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Cb80251

YALB UNIVERSITY

THE EXODUS:
Its Effect upon the People of the South.
Colored Labor not Indispensable.

A]ST ADDRESS

DELIVERED HEFOUE THE
Board of Directors

JANUARY 21, 1880,
— BY —
Rev. C. K. MARSHALL, D. D.,
Of Vicksbuiig, Ass.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

washington city :
Colonization Rooms, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue.
18S0.

Extract from the Minutes of the Board of Directors of the
American Colonization Society, at the Annual Meeting held in
Washington, D. C, January 21, 1880 :
" On motion, it was
"Resolved, That the thanks of the Board are hereby tendered to the
Rev. C. K. Marshall, D.D., of Vicksbiu-g, Miss., for his able, interest
ing, and instructive Address just delivered, and that he be requested to
furnish a copy of the same with a view to publication."
A true copy. Attest : William Coppinger, Secretary.

address.

Mr. President :
For many years I have taken a deep interest in the labors of
the Society over which you so fittingly preside. I have studied
its principles, watched with sympathy its achievements, and prayed
for its success. At the South, since the war, we have been so
rocked upon stormy billows, that we have not had the time or
means to keep up our former interest in the Society, and it seems
almost as if the Society and the South had mutually forgotten each
other. Nevertheless the institution has survived the thousand perils of
the past, and it is to-day a living entity — healthy, brave, and pre
pared for carrying on its work ; and to me it seems as if, though
it is the sixty-third anniversary of your life, your real work has
scarcely commenced. As a child, as a youth, it has been full of
promise and has accomplished much, as some youths perform
manly work before their beards are grown. But a new era has
dawned upon this land ; old things have passed away — new things
wear their shoes ; new forms of evil have arisen, and philanthropic
men are looking to find appropriate remedies for them, while old
grievances must be remedied by fresh and energetic measures.
The South is no longer what it was when this Society was or
ganized. The Negro is no longer a bondsman. Nor yet is he
*Note. — It is proper that I should say the address is the substance of
what was said on the occasion of its delivery in the city of Washington,
and, I regret to say, is my first contribution of the sort to the objects of
the Society. Some points have been forgotten, others enlarged and hints
amplified to bring out the suggestions which time did not admit of full
utterance. It would never have been written but for the unexpected
resolution passed by the Board asking for it. Imperfect and too hastily
written, I yet consent to its publication in hope of its doing some good.
The exodus I have somewhat encouraged, even to the West, hoping that
its soil might prove an eye-salve to its blinded victims. C. K. 51.
Vicksbueg, 5Iiss., January, 1S80.

altogether a freeman. In his interest this Society specially toils.
But our entire people — 40,000,000 of Caucasians — are alike bet
tered by your labors and victories. As the friend of the colored
race I speak to you. I have lived among them ; preached to
them ; witnessed their progress as slaves ; have seen their devel
opment into Christian character ; watched the great improvement
of their physical and social condition for half a century ; and I do
not believe the peasantry of any country, ancient or modern, ever
made so great progress in any ten decades as the negroes of the
South have clone; — nor do I believe any other peasantry ever
enjoyed so much of life, or were so comfortably clothed, fed, and
lodged. To no other peasantry has the Gospel ever been more
faithfully preached, nor a higher type of churchmanship evolved.
Still the Negro is less comfortable, less moral, less happy now than
formerly, with exceptional cases. He has learned the multiplica
tion table, and forgotten his prayers. However, he is capable of
great improvement, and ought to be furnished with a suitable field
and proper facilities for the progress in education, religion, art,
science, agriculture, and government of which he is capable. But,
as the Kev. Mr. Bryant, the Liberian, who addressed the Society last
night, observed most wisely and suggestively, " the Negro can never
rise to any eminence or honor on the American Continent." The
Caucasian lifts his unattainable altitude in his presence and over
whelms and disheartens him. Among millions of his own race, it
would be quite otherwise. African citizenhood would furnish inspir
ing and possible standards of attainment, and he would gladly
compete in the race for the higher prizes and places among his
own people, while future years would perhaps lift a higher stand
ard still. Not only is the white standard discouragingly high as he
now regards it, but his great change of relationships has not been
satisfactorily favorable to his improvement. He was emancipated
from commercial bondage to be enthralled in the meshes of polit
ical jugglery, and consequently he is still an article of trade. The
ballot-box is his bane. As a voter he can be transported to cold,
inhospitable climes, and to conditions and surroundings utterly
fatal to his well-being. Hence the present exodus.
But I am far from believing in the disgraceful stories conjured
up concerning the oppression, cruelty, outrage, and violence im
posed upon him in his Southern home. These falsehoods have been
refuted over and again. Not that there may not have been many

.os and very little money made for a few years past, but
i. .. these matters the white people have suffered far more than
the blacks, and many of them have emigrated to other States in
hopes of bettering their affairs. Yet no howl is heard for them.
The causes of negro discontent are involved in no mystery, — are
patent to every calm and unbiased observer.
His confidence has been abused — his hopes blasted. Promises
made to him remain as dead as they were when made. For prom
ised bread, he was given a stone ; for an egg, a scorpion ; for a
fish, a serpent. Like great wealth thrust suddenly upon an inexpe
rienced and imperilled youth, emancipation naturally dazed him.
Yesterday at the handles of the plow ; to-day at the helm of State.
Yesterday an honored barber ; to-day the governor of a common
wealth. Yesterday a faithful coachman ; to-day a legislator. Yes
terday a humble, plain, respectful field-hand ; to-day a member of
Congress. Poor yesterday and a thrall as well ; to-day he is court
ed, caressed, and taken into the confidence, the counsels, and the
patronage of the learned, the powerful and great. Yesterday he
drove a cart; to-day he is a justice of the peace; — not for his
learning in legal lore, but for his African descent. Penniless to
day, he is told, and believes it, that to-morrow he "will receive
from the general government forty acres and a mule."' Alas ! to
him it is all dead leaves and chaff. His elevation was transitory.
His hopes were not realized. His pretended friends pledged,
vowed, and promised — only to drop him on the cold rocks. The
South, following the example of the North, has gradually reduced
the negro to a plane as unimportant and as destitute of distinction
as that of the negro of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New
York. A thousand things combine to fill him with feelings of dis
content. He is now told of Kansas. Flaming pictures, and false
as gaudy, are spread before him to show the ease, wealth, luxury,
and independence of the black man in Kansas. Agents penetrate
the whole South and preach the shining prospects of an exodus
to Kansas. Fine houses, fertile lands, mules, money, and all de
sirable things await his arrival in the promised land — the Canaan
of Kansas.
Now, to me, Mr. President, this is a matter of very great signif
icance, — this unrest of the ex-slave. It is well-nigh universal.
Many of. the best conditioned, the most respected, and the most
thrifty, have left homes and gone to Kansas and Indiana, while

tens of thousands of American white families never tasted or knew
anything equal to the comforts and advantages from which they
have fled as "refugees." (?) We know that the grossest falsehoods
have been employed ; we know that the most iniquitous measures
have been adopted to stimulate the negro to emigrate. Still all
that does not account for the phenomenon of general unrest.
Birds of passage never migrate in June ; nor do they all rise at
one signal and fly in a body. A few storks, a small number of
cranes or swallows will lead off, and then a few more, before the
final departure. Nor do they always abide in the fields or forests,
lakes or streams where they may have first alighted for rest, or
food, or exploration.
So this exodus is, to my view, preliminary. A few thousands
will take wing. But it is monitory, and must command the atten
tion of the political economist, the statesman, the churchman, and
the planter. In all probability, New-Year's day on the morning
of the 1st of January, 1920, the colored population in the South
will scarcely be counted. Perished, emigrated, vanished. A few
old people will linger, as the Cberokees do on their reservation
in North Carolina, and a small number here and there who may
still earn precarious bread as they pass away. Long before that
period, ten millions of bales of cotton will be raised by white
labor, and the manufacture of eight-tenths of the cotton fabrics
will be the work of the South. But this exodus is out of season.
" The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times ; and the
turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the times of their
coming." This exodus is a sort of abnormal flight in mid-summer.
But the normal season may not be many decades in the future.
However, I must glance over the past a little and trace the
strange events that have culminated in the astonishing and signifi
cant facts which now environ us.
The eyes of all the foremost nations of the world are now fixed
upon Africa as never before. Until a recent period that undiscov
ered continent was an iron-bound and steel -clasped Volume.
Numerous bold, intelligent adventurers for ages fretted and filed
its massive and resisting coverings and pried laboriously at its in
terlacing clasps — but all in vain. Other fearless endeavors of
courageous men resulted in forcing the bindings and scanning the
preface- Now pause a moment and look in another direction. See Clark-

son and Wilberforce knocking, as original abolitionists, at the
doors of the British Parliament, on the one hand, and African
explorers, on the other, laboring to open and enter the hidden
land. Both parties are alike repulsed. Then the doctrines of those
leaders of the battle take root in American soil ; and the scenes
of the Niger and the Parliament are in other forms re-enacted
here. The demands of abolitionism are imperious and alarming
as a new factor in American controversy, and rapidly growing to
stalwart proportions.
On the other hand stands the "American Colonization Socie
ty." The organization was the outgrowth of as pure an element
of Christian philanthropy as ever moved the breasts of men.
Disinterested almost beyond a parallel, its purposes and aims were
at once so Christian, so benevolent, so practical, that the most
eminent statesmen, civilians and divines, North and South, bestowed
the influence of their names, their time and labor and money, to
promote the grand work taken in hand. Emigrants are settled in
Liberia. The colony becomes a reality ; its republican govern
ment a fixed fact. A great problem is solved. Still contending
elements struggle for the mastery at home. Meantime explorers
push their tents a little further inward on the barbarous coasts —
but the book is not opened — -Grod's hour has not struck !
Then came our war, rolling its fiery billows over the land "with
confused noise and garments rolled in blood." But Livingstone is
turning back the heavy lids of the mysterious Volume under the
torrid blaze of Africa's equatorial suns, undisturbed by " the battle
of the warrior." Years of fearful havoc rage and roll away.
Finally the Union stands ! And with the Union four millions
of slaves rise up divested of their ligaments of bondage.
Then the world is startled and shocked at the news of the death
of Livingstone in the African jungles. Nations mourn him dead
and write his epitaph ! Not dead but lost ! This singular event
made Stanley possible. He comes to the front with a mission
more perilous than Jason's, seeking the golden fleece. A born
explorer, — intrepid, persevering, intelligent ; the man for the emer
gency, he moves steadily on to victory. Livingstone survives !
Stanley is fired with new zeal for exploration, and soon lifts to
view one of the sublimest spectacles any traveller ever achieved.
His name will go down to the ages and generations as one of the
greatest known geographical discoverers. Nor less remarkable

6

is the fact that a young American, James Gordon Bennett, was
the generous and philanthropic person who furnished the outfit
and sustained and cheered the brave explorer. Livingstone, Ben
nett, Stanley ! What a trine of names ! Names which must live
for ages among the millions of Africa and run like a golden thread
through the songs, narratives, and orations of the coming genera
tions of enlightened African peoples. Brothers in noble deeds —
a unit in fame — their memories are embalmed in the grateful
benedictions of the civilized world. Africa is redeemed ! The
formidable clasps are ground to powder, the massive coverings
torn away, and the mystic Volume laid open to the inspection and
perusal of all nations.
Let us now return home and observe another and most signifi
cant event, as an important item in this singular combination.
After the conflict of arms the South was too impoverished to
render any considerable aid to the education of the young freed-
man. However, assistance came. Nine universities and near
ly thirty colleges have already been established for the fullest
practical development of the freedman's capabilities. More re
cently the Southern States have contributed by legislative appro
priations for his education. Five hundred young men of African
blood will be graduated annually from these schools in the near
future ; then a thousand, and so will they probably continue in
creasing for years to come.
Now comes unrest ; now a strange desire for a permanent home —
a final abode — a national autonomy.
The sentiment may take on multifarious shapes as the mind is
capable of greater or lesser grasp. But migration will from this
time forward, in some form or other, from one or many and quite
dissimilar motives, become the significant event among the peo
ple of African descent.
Migration is the normal condition of the human race. It is the
founder of nationalities. It is the fertilizer of decaying races.
It is the almoner of science and literature. It is the parent of
commerce ; the civilizer of barbarians and savages ; the hope
of the unfortunate and the refuge of the down-trodden. It is the
Christianize!- of all peoples. It commenced at the gates of Eden,
and its pilgrims are still moving on, asking the way to a resting-
place and a home. It will be the salvation of Africa. As the
colored people increase in knowledge, as the number of educated

men and women increase, they will naturally desire a field for the
employment of their abilities. They are ambitious ; they are
progressive ; they are capable. Many instances illustrative could
be furnished, but I aim at too great brevity to rehearse them.
Suffice it to say that in the languages, in mathematics, in architect
ural and mechanical drawing, in manufactures, and many other
branches of knowledge and labor and learning, they have taken
the Southern people — the most intelligent of them — by surprise.
What then ? Unrest ! And why ? Because he has culminated ;
and as a politician, as a molder of the fortunes of the people,
he is rapidly declining. Wax and wane he may, but he will
chiefly wane. And ten thousand Negro scholars, many of whom
will be capable of professorships in respectable colleges, will only
find a support (as some are now doing) in the dull round of plan
tation labor, far from educated companionship and congenial asso
ciations. Trades they cannot learn. Ask the "trades-unions" of
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore how many Negroes
belong to them ? How many Negroes in the old free States are
apprenticed to learn printing, shoemaking, carving, carpentering,
engraving, paper-making, telegraphing, engineering, or any other
mechanical pursuit ? Nearly none ; practically none. White men
in the South are intermingled in those pursuits and vocations with
emigrants from the North, and they brought their theories and
demands of the trades-unions with them, so that American senti
ment in those imperious unions on these questions is a unit. The
Negro is excluded from learning trades. Briefly, view the situa
tion from what point of the political, social, and industrial com
pass you may, the Negro must forever remain a dwarf on Ameri
can soil.
Senator Windom says the Negro is or has been " the foot-ball of
politics." And his experiments on the " ball " entitle his opinions
to great consideration. The natural state of a "ball" is motion.
And the same service and uses of the " ball " heretofore will here
after and to the bitter end be the rule. The contending forces
will seize or repel the vagrant "ball," kicking it hither and thither,
as long as it is a political factor. It is this base use of the colored
man that re-enslaves him. He asks for real freedom, but only
a sort of tantalizing nebulous thing is attained, North or South.
Each generation will decline in manhood, in aspiration, in refine
ment, in real ability and solid comfort where he now frets out his

weary days without any hopes of a really noble future. White
labor will — must take his place.
Three-fifths of the 900,000 bales of cotton made in Texas in
1879, as I am informed by an intelligent citizen of that State, were
made by white labor, and the cotton made by the Germans com
manded one cent per pound more than the cotton raised by the
Negro. And what is true of Texas is soon to be realized in facts
and figures in other States. And if this is an over-estimate, the
forthcoming census report will place the matter correctly before
us. Planters have testified to the fact that some of the best crops
of sugar raised in Louisiana have been made by white labor.
Indeed, almost every nation is represented in the out-door labor
of the Southern States, and it will rapidly increase. It is the last
and only security of the South, and her path to prosperity, honor,
and peace.
Now, sir, put all these grave and telling considerations together,
and then say if it is wonderful that disquiet, disappointment, and
unrest should arise in the ranks of the freedman, or that he should
wish to try some new field of growth and improvement, in hopes
of advancing to a higher destiny. Nor should our citizens in the
cotton and sugar regions be surprised if the theory of emigration
so well-nigh universally discussed among the dark race should
finally crystallize into a fixed purpose to make the experiment on a
grand scale. And perchance in the end it will be found that the
strange impulse, like the November throbbings of the hearts of
migratory birds touched by a mysterious hand, shall indicate the
arrival of the tardy hour when some anointed leader shall step to
the front and speak: "Arise ; let us depart hence, for this is not
our rest." Kansas and the West and the present exodus thereto
are premature and premonitory, but preliminary and prophetic.
Now, Mr. President, what have we seen ? We have seen Africa
robbed of her children. Like the Babylonish garment and the
wedge of gold, the robbery was bold, dastardly, complete. Her
sons were sent round the world and sold in the shambles. It was
Achan's theft. But evil fell on the people among whom the spoils
were kept. It was not the crime of the South ; it was the crime of
America; it was the fearful crime of England. It was the terrible
and inexcusable transgression of the Achan of a sinister, impious,
and God- defying civilization.
What next ? Four millions of free and comparatively educated

9
barbarians. They may not know geometry and Greek, but they
have acquired muscle, manners, manliness, practical sense, busi
ness habits, the language of Shakspeare and Washington, the taste
ful uses of apparel, the arts of cookery, house-keeping, sewing,
nursing, waiting, and, in waiting, they have learned and caught the
best ideas, the greatest facts, the most valuable suggestions, and,
as a sort of confidant, were taken into the interests, the esteem,
the love, and honor of the master, the mistress, and the household.
All this, however, did not atone for Achan's guilt. It is a Babylon
ish garment ; it is a wedge of gold.
Then we see Clarkson and Wilberforce in England, like Joshua,
calling for the restoration of the spoils ; while Mungo Park, the
Landers, and others were preparing for the birth of a new world
and the restoration of the exiles to their own native homes. Af
terward came Livingstone, Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, Baker,
Cameron, and De Serpa Pinto, who, by their marvellous heroism,
self-sacrifice and devotion, have opened "the land of darkness as
darkness itself," so that from the Equator to the Cape of Good
Hope the way will soon be prepared for planting every enterprise
and establishing every mission the Christian world may undertake.
What now do we find as a coincidence so significant that no
thoughtful philanthropist can undervalue it ? We find, sir, The
American Colonization Society in the sixty-third year of its
successful labors, a living power, and a great Christianizing and
emigrating agency. Sir, your Society has solved every problem of
African colonization. You have been performing a work as provi
dential as any that goes to make up the wonderful movements in the
onward progress of the Negro problem. Liberia, with its healthy,
prosperous, useful population, many of whom were once slaves in
this country, is your answer to all fault-finders, critics, and calumni
ators, as it is an imperishable monument to the wisdom of your
founders and the fidelity, zeal, and perseverance of their successors
in the laborious offices of your Society.
Sir, I regard the discoveries in Africa, the emancipated Negro,
and the American Colonization Society, with its experience and
achievements of sixty-three years, as the peerless triumvirate of
the. nineteenth century. Your Society is nearly twice as old as the
American Missionary Societies for Africa, but, truth to say, is itself
a missionary society, and the parent of a large progeny of African
church missions.

10

Mr. President, it seems to me that your Society has just reached
the period in its growth and strength when its principal work is to
commence ; and what a work !
African explorers have laid a continent at your feet with a pop
ulation of more than 200,000,000 of souls. It possesses untold
resources in dye-woods, cotton, sugar, coffee, corn, rice, ginger,
indigo, tobacco, copper, gold, silver, iron, coal, diamonds, ivory,
gums, and birds and beasts, which in all past time have possessed
great commercial value. Her rivers are large, deep, and navigable
for great distances, and the Nile, Congo, Niger, and Zambesi are
now ready to bear the commerce of any people bold enough and
enterprising enough to accept the boundless treasure. Soils the
richest and most productive in the world lie by millions of square
miles in their virgin state. No plow has disturbed the slumber of
its valleys and plains since the morning stars sang together over
the birth of the world. That vast bonanza of continental wealth
is to be developed and utilized, and its myriads of untaught and
benighted peoples are to be Christianized and taught the arts,
sciences, and literature of which they are capable, and a new
world is to be harnessed to the sisterhood of great nationalities —
as if the lost Pleiad had at last returned from banishment and
exile to the bosom and home of the rejoicing family. Every day
new stores of information will be flashed over the cable and out
of the morning journals of the hitherto unheard of findings and
progress of explorers, and we may look for wonders still greater
than any that have heretofore astonished us. Commercial claims
will force on us the study of the physical geography of that land,
and from new tribes and unknown kings we may soon receive
solicitations for teachers and missionaries, as King Mtsei desired
Stanley to call for teachers of the true religion for his people.
Sir, thus far Liberia has clone nobly. But it may be the dictate
of wisdom to plant another and an interior colony on the Con
go, or on the Niger. The place will soon speak for itself, if the
measure shall be deemed advisable. Obtain an expanded, well-
watered territory, as large as Texas, if need be : let it be in a
healthy country, with ready access by steamers, favorable for the
culture of the soil and commercial intercourse with the natives ;
let a great city be laid off for the capital ; give farms and imple
ments of husbandry, as far as practicable, to farmers, and town-
lots to mechanicians, teachers, and diligent families who can

11

take care of themselves in the city ; make it the Jerusalem of
missions, the domicil of their Boards of management, and banks
for the deposit of their funds, and the point of departure for
their steamers, and the center of their railroad system. In the
sure day that may come sooner than we think, New Orleans may
see her rival in commercial opulence near the mouth of one
of these great African rivers ; Chicago see her peer lift the monu
ments of commercial splendor on the shores of one of those
mighty lakes of recent discovery; while, like a new St. Louis,
the capital of the new-born nation shall sit as a queen and rule
over a regenerated republic of the Africans, for the Africans, by
the Africans. Establish schools, colleges, universities, and open
the way for the education of the natives and the renovation of the
race. Abolish the polyglottal gibberish in which the natives bab
ble, and fasten the English language to their lips. With few
exceptions, these languages hoard no learning, and are almost as
grammar-less as the vernacular of the paroquet.
Unless the forty new institutions of learning recently established
in the South for the education of the colored people have Africa
clearly in view as an ultimate end, they will prove of compara
tively little value to the race, as such.
To merely turn out hundreds of educated colored men and
women to float at large over the South, with Homer in one pocket
and a shoe -brush in the other, or with Euclid in one hand and a
coach- whip or a table-napkin in the other, is to minimize the whole
scheme of Negro education and open the way to make the condi
tion of real culture worse than the days of bondage.
We have already met several cases of young colored men on
whose education fond and hopeful parents had bestowed many a
hard-earned dollar, saved in bitter self-denial and sore privations
to pay for grammars and dictionaries for Virgil and Horace and
Euclid, who, after all, were like a man I knew who built a mill
upon the banks of a stream that strangely dried up before a wheel
was ever turned.
Open a continent to the capacities, ambition, and learning of
the young men who want to be useful and lay a permanent foun
dation for the prosperity of their race, and centuries will be
required in which to compute the beneficent results of their labor.
Africa, the Rachel of nations, has long mourned the robbery
and enslavement of her offspring. Let her not forever weep.

12

They are not slain. She shall see them again. And she shall be
comforted and compensated by the physical, mental, and moral
improvement their American school, in two hundred years, has
conferred upon them. For they will return with abilities never
heretofore possible of attainment on the dark continent. They
will return to the land of their sires not as superstitious, benighted
barbarians ; nor will they go pent and packed up in slave-ships
as sardines, or in chains as culprits guilty of the crime of having
been born, with a price fixed upon their heads, and terrorized by
heartless piratical brokers in human flesh who will regard them^as
a mere legal tender. No : they will return with stalwart physical
forms, manly vigor — womanly culture, refinement, and piety.
They will carry a higher type of intelligence and a wider range
of powers than were ever dreamed of by their most enlightened
ancestral seers ; a knowledge of science, agriculture, mechanism,
law, medicine, and divinity. They will go back with the Bible,
the Hymn-book, the Prayer-book — with the Church and its holy
sacraments — the holy Sabbath with its inspiring sanctities — with
the knowledge of the one true God, and Jesus Christ the adorable
Saviour. And in their new home, amidst its fragrant bowers, or
in the temples reared for worship, Heaven will bow His ear to hear
their prayers and the forests shall vibrate with their songs. They
will build the school-house, the college, the university ; they will
issue periodicals from their own presses, cloth from their own
looms, machinery from their own manufactories, shoes from their
own shops, coin from their own mints, cargoes of merchandise
from their own wharves, justice from their own courts, and laws
from their own Congress.
St. Paul says of the casting away of Israel, that its result was
the reconciling of the world ; and if so, then "what shall the re
ceiving of them be but life from the dead ?" And if casting out
from his native home of the enslaved and powerless African has
been the enrichment of the world, what shall his restoration be
but life from the dead, and life for the dead ? " For the Lord
shall comfort his people : He will comfort all her waste places,
and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like
the garden of the Lord ; joy and gladness shall be found therein ;
thanksgiving and the voice of melody." Yea : " The wilderness
and solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall re
joice and blossom as the rose ;" " for in the wilderness shall waters

13

break out, and streams in the desert," and "the parched land shall
become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water ;" and "the
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with songs and ever
lasting joy upon their heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
If, then, it is the purpose of God that the colored people of this
continent shall become the great civilizers, apostles, and teachers
of the millions of their ancestral home, who call to them in the
beseeching accents of the Macedonian necessity, is it not plainly
our duty to facilitate their endeavor and bid them God -speed?
If they believe they can improve their condition by emigration,
let us put no obstruction in their paths. If enticed to an uncon
genial clime, and for purely political ends, we may discourage and
counsel them against the fearful horrors that await them. The
West in rags and midwinter is murder, and thousands must perish
who try it. Birds that migrate without a leader, and before the
normal season, generally fall a prey to nets, and snares, and shot.
The colored man deserves well of the South. She has done and
is doing her best for him. Better she never will — she never can
do. If, then, he resolves to depart, he must not only depart
in peace, but go — not to frozen zones, not to a repelling popula
tion — not to a remote place of mere ballot-boxes, "foot-ball"
manipulators, and the bed and board of the Prodigal Son — not to
regions where, like a horse-block, he may help every adventurer to
mount to the saddle, but never be permitted to mount himself.
Rather let us " show unto them a more excellent way." Let us
see to it, if they will depart, "that as far as in us is" we will assist
them to find and settle in "a land flowing with milk and honey,"
where they will become the princes among their peoples, stand
up as the peers of the most exalted, and lay the foundations for a
continent to build upon for ages and generations to come. How
grand a mission !
Finally, sir, there remain certain things we may aim to accom
plish. It may take years, but "The American Colonization
Society" never dies. Among these — pardon my temerity — are :
1. The correction of the false impressions existing respecting
the aims and purposes of your Society. A new generation has
come up since the chief men of the South, in church and State,
were its advocates, supporters, and officers.
2. Re-enlist the chief clergymen of all denominations, with the

14

colored bishops and teachers, in the work of directing those who
desire to emigrate from the South to the superior advantages of
Africa. 3. Let as many colored people as desire become members of
branch organizations, and thus enter upon a calm, rational study
of the philosophy of emigration. It would prevent rash move
ments, lead to economy, and open a future at least for their chil
dren. 4. At a suitable time application must be made to Congress for
assistance in removing families to Africa. What is the government
going to do with 65,000,000 of dollars taken from the planters in
the darkest hour of destitution and trouble by the clearest viola
tion of the Constitution ? It is known as the cotton tax. A hand
some proportion of that great sum was collected from some millions
of bales of the last cotton that was made by slave labor. Perhaps
one-third of it could and should — but never will — be returned to the
proper parties. It is safe to say that two-thirds of it will never go
.out of the Treasury — if one dollar ever does — as a restored col
lection. Huge obstacles stand in the way. I am annoyed ; for I
am a loser. But may not some compromise be agreed upon and
the proper thing done, if the Negro wants to leave, that he may go
under cheering auspices ?
5. Should public-spirited and liberal citizens favor a new col
ony in the interior, let it be encouraged. It may rejuvenate and
inspire the feeble energies of many warm friends who need to be
lifted out of worn grooves into new, fresh, and energetic measures.
Liberia would profit by it.
6. It has long been a felt want for direct shipping to the west
ern coast of Africa from our own ports. American competition
in the English markets, under the very shadow of the British Par
liament, led an English statesman to say, recently, that Africa was
a new market and would take all her surplus goods. Very well.
American enterprise will carry goods from New York to Zanzibar
and to Timbuctoo, and must do it. Then a cheaper and more
direct passage will aid in the work of emigration.
7. In order to prepare young colored people for successful col
onization, every possible branch of labor, trades of every sort, and
the arts necessary to the building of comfortable communities and
families, should be taught in all the colored schools, if practicable.
Sir, doubtless all these matters have been revolved over and again

15

in the discussions of this Society, but, as I said, they have been
lost sight of with the passing away of the giants who once stood
up all over the South like colonnades of Corinthian pillars, at
once the support and the ornament of our commonwealths.
No doubt opposition to the views I have uttered will be mani
fested. Not, however, by those who comprehend the necessities,
the perils, and the fortunes of the fast-coming future. Nor will
great numbers of colored people at once give up the false views
they have long entertained. But a better day will come, and in
telligent colored people will heed the signal of the divine hand.
Africa shall be made new by the restoration of her banished sons.
Anil every breeze that blows shall waft
Her long-lost wanderers home.

3 9002

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

(President.
1853. Hon. JOHN H. B. LATROBE.
Vice 'Presidents.

1838.
1838. 184.1.1843.
1851. 1851.
1853.
1853.
1854. 1854.1854.1854.
1854.1854.1859.
1861. 1861.1861.
1866.1867.18A9.
1869.

Hon. Henry A. Foster, N. Y.
Hon. James Garland, Virginia.
Thomas R. Hazard, Esq., R. I.
Hon. Lucius Q_. C. Elmer, N. J.

1870. Robert Arthington, Esq., England.
1872. Rev. Ed. P. Humphrey, D. D., Ky.
1872. Harvey Lindsly, M. D., D. C.
1 874. Rev. Randolph S. Foster, D.D.,Mass.

Rev. Robert Ryland, D. D., Ky. 1874. Rt. Rev.Wm. B. Stevens, D. D., Pa.
Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, D. C. 1874. Hon. Eli K. Price, Pennsylvania.
Hon. Horatio Seymour, N. Y. 1874. Rt. Rev. Gregory T. Bedell, D. D.,0.
Edward McGehee, Esq., Miss. 1874. Theodore L. Mason, M. D., N. Y.
Rev. Matthew Simpson, D. D., Pa. 1875. Levi Keese, M. D., Mass.
Rev. Levi Scott, D. D., Del. 1875. Rt.Rev.M.A.DeW.Howe,D.D.,Pa.
Rev. Robert Paine, D. D., Miss. 1875. Samuel K. Wilson, Esq., N. J.
1876. Rev. Samuel E. Appleton, D. D., Pa.
1876. Rev. Jabez P. Campbell, D. D., Pa.
1876. Rev. H.M.Turner, D. D.LL.D.,Ga.
1877. Prest- E- G- Robinson, LL. D., R. I.
Rev.J. Maclean, D.D..LL.D., N.J. 1877. Rev. J. F.Elder, D. D., New^ork.
Hon. Ichabod Goodwin, N. H. 1877. Rev. W. E. Schenck, D. D., Pa.
Hon. William E. Dodge, N. Y. 1878. Hon. Richard W. Thompson, Ind.
Hon. James R. Doolittle, Wis. 1878. Com. R.W. Shur"eldt,U.S.N.,Conn.
Samuel A. Crozer, Esq., Pa. 1879. Hon. G. Washington Warren, Mass.
Hon. Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, N.J. 1880. Francis T. King, Esq., Maryland.
Rev. S.Irensus Prime, D.D., N.Y. 1880. Rev. S. D. Alexander, D. D., N. Y.

Rev. James C. Finley, Illinois.
Hon. John F. Darby, Missouri.
Hon. Joseph B. Crockett, Cal.
Hon. Henry M. Schieffelin, N. Y.

The figures before each name indicate the year of first election.

&mettcau <£olom?atton ^octetj).
Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D, C.

President— HON. JOHN H. B. LATKOBE.
Secretary and Treasurer— WILLIAM COPPINGEB, Esq.
Executive Committee.
Dr. Harvey Lindsly, Chairman.
William Gunton, Esq. Judge Charles C. Nott.
Hon. Petejb Parker. Reginald Fend all, Esq.
James C. Celling, LL. D. Rev. T. G. Addison, D. D.

TOEM OP BEQUEST,
I give and bequeath to The American Colonization Society the
sum of — — dollars.
(If the bequest is of personal or real estate, so describe it that it can
easily be identified.)

EMIGRATION TO LIBEEIA.
So numerous have the applications become, that The American
Colonization Society will hereafter give the preference, all other
things being equal, to those who will pay a part or the whole of the cost
of their passage and settlement in Tjiberia. Persons wisliing to remove
to that Republic should make application, giving their name, age, and
circumstances, addressed to William Coppinger, Secretary and Treas
urer, Colonization Rooms, Washington, D. C.

EDUCATION IN LIBEEIA.
The American Colonization Society is ready to receive, invest,.
and set apart, for the promotion of common-school education in Liberia,
all such sum or sums of money as may be given or bequeathed to it for
that purpose.
Funds for Liberia College may be remitted to Charles E.
Stevens, Esq., Treasurer, No. 40 state street, Boston. The best form
of donations and bequests is "The Trustees of Donations for
Education in Liberia."

Tli.mn.as McGill .«• do.. Printers, Washington, D. 6.

Qt-'^Xa \ r aJLl

YALE

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