 
 and the hustings, and led captive hosts of idolatrous followers from Maine 
 to Georgia; in short, whose public men fill the foremost place in the 
 annals of our country's history, while her private citizens do more than 
 any other equal number in creating public wealth. Yet Mr. Phillips, 
 sitting within the four walls of his richly-furnished library, and looking 
 at its shelves alone, may be excused, because in all this matter of writing 
 and printing the South has done itself great injustice. Its heroes are not 
 commemorated ; its authors are not remunerated. As, in the first quarter 
 of this century, the witty and potent Sydney Smith, by asking, in the 
 trenchant Edinburgh Review, "Who reads an American book?" cut to the 
 quick the pride and self-esteem of the American people, and thus became 
 a public literary benefactor, so may our kind hearted Boston neighbor 
 become instrumental in a literary revival throughout the South ; and let 
 the first employment of the pen and of the purse be the pious one of 
 honoring those who have gone before and made us. Their lives and 
 deeds should be recorded; their works should be published, and pre- 
 served in multiplied public libraries. No people ever became a literary 
 people by merely studying and imitating others. It must have its own 
 history, ideas, and literature ; it must go back and build upon itself, how- 
 ever modified by the outside and surrounding world. Let the stigma be 
 wiped off. Let Virginia, the mother of States and of statesmen, and of 
 universities, imitate the whole-souled liberality, the honorable sectional 
 pride, the admirable filial piety of Massachusetts, and give to the world 
 complete editions, handsomely printed and carefully edited, of all that 
 can be gathered up from the pens of its Marshalls, Lees, Masons, Dews, 
 and their numerous compeers. ye rich men of Richmond and Norfolk, 
 of the Valley and of Piedmont, hasten to wipe away from the Old Domin- 
 ion the opprobrium that annually within her borders more time, thought, 
 and money are expended upon demoralizing horse-racing than upon keep- 
 ing bright and polished the monuments, warm and green the memories 
 of the noblest army of patriots, heroes, and sages with which any com- 
 monwealth was ever blessed by the Supreme Benefactor of nations! 
 
6 African Colonization 
 
 wide-extended Union. Throughout the North, particularly in 
 the ITew England States, the most active and influential in 
 forming public opinion, a very energetic and eloquent warfare 
 was kept up against it as encouraging and abetting the sin of 
 slavery. So violent and so successful was this warfare as 
 almost to neutralize the efforts of the Society to secure an im- 
 partial hearing. Only by heroic perseverance and a patient 
 tenacity of purpose, rarely equaled and never surpassed, was 
 it enabled to make head against its formidable foes, and to 
 maintain its organization and fruitful activity. In the South- 
 ern States, on the other hand, the narrow-minded and suicidal 
 jealousy too often and too fatally exhibited by large capitalists 
 against all efforts to ameliorate the condition of the laboring 
 masses, and to elevate the poor, led to the same results. As 
 the anti-slavery crusade in the north-eastern corner of the 
 Union grew stronger of tongue and more potent of pen, so 
 did the anxiety and timidity of accumulated capital in the 
 South, particularly in the extreme Southern States, become 
 more and more mercurial and easily alarmed. Hence, in these 
 States African colonization was looked upon with great sus- 
 picion as being the forerunner of revolutionary abolitionism. 
 Very soon this suspicion was proclaimed, and the Society ren- 
 dered so odious as to be compelled to restrict its operations 
 mainly to a few border States. Yet, during this long, tedious 
 dwelling in the wilderness of folly, contention, and strife — 
 amidst the hootings of discordant passions and the bowlings 
 of wild imaginings — the heaven-guided advocates of African 
 regeneration held on unmoved in the course first markec^ out 
 by the founders of their organization. It had nothing to do 
 with the intrinsically-momentous questions connected with 
 the continuance or termination of slavery. In each State 
 these were to be settled on their own merits, precisely as had 
 been the case during the period from 1776 to that of the for- 
 mation of the Society. It was neither pro-slavery nor anti- 
 slavery: it was a great Christian mission for the benefit of 
 individuals and of two continents. 
 
 The many minor points of prejudice and attack, varying 
 with change of locality and time, our space does not allow us 
 to state. All these, with the grand difficulties above imper- 
 
And Christian Missions. 7 
 
 fectlj outlined, will be best commented upon by a brief sketch 
 of the origin, aims, and results of the Society: 
 
 The sentiment out of which it gre\v, more or less definitely formed 
 into specific phiiis, was everywhere tending to realize itself in beneficent 
 action f )r the colored race. This sentiment gushed forth at many j^oints ; 
 so that many persons have been named as the originators of our enter- 
 prise. And there is some ground for each of these claims, and, doubt- 
 less, f)r many others that might have been advanced. They were 
 originators, as truly as if there had been no others. Their relative 
 merits cannot be settled by chnmology, f )r the thought was oft.enas 
 fresh and original in the later proje-ctor as in any that had preceded him. 
 
 The earliest movement known to have any historical coujiection with 
 our Society was the visit of the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R. 
 I., to his neighbor, the Rev. Ezra Stiles, April 7, 1773. The diary of 
 Dr. Stiles has preserved the record. Dr. Hopkins proposed to educate 
 *two pious negro youths f)r the ministry, and send them to Africa as 
 missionaries; hoping, evidently, to send more in time. He needed 
 assistance to meet the expense. The more practical mind of Dr. Stiles 
 sugirested that the enterprise would not succeed in that form; that thirty 
 or f )rty suitable persons must be sent out, and the whole conducted by 
 a society formed for the purpose. This idea of a purely missionary set- 
 tlement grew, in a few years, into a definite plan for a colony, with its 
 agricultural, mechanical, and commercial interests. August 31, 1773, 
 Drs. Stiles and Hopkins issued a circular, inviting contributions to their 
 enterprise. February Z, 1774, a society of Indies in Newport had just 
 made their first contribution; and aid liad been received from several 
 parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. November 21, two of the 
 young men sailed for New York, on their way to Princeton, N. J., to 
 be educated under Dr. Witherspoon, president of the college. 
 
 The War of Independence suspended these labors; but the plan and 
 the purpose survived it. In 178-1:, and again in 1787, Dr. Hopkins 
 endeavored to induce merchants to send out a vessel with a few emi- 
 grants, to procure lands and make a beginning, and Avith goods, the 
 profits on which would, of course, diminish the expense. In March, 
 1789, he had consultations with Dr. William Thornton, "a young man 
 from the West Indies," who proposed to take out a company of free 
 blacks, and found a colony in Africa. A number volunteered to go 
 with him, but the enterprise failed for want of funds. Dr. Thornton 
 was afterward a member of the first board of managers of the Ameri- 
 can Colonization Society. 
 
 A UKmth later, Granville Sharpe and others sent the first colonists 
 from London to Sierra Leone. This design was already known to Hop- 
 kins. Perhaps, too, Sharpe had heard of the plans of Hopkins, as they 
 liad been well known in England for some years; but they had no direct 
 intercourse with each other till Hopkins wrote to Sharpe, January 15, 
 1789, inquiring whether, and on what terms, and with what prospects, 
 blacks from America could join the colony. There were then "Christ- 
 ian blacks," desirous to emigrate, enough to form a church; and one of 
 them was fit to be its pastor. 
 
 Unsuccessful in this, he continued his labors. In 1791, he wished 
 
8 African Colonization 
 
 the Connecticut Emancipation Society to be incorporated, with power 
 to act as an education and colonization society. In 1793, he preached 
 a sermon before a kindred society at Providence, which was published 
 with an appendix, in wliich he advocated almost the exact course of 
 action afterward adopted by this Society, and urged its execution by the 
 United States Government, the several State governments, and by vol- 
 untary societies. 
 
 Hopkins died December 20, 1803; but the influence of these labors 
 still lived. Tiiey must have been well known to Capt. Paul Ciiffee, of 
 New Bedford, and the thirty emigrants whom he took to Sierra Leone 
 in his own vessel, early in 1815; and in 1826, two of his "hopeful 
 young men," Newport Gardner, aged seventy-five, and John Nubia 
 (known in Hopkins's correspondence as Salmur Nubia, and familiarly 
 in Newport as Jack Mason), aged seventy, hoping to move their breth- 
 ren by their example, sailed from Boston in the brig "Vine," the eighth 
 vessel sent out by this Society. 
 
 The next movement liaving any historical result was in Virginia. _ 
 December 31, 1800, the Legislature, in secret session, 
 
 "Resolved, That the Governor be requested to correspond witli the 
 Piesident of the United States on the suliject of purchasing lands with- 
 out the limits of this State, whither persons obnoxious to the laws or 
 dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." 
 
 The Governor, Monroe, in communicating this resolution to the Presi- 
 dent, stated that it was passed in consequence of a conspiracy of slaves 
 in and around Richmond, for Avhich the conspirators, under existing 
 laws, might be doomed to death. It was deemed more humane, and it 
 was hoped not less expedient, to transport such offenders beyond the 
 limits of the State. President Jefferson favored the idea, discussed the 
 objections to several locations, said that "Africa would offer a last and 
 undoubted resort," and promised his assistance. The Legislature, Jan- 
 uary 16, 1802, directed a continuance of the correspondence, "for the 
 purpose of obtaining a place without the limits of" the United States, 
 "to which free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as 
 may be emancipated, may be sent or choose to remove as a place of 
 asylum;" requesting the President "to prefer Africa, or any of the 
 Spanish or Portuguese settlements in South America." Tliis resolution 
 differs from the former, in that it does not contemplate a penal colony, 
 and does contemplate increased facilities for emancipation, in a mode 
 which the State did not esteem dangerous. The President corresponded 
 with the British Government concerning Sierra Leone, and with the 
 Portuguese concerning their possessions in South America, but without 
 success. In 1805, January 22, a resolution was passed instructing the 
 Senators and requesting the Representatives from that State to endeavor 
 to pi'ocure a suitable territory in Louisiana. No action followed, and 
 the matter slept ten years. Yet the proposition of Ann Mifflin, and 
 the correspondence of John Lynd with Thomas Jefierson, in 1811, 
 showed that the idea was still alive and at work. 
 
 Another of these numerous origins must be noticed. In the spring 
 of 1808, a few undergraduates of Williams College, Massachusetts, 
 formed themselves into a society, whose object was "to effect, in the 
 persons of its members, a mission or missions to the heathen." In about 
 
Aiid Christian Missions. 9 
 
 two years, this society was transferred to tlie Theological Seminary at 
 Andover, of which most of them had become members. Here they 
 procured the formation of a "Society of Inquiry respecting Missions;" 
 and tliere was thenceforth the ciiief seat of their labors. With becom- 
 ing modesty, they regarded themselves as little else than mere school- 
 boys, competent, indeed, to make inquiries, collect information, and 
 discover wants that ouglit to be supplied, but needing the guidance of 
 older and wiser men to mature judicious plans and execute them suc- 
 cessfully. Tiie proposal of four of them to go on a niissicm to the 
 heathen in foreign lands led directly to the formation of the American 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Suggestions from these 
 young men, or some of them, also led to the f »rmation of the American 
 Bible Society, and, though in some cases less directly, several other 
 kindred institutions, for which the state of feeling in the religious world 
 was prepared. 
 
 Samuel J. Mills has been commonly regarded as the leader of these 
 inquirers. With a companion, he made a journey of inquiry through 
 large parts of the new settlements in the United States, especially the 
 south-western part. He came back with the knowledge of many wants 
 to be supplied, and fnlly convinced that, to use his own words, "we 
 must save the negroes, or the negroes will ruin us;" and that there was 
 so much at the South of right feeling toward the negroes that something 
 might be done toward saving them. The matter was abundantly dis- 
 cussed. A colony was proposed somewhere in the vast wilderness 
 between the Ohio and the great lakes. But one of them, at lengthy, 
 objected to that location. " Whether any of us live to see it or not," 
 said he, "the time will come when white men will want all that region, 
 and will have it, and our colony will be overwhelmed by them." So 
 they concluded tliat the colony must be in Africa. 
 
 Mills went to New Jersey, to study theology with Dr. Griffin, at 
 Newark, and still more, as Dr. Griffin soon thought, to engage him and 
 other leading men in that region in considering whether certain good 
 objects could be accomplished, and how. While there, he originsited 
 the school for the education of pious blacks at Parsippany, some thirty 
 miles fiom Princeton. It was placed under the care and patronage of 
 the Synod of New Jersey; and thus the Presbyterian clergy of that 
 State were brought into active conuectiou with Mills and his idea of 
 saving the negro. 
 
 Among the most eminent of that clergy was the Kev. Dr. Robert 
 Finley. No record has been found of any direct intercourse between 
 him and Mills; and there is no reason to suspect that Mills furnished 
 him with a plan of a society, to be formed at Washington, f()r colonizing 
 free blacks in Africa. That plan seems to have developed itself in his 
 own mind, while contemplating that class of facts to which Mills was so 
 busily calling attention; and it is certain that he had it under consid- 
 eration as early as February, 1815. From about that time, he was 
 industrious in recommending it to his friends; but they, while admitting 
 that its object was good, generally distrusted its success. After pi-oba- 
 bly nearly two years of such labor, he called a public meeting at 
 Princeton, to consider the subject; but few besides the Faculties of the 
 College and the Theological Seminary attended, and only Dr. Alexan- 
 
10 African Colonization 
 
 der appears to have aided him in commending it. Still he persevered; 
 and wlieii Congress assembled, early in December, 1816, he repaii-ed to 
 Washington, to attempt the formation of his proposed society. On his 
 arrival, lie went at once to liis brother-in-law, Ellas B. Caldwell. That 
 these brothers liad previously corresponded on the subject is a probable 
 conjecture, but not a known fact. Yet the ideaof colonization was not then 
 new to Mr. Caldwell. It had already been suggested from another source. 
 Liite in February, 1816, the Virginia secret resolutions and corre- 
 spondence of 1801-5 first became known to Charles Fenton Mercer, a 
 member of the Legislature of that State. Not being under the obliga- 
 tion of secrecy, he at once made them known extensively in the State, 
 and pledged himself to renew them at the next session of the Legisla- 
 ture. Being at Washington — it must have been in March or April — 
 he made known the facts and his intentions to two friends. One was 
 his ohl schoolmate at Princeton, Elias B. Caldwell, who approval his 
 object, and promised to use his influence with his Presbyterian friends 
 in New Jersey in favor of it. The other was Francis S. Key, who 
 wouhl attempt a similar movement in Maryland. General Mercer 
 redeemed his pledge. His proposed resolution passed the House of 
 Delegates, December 14, by a vote of 132 to 14, and the Senate, De- 
 cember 23, with one dissenting vote. This Avas done without any knowl- 
 edge of the plans and movements of Dr. Finley for forming a society, 
 and indeed without any expectation that a society would be formed. 
 His idea was that colonization would be carried by the State govern- 
 ments, under the sanction and protection of the National Government. 
 Still, this expression of Virginia's mind rendered important, and per- 
 haps indispensable, aid to the formation and success of the Society; for 
 the action of the House of Delegates was known in Washington before 
 General Mercer's resolution had passed the Senate, and before any pub- 
 lic meeting was holden to form a society. 
 
 To arrange that meeting, and secure attendance upon it, cost Dr. 
 Finley no slight labor. The goodness of the object was generally 
 admitted; but, at the preliminary consultati(ms, those invited and 
 expected were generally absent. Charles Marsh, member of Congress 
 from Vermont, noticed this disposition of almost everybody to leave 
 this good work to others; and, as this was the only project that he had 
 ever heard of promising great good to the black race, he determined 
 that it should not be allowed to die in that way. He decided that those 
 who knew the plan to be a good one should attend the meetings. Of 
 course, as all who ever knew his inexhaustible adroitness and persist- 
 ency will easily understand, "a very respectable number" of them 
 attended the first public meeting, December 21, 1816. Henry Clay, m 
 the necessary absence of Judge Washington, was called to the chair. 
 Elias B. Caldwell, the brother-in-law of Dr. Finley and the schoolmate 
 and friend of General Mercer, perfectly informed of the plans and 
 movements of both, made the leading argument in favor of forming a 
 society. He stated that public attention had been called to the subject 
 in New Jersey, New York, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and perhaps 
 other places. He was supported by remarks from John Kandolph, of 
 Virginia, and Robert Wright, of Maryland. A committee was appointed 
 to prepare a constitution, and the meeting adjourned for one week. 
 
And Christian Missions. 11 
 
 At the adjourned meeting, December 28, the committee reported a 
 constitution, which was adopted. Fifty gentlemen affixed their names 
 to it as members. The twenty-third name on the list is Samuel J. MiHs. 
 What brought him there at that time, and what he was about while 
 there, we can only infer from other parts of his history. 
 
 January 1, 1817, the day fixed by the constitution, the Society met 
 for the election of officers. Hon. Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, 
 was chosen president, with twelve vice presidents, from nine States, 
 including Georgia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, and one from the 
 District of Columbia. 
 
 Thus the Society was formed and organized, not by tlie labors of any 
 one projector, or by the influence of a movement in any one part of the 
 country, but by tlie union of the tendencies which, remote from each 
 other and independent of each other, had been working toward that 
 result for more than forty years. That the Virginia movement, or the 
 New Jersey movement, or the New England movements, would have 
 accomplished any thing, without the union of all, some may perhaps 
 believe, but facts have not proved. Its true origin was in the desire of 
 good men everywhere to do the best thing then practicable for the black 
 race, in this country and in Africa— that desire prompting^ all these 
 movements, and sustaining them when providentially united in one. 
 
 From the foregoing concise but lucid account of the origin 
 of the colonization scheme, for which we are indebted to the 
 "Historical Discourse" of the Rev. Joseph Tracy, D.D.,* it 
 is perfect!}^ evident that while this movement was fostered by 
 a great variety of individuals scattered throughout the coun- 
 try, representing different branches of the Church and differ- 
 ent parties in the State, yet two leading motives were promi- 
 nent and powerful. The one was a desire to promote the 
 improvement and welfare of the individual colonists: the 
 other was, through them, to Christianize Africa. It was 
 throughout a Christian and philanthropic project. This will 
 appear the more plainly by looking at the lives and characters 
 of its advocates, and by studying their own declarations 
 respecting their purposes. 
 
 Robert Finley, who first gave the plan definite shape by 
 
 * After turning over the pages of a score or two of volumes, and noting 
 many passages bearing upon the subject, I took up the elegant "Memo- 
 rial of the American Colonization Society, January 15, 1867," and, finding 
 the work admirably done to my hand, I have taken the liberty to use it in 
 extenso. This is done, not to save labor or time, but because this sketch 
 may be regarded as an authoritative exposition from the official leaders 
 of the Society; and I can vouch for its candor and faithfulness from per- 
 sonal investigations. 
 
12 African Colonization 
 
 bringing to bear upon it the modern and efficient agency of 
 free nations — associated effort — was a distinguished divine 
 and educator, of New Jersey and Georgia, being President of 
 the University of the latter State at the time of his decease. 
 My own honored and sainted father was his pupil at Basking 
 Ridge; and among the earliest names I learned to venerate 
 and love for all that constitutes the perfection of Christian 
 excellence was that of Dr. Finley. His inner life is well exhib- 
 ited in the following letter to a friend, John P. Mumford, Esq., 
 of New York, which also illustrates the historical fact that the 
 Colonization Society had its origin in the spirit of missions. 
 From the "African Repository," vol. i. p. 2: 
 
 Basking Ridge, Feb. 14, 1815. 
 Dear Sir: — The longer I live to see the wretchedness of men, the 
 more I admire the virtue of those who devise, and with patience labor 
 to execute, plans for the relief of the wretched. On this subject, the 
 state of the free blacks lias very much occupied my mind. Their num- 
 ber iiicieases greatly, and their wretchedness, too, as appears to ine. 
 Every thing connected with their condition, including their color, is 
 against them; nor is there much prospect tliat tiieir state can ever be 
 greatly meliorated while they shall continue among us. Could not the 
 rich and benevolent devise means to form a colony on some pati of the coast 
 of Africa, similar to the one at Sierra Leone, ivhich might gradually induce 
 many free blacks to go and settle, devising for them the means of getting there, 
 and of protection and support till they were established'? Could they be 
 sent back to Africa, a tlireefold benefit would arise: we should be 
 cleared of them; we should send to Africa a population partly civilized 
 and Christianized for its benefit; and our blacks themselves would be 
 put in a better situation. Tliink much upon this subject, and then, 
 please, write me when you have leisure. 
 
 The other most active person in pushing along this cause to 
 a happy issue was Mills, of Connecticut, a name conspicuous 
 in the annals of the American Protestant Churches. What 
 manner of man he was can best be brought before our readers 
 by copying from the "African Repository," vol. i. p. 63, date 
 April, 1825, the following eulogium, by the eloquent pen of 
 the now eminent Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Hartford, written a 
 few years after the death of its subject, and while as yet all 
 his great schemes were mere beginnings: 
 
 A young minister of the gospel once said to an intimate friend, "My 
 brother, you and I are little men, but, before we die, our influence must 
 be felt on the other side of the world." Not many years after, a ship, 
 
And Christian Missions. 13 
 
 returning from a distant quarter of tlie globe, paused on her passage 
 across the deep. There stood on the deck a man of God, who wept 
 over tlie dead body of liis friend. He piayed, and the sailors wept 
 ■with liim. And they consigned that body to the ocean. It was the 
 body of the man who, in the ardor of youthful benevolence, had aspired 
 to extend his influence through the world. He died in youth, but he 
 had redeemed his pledge; and at this hour his influence is felt in Asia, 
 in Africa, in the islands of the sea, and in every corner of his native 
 country. This man was Samuel John Mills; and all who know his 
 history will say that I have exaggerated neither the grandeur of his 
 aspirations nor the result of his efforts. He traversed our land like a 
 ministei'ing spirit, silently and yet efiectually, from the hill country of 
 the Pilgrims to the Valley of the Missouri. He wandered on his errands 
 of benevolence from village to village, and from city to city, pleading 
 now with the patriot for a country growing up to an immensity of power, 
 and now with the Christian for a world lying in wickedness. He 
 explored in person the desolations of the West, and in person he stirred 
 up to enterprise and effort the Churches of the East. He lived for 
 India and Owhyhee, and died in the service of Africa. He went to 
 heaven in his youth, but his works do follow him, like a long train of 
 glory that still widens and brightens, and will widen and brighten for- 
 ever. Who cau measure the influence of one such minister of the 
 gospel ? 
 
 Finley and Mills had the faith which moves mountains. By 
 them vrere wrought miracles quite as conspicuous as those of 
 Vincent de Paul, Xavier, or others to whom the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church accords the honors of canonization; and, in com- 
 mon with these and their compeers of mediaeval and apostolic 
 times, their names will be held in lasting remembrance by the 
 true Church universal, until the millennial day. 
 
 As the two foremost names in the actual establishment of 
 the Society were noted for activity and practical zeal, so the 
 two forerunners of the scheme, in the days of British rule, 
 were remarkable for the combination of deep theological lore 
 with an earnest interest for human progress, which, in our 
 own days, has characterized Chalmers and Channing. Samuel 
 Hopkins was the student of Jonathan Edwards, and was for 
 thirty years pastor at Newport, Rhode Island, and eminent as 
 head of a school in theological controversy called, after him, 
 "Hopkinsian." "He had many qualities fitting him for a 
 reformer: great singleness of purpose, invincible patience of 
 research, sagacity to detect and courage to oppose errors, a 
 thirst for consistency of views, and resolution to carry out his 
 principles to their legitimate consequences." A typical char- 
 
14 African Colonization 
 
 acter, he hag passed into the domain of romance as the hero 
 of Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing." His coadjutor was 
 Ezra Stiles, pastor at Newport for twenty-one years, and Presi- 
 dent of Yale College for eighteen years. Noted for learning, 
 eloquence, and piety, he ranks very high in the list of the 
 great men who have been connected with that venerable insti- 
 tution. 
 
 If the precursors and founders of the Society were men of 
 such mark, the followers and aids coming at their call were 
 composed of such material as could be found at no other 
 period, in no other place, and under no other circumstances 
 in our country's domain or history. There is open before me 
 a page containing, in a list of fifty names, the original mem- 
 bers. First is H. Clay, who devoted his life to advocating the 
 "American System," and, a little below, that of John Ran- 
 dolph, of Roanoke, who devoted his life, with equal pertinacity 
 and more success, to the destruction of that system; both, 
 however, harmonized then, and through many years continued 
 to harmonize, in sentiments of philanthropy to their servants, 
 if not to the world. High in the list, with peculiar appropri- 
 ateness, occurs the name of Dr. William Thornton, one of the 
 earliest, most self-denying, and enthusiastic advocates of the 
 project of African colonization. Daniel Webster, thus early 
 in his grand career, bears testimony to the value of a move- 
 ment which, had not cross-grained human nature intervened, 
 would have maintained inviolate both Union and Constitution. 
 Richard Bland Lee, J. Mason, Geo. A. Carroll, Bushrod Wash- 
 ington, and others, gracefully remind us that Maryland and 
 Virginia were as forward in giving their representative men 
 to the cause as they were, afterward, persevering in maintain- 
 ing colonies under its auspices. William Meade, whose apos- 
 tolic zeal and happy combination of human learning with 
 Christian graces has made him known and dear to multitudes 
 who never heard his voice, is an appropriate forerunner of the 
 many accomplished divines, from the Episcopal and other 
 Churches, who have since fostered the work. I must forbear 
 for want of time, mentioning only one other name — that of 
 the talented lawyer, Francis S. Key, whose "Star-spangled 
 Banner" will in all likelihood continue to be sung by enthu- 
 
And Christian Missions. 15 
 
 siastic millions in America for centuries to come, as has Luther's 
 battle hymn in Germany for centuries past. 
 
 It matters not how we take up the history of this American 
 Colonization Society, in its remote conception, in its birth, 
 through its infancy to a now vigorous youth, always, it bears 
 testimony strong and impregnable that its aims are good — 
 good for America, good for Africa, good for the Church of 
 God. 
 
 To give, even succinctly, an account of the development 
 and results of the Society, at home and in its African colony 
 of Liberia, would require so much space that I am unwilling 
 to tax farther the pafience of my readers.* I content myself 
 with the broad but emphatic statement that the grand result 
 obtained, and fully compensating for all, and a thousand-fold 
 more than all, its cost, is hope — hope for Africa, hope for the 
 African race in America. Liberia opens the door to a conti- 
 nent, and holds out an excelsior banner to a race. The salva- 
 tion of the African race in America depends upon their 
 entering that door and grasping that banner. Shakspeare 
 never more singularly exhibited his wonderful talent of seiz- 
 ing at a glance and describing by a word' the true characteris- 
 tics of individuals, classes, and nations than when he called 
 France God's own soldier. Devotion to an idea has given 
 France, since the days of Clovis, preeminence among the 
 nations of Europe. A proof of vanity it may be, but a source 
 of noble deeds, drawing upon it the admiration of Islam no 
 less than of Christendom, is the "idea that to France belong 
 the defense and protection of the Christian faith. The salva- 
 tion of the Western world from the swarming hordes of Sara- 
 
 *Dr. S. D. Baldwin well epitomizes the progress made some twenty- 
 years since, in the following passage on page 456 of "Dominion: " " For 
 thirty years an experiment of thus redeeming Africa has been under 
 the direction of private benevolence. For ten years a republic, growing 
 out of colonization, has been in prosperous existence; and each success- 
 ive year has increased the products of the country fifty per cent. Libe- 
 ria is the most remarkable political phenomenon in history. It alone, of 
 all the nations ever organized, arose without bloodshed. With the most 
 exuberant soil, and the most favorable of climates, with the greatest 
 variety of fruits and indigenous staples, it has advantages for the site of 
 Hamitic dominion which no other part of Africa affords." 
 
16 African Colonization 
 
 cens, the brilliant deeds of two centuries of crusades in Pal- 
 estine, and in all the East, iift^es Frank sj'nonymous with 
 Christian, justifies this high assumption, and removes it far 
 from the category of empty braggadocio. The idea of liberty, 
 as carried out by self-government, is the basis of American 
 nationality. The development of this idea has given it a place 
 among nations never reached before in so short a period. The 
 abandonment of this idea will speedily consign it to an effete 
 corruption. Every people must have some high ideal after 
 which to aspire. This ideal is its soul; when acted upon, the 
 people have life, and more or less, according to its felt influ- 
 ence. Now, what other ideal is there, or can there be, for the 
 African race in the United States than that which has for a 
 full century been so modestly, yet hopefully, enunciated by 
 themselves — the regeneration of Africa by and through them; 
 and how hopeless all such aspirations but for the good work 
 so patiently performed through the Colonization Society. 
 Thus we have seen the patient labor of a half-century result 
 in the secure establishment of a Christian republic on the 
 western coast of Africa, occupying just the latitudes pecul- 
 iarly unfit for the labors of Caucasian missionaries, although 
 inhabited by teeming millions of natives in various stages of 
 barbarism. Just contemporary with this result we have 
 another, illustrating the doctrine, so dear to every devout 
 mind, of an overruling and directing Providence. For three 
 thousand years, or more, the Sphynx has been the emblem of 
 Africa. With the exception of a narrow rim, the continent 
 has been a vast unknown region to the active and enterprising 
 nations around, whose emissaries have vainly endeavored to 
 penetrate its recesses and unveil its mysteries. Within a score 
 of years the veil has commenced to rise, the Sphynx is show- 
 ing its proportions, the riddle is being solved. This remarka- 
 ble progress in geographical discovery has been compassed 
 mainly through the persevering efforts of Christian mission- 
 aries, of whom the heroic Livingstone is a type. Another 
 twenty years of such effort and discovery will make us 
 acquainted with the great features of all central Africa. 
 
 As our knowledge of this region extends, we find many 
 tribes with a rude civilization equal, at least, to that of our 
 
And Christian Missions. 17 
 
 own forefathers in the wikls and fastnesses of German}-, less 
 than two thousand years ago, when the Roman legions vainly 
 attempted to penetrate and suhdue that region. What Pao-an 
 Eome signally failed to do. Christian Rome as signally accom- 
 plished, and specially through the extensive German element 
 introduced and incorporated into Rome by the results of sev- 
 eral centuries of war. "What more reasonable and sober- 
 minded analogy can be drawn from any comparison of past, 
 present, and probable future events, than that the fast-increas- 
 ing millions of Africans in America, acting upon their own 
 countrymen in Africa, through the firmly secured base line 
 of Liberia, and during century after century, may accomplish 
 a similar wonderful result. 
 
 The grandest revolution in the world's history, so far as we, 
 that is, all Europe and America, are concerned, is the one 
 wdiich changed the great plains of northern, and the moun- 
 tain fastnesses of central, Europe into the strongholds of 
 Christian faith, learning, art, science, and government. This 
 revolution was the work of not less than ten centuries of con- 
 tinuous efibrt and struggle. Its history fills volumes upon 
 volumes, from the inspired pen of Paul to the eloquent pages 
 of the pure and charitable Montalembert. Our all is con- 
 tained in that history. How perfectly rational, by the light 
 of past Providence and the clear words of Holy Scripture, is 
 the belief that the real solution of that problem w^hich for a 
 century has perplexed the minds of our good men and great, 
 of our Washingtons and Jetlersons, ourEveretts and Greens, 
 our Finleys and Breckinridges, our Alexanders and Baldwins, 
 to-wit., the problem of Africa in America, will thus find its 
 glorious and happy solution. As Rome, conquered by Ger- 
 many, redeemed and disenthralled Germany from the depths 
 of barbaric superstition and misery, so may America compen- 
 sate enslaved Africa for centuries of unchristian violence by 
 imparting to her the light and life of the gospel. In the one 
 case good w^as returned for evil; in the other, evil is atoned 
 for by good. In both cases the wonder-working providence 
 of the Judge of all the earth overrules evil for good. 
 
 Africa in America ! How strangely blended together have 
 been the fortunes of the two most contrasted families of the 
 2 
 
18 African Colonisation 
 
 human race in this great American government from its ver}^ 
 conception until now, and how perfectly probable that through- 
 out remote generations so long as the nation endures this 
 intercommunity, shall continue to exist and to exercise as 
 heretofore a predominant influence upon the country at large. 
 ISTothina: is so durable as race. Even a small remnant of a 
 people will maintain its ground for many centuries, under 
 every disadvantage, external and internal. History is full of 
 examples. AVe have now some five millions of African peo- 
 IDle within our borders. In due time their descendants will 
 be the double and the quadruple of this number, which again 
 will be very much increased and fostered by the absorption 
 of the AVest Indies and the remainder of the North Ameri- 
 can Continent, evidently a question of merely a few years less 
 or more. These millions will not be everywhere dispersed 
 and assimilated. Just the opposite. They will probably con- 
 gregate in the cities and towns of the temperate South, and 
 upon the cotton and sugar lands of the more tropical regions. 
 In either case they will remain in large bodies; they will be 
 a people within a people. 
 
 Occupying this position, their advancement and welfare 
 will depend very much upon the spirit and wisdom displayed 
 by the surrounding millions toward them. Kindly, consider- 
 ately, and wisely treated, they will continue as heretofore to 
 be the most valuable portion of the community as a wealth- 
 producing factor, while steadily developing in moral and intel- 
 lectual qualities. Unwise and unchristian conduct may con- 
 vert them into pariahs and paupers. They are with us and of 
 us. The thirty-five millions of Caucasians now dwelling 
 between the two oceans have that at stake in their upward or 
 downward progress which cannot be ignored, as will their 
 grandchildren of the one hundred and fifty millions. In the 
 duty so plainly devolved upon America of transforming and 
 Christianizing Africa, all Americans should unite, impelled 
 so to do not less from Christian principle than by due regard 
 to self-interest. 
 
 We cannot think of any field for Christian and philan- 
 thropic efitbrt so worthy the attention and continued liberality 
 of our Northern brethren as that discussed in this article. A 
 
And Christian Missions. 19 
 
 very large portion of Isl'ortbern wealth is the result of negro 
 labor. Looking through two centuries, a vast balance is due 
 the negro from the accumulated wealth of the centers of 
 commerce. Let this balance, in some small degree, be 
 promptly reduced by the complete endowment of schools and 
 colleges in Liberia, by the support of numerous missions in 
 all the country contiguous, and by generous efforts to foster 
 and develop the infant republic in every possible direction. 
 Let the work, as yet but just commenced, of supplying schools 
 for general and special instruction of high grade in teachers 
 and outiit, to the African communities in our own land, be 
 vigorously and earnestly pushed forward with reference to 
 long protracted and patient working. To us, knowing some- 
 what by riersonal observation of what has been done in the 
 South in this respect, and placing full value upon the work of 
 the many good men and women engaged in teaching in such 
 institutions as Fisk University, and others too numerous to 
 specify, and at the same time knowing how lavish of means 
 the rich men of the ISTorth have been in the last ten years for 
 educational purposes, it is matter of astonishment that so lit- 
 tle has been done toward the building and endowing of 
 churches, schools, and colleges, for this people. Here is a 
 great work to be done. It ought to be done speedily. It is 
 the natural and appropriate work of the good people of the 
 North. 
 
 If the material should come from the North, the spiritual 
 must come from the South. It is with the Southern people 
 that the African always has been and always must be neigh- 
 bor. A constant contact and association exists. Let the good 
 Christian people of the South quietly, conscientiously, and 
 earnestly contemplate the duties thus imposed upon them as 
 individuals and as a body. Ignoring all the vexations, trou- 
 bles, and annoyances springing from the untoward events con- 
 nected v»-itli a deep-seated revolution of, for, and in which the 
 good-natured African was certainly as innocent as innocence 
 could be, let the whites cultivate a kindly temper toward 
 them, and show a friendly interest in their well-being. Search 
 the annals of history, and in vain will we seek for another 
 instance in which an enslaved race has deserved so well of its 
 
20 African Colonization. 
 
 masters as has this. By two centuries of patient toil they 
 developed and enriched the South. Through four years of 
 internecine civil war no San Domingo hand of revolt, sedi- 
 tion, mutiny, was lifted up by them. They thus demonstrated 
 to all the world that their eight millions of masters were not 
 merciless despots, and that contrary to all outside views a 
 kindly feeling did exist between the two races. On the other 
 hand, when in the vicissitudes of the revolution the masters 
 were disfranchised, and the late slaves became dominant, we 
 know from a wide-extended observation and information that 
 the late masters at least took the change with great patience 
 and good nature. Surely if in the midst of slavery, war, and 
 chaotic government, so much of kindly good feeling prevailed, 
 there can be no doubt but that hereafter the whites and the 
 blacks will live alongside each other wnth mutual good will 
 and good offices. This is one of the best omens that a pros- 
 perous and happy future awaits the African people in America. 
 In thus reviewing and commenting upon the historj' of the 
 American Colonization Society, I cannot avoid the reflection 
 now that the record, written in the blood of heroes and the 
 tears of widows and orphans, and sealed with a debt which 
 will burden unborn millions has passed into history, how 
 much to be lamented it is that the gentle, humane, consider- 
 ate, and peace-making views of its advocates found no favor 
 with the American people, and that each section of the coun- 
 try preferred to follow the counsels of violent and selfish men. 
 In medio tutissimus ibis. Reform, not revolution, saves a 
 nation. "When the Colonization Society was founded, the 
 friends of emancipation were numerous and influential, and 
 outspoken in all the border States. Born in one of the mid- 
 dle slave States, and, during a life-time, conversant with the 
 people of the border and adjoining States, I am perfectly sure 
 that under the quiet influence of the Constitution, and the 
 active efl-brts of the Churches, the same results would have 
 followed in these States as in those farther ISTorth. The Chris- 
 tian sentiment of the country was in favor of freedom, but it 
 was not in favor of robber3^ and covenant breaking. Left to 
 work out the problem, a solution would have been found cer- 
 tainly far less costly, perhaps quite as speedy, as that which 
 
And Christian Missions. 21 
 
 has been brought about by the combined action and reaction 
 of the hostile factions whose infuriate or selfish clamor was 
 poured out against all friends of peace and conciliation. 
 Three thousand millions of dollars is a high estimate of the 
 capital invested in slaves when the civil war commenced. 
 The debt incurred hy the nation at large for quarreling will 
 not, when properly estimated, be much less. The expendi- 
 tures by the Confederate States for war purposes could not 
 have been less, while the destruction of cotton, houses, fences, 
 stock, and so on, was, perhaps, much more. Nine thousand 
 millions has been the prime cost in money. 'No figures can 
 estimate that of life. To the historian of a distant future 
 must be left the task of recording and judging its effects upon 
 the public and private morals of the nation. Hopeful myself 
 of the final result, because I believe" that divine Providence 
 has raised up this great republic for a work in the establish- 
 ment of Christianity comparable to that of Rome itself, yet 
 all candid men must see that American Republicanism has 
 been, and is now, passing through a terrible ordeal, because 
 its leaders have despised the wisdom which is from above, 
 which is gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of good works, 
 and have preferred to follow that which is sensual and devil- 
 ish, which makes men hateful and hating one another. 
 
 As forcibly describing the sentiment above-stated to have 
 widely prevailed through the slave-holding States, I may quote 
 from the works of the illustrious Benjamin Rush, a signer of the 
 Declaration of Independence, whose name is to-day held in 
 reverence by sixty thousand physicians, and who, in a remark- 
 able degree, united in himself the characteristics of scholar, 
 statesman, orator, physician, philanthropist, and Christian. 
 No man did more than he in shaping public opinion at the 
 time when a pebble thrown upon the surface rippled far and 
 wide. It is taken from a discourse delivered before the 
 American Philosophical Society, in which he alludes to " the 
 labors, the publications, the private letters, and prayers of 
 Anthony Benezet : " 
 
 " The State of Pennsylvania still deplores the loss of a 
 man in whom not only reason and revelation, but many of 
 the physical causes that have been enumerated, concurred to 
 
22 African Colonization 
 
 produce sucli attainments in moral excellency as have seldom 
 appeared in a liuman being. This amiable citizen considered 
 his fellow-creature, man, as God's extract from his own works; 
 and whether this image of himself was cut out from ebony 
 or copper, whether he spoke his own or a foreign language, 
 or whether he worshiped with ceremonies or without them, 
 he still considered him as a brother, and equally the object of 
 his benevolence. Poets and historians, who are to live here- 
 after, to you I commit his panegyric ; and when you hear of 
 a law for abolishing slavery in each of the American States, 
 such as was passed in Pennsylvania in the year 1780 ; when 
 you hear of the kings and queens of Europe publishing 
 edicts for abolishing the trade in human souls; and, lastly, 
 when you hear of schools and churches, with all the arts of 
 civilized life, being established among the nations of Africa, 
 then remember and record that this revolution in favor of 
 human happiness was the effect of the labors, the publications, 
 the private letters, and the prayers of Anthony Benezet." 
 
 That at one time a wide-spread dissatisfaction with slavery, 
 and a consequent readiness for a wisely-planned emancipa- 
 tion policy, did prevail throughout the South as the fruit of 
 the teachings of great men in the slave-holding States, like 
 Push, Jefl'erson, Mason, liandolph, and many others, is per- 
 fectly well known to all those acquainted with its literature 
 or social circles. Samuel Davies Baldwin, the acute, the 
 imaginative, the devout, whom the cholera, in 1866, carried ofl* 
 in his meridian of brilliant usefulness, and who left the entire 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in a sorrow and mourn- 
 ing sympathized with by all the admirers of genius and 
 piety, makes a striking allusion to the fact in the following 
 passage, taken from his original and singular book, "Domin- 
 ion:" "When the Hamites were a burden, and the South, 
 restless under the incubus, would have foregone the gift of 
 Heaven, severing it from the flying train of human advance- 
 ment, God then rebound the black and the white together by 
 new bonds of wealth. He whitened the Southern fields with 
 new and fleecy riches, and, vivifying our spacious vales with 
 more than cereal plenty, he made the servant a useful tenant 
 to the lord." 
 
And Christian Missions. 
 
 9SK 
 
 Quoting this passage from Dr. Baldwin for the strong words 
 incubus and burden, we cannot let it go forth without correct- 
 ing the erroneous impression it conveys, honestly enough, 
 however, from the writer's peculiar stand-point and ohject. 
 Others, from a different stand-point, and from very different 
 motives, have represented the sudden and blunt stoppage of 
 emancipation as the result of the annexation of Louisiana, 
 Whitney's invention, and cotton culture. A correct analysis 
 of history will show that it was not caused by the consequence 
 of these events, but by political agitation. 
 
 But still a stronger testimony. When the Confederate 
 War was scarcely hushed, while as yet weeping and des- 
 olation were to be heard and seen from the broad Potomac to 
 the turbid Rio Grande, there came from throughout this wide 
 expanse the deep-drawn sigh of relief and consolation, w4iich 
 found its utterance through the impetuous, frank-spoken Gov- 
 ernor Wise, of Virginia, and the versatile, gifted President 
 Longstreet, of Mississippi and South Carolina : "At all events, 
 we are rid of African slavery, thanks be to God!" This 
 utterance, reechoed by multiplied thousands, shows that we 
 have not judged amiss the Christian South. 
 
 In 1834, during a visit to the city of New York, I witnessed 
 the first display of military force called out by the passions 
 of unreasonable men. It was a regiment or tw^o of New 
 York militia, detailed to protect a few industrious African 
 draymen and hackmen from the selfish interference of an 
 Irish mob. Wise men then said that if all these questions 
 were left to the decision of the Christian conscience of the 
 country, it would be well, but that if men seeking ofiice took 
 them up, woe would betide the land. Politicians did enter 
 the arena. Section was arrayed against section, and in 1864 
 the country, as all will agree, was upon the verge of ruin. 
 That the great Republic was not so broken up, that extensive 
 portions were absorbed by powerful and jealous European 
 nations, which plotted and hoped for our destruction, must be 
 ascribed to a higher Power, and not to our wisdom. Ought 
 not the Christian Churches of our land to have stemmed this 
 torrent of wild, raging passion during all its formative period, 
 by preaching loudly and clearly, " Glory to God in the high- 
 
24 African Colonization and Christian Missions. 
 
 est, and on earth, peace, good will toward men"? By so 
 doing, the storm might have been averted, and certainly its 
 duration and violence would have been greatly lessened. 
 "When office-seekers were engaged in arraying section against 
 section, the duty of peace-makers was obvious. To-day 
 another cloud no larger than a man's hand is faintly seen all 
 around the horizon. Mutterings of a storm fill the atmos- 
 phere. If that storm breaks, the mighty convulsions we have 
 so recently witnessed will sink into insignificance in the com- 
 parison. Let us give heed to the signs of the time. Let us 
 remember that reform, not revolution, has given stability and 
 permanence to the institutions of our grand old mother. 
 Great Britain. Let us also remember that this English spirit 
 of peaceful reform, as contrasted with bloody French revolu- 
 tion, is an ofishoot of Bible Christianity. Let us preach 
 peace always : peace between sections, peace between classes. 
 So will it come to pass that the IsTorth American Continent 
 will become the grandest theater of all those arts, sciences, 
 and virtues, begotten and fostered of peace, ever gilded by 
 the rays of the efi'ulgent globe which is the emblem of our 
 Master, the Prince of Peace, the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
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