Thoughts on African Colonization

'God has put a mark upon the black man.' … 'The God of Nature intended they should be a distinct, free and independent community.' – [New-Haven Palladium.]

'We do not ask that the provisions of our Constitution and statute book should be so modified as to relieve and exalt the condition of the colored people, whilst they remain with us. LET THESE PROVISIONS STAND IN ALL THEIR RIGOR, to work out the ultimate and unbounded good of this people. Persuaded that their condition here is not susceptible of a radical and permanent improvement, WE WOULD DEPRECATE ANY LEGISLATION THAT SHOULD ENCOURAGE THE VAIN AND INJURIOUS HOPE OF IT.' – [Memorial of the New-York State Colonization Society.]

'Let the wise and good among us unite in removing the blacks from the country. Would it not be expedient for the properly constituted authorities to prevent the manumission of slaves in every case, unless provision is made, at the same time, to secure their removal from the country?' – [Alexandria Gazette.]

'We should be in favor of the abolition of slavery, if its abolishment could be effected with safety, and the colored population sent back to Africa; but merely to have them obtain freedom and let loose upon society, would be the greatest curse that could befal them or community.' – [Essex Chronicle and County Republican.]

'THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WAS NO OBJECT OF DESIRE TO HIM, UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY COLONIZATION. So far was he from desiring it, unaccompanied by this condition, that HE WOULD NOT LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE ONE TOOK PLACE WITHOUT THE OTHER'!!! – [Mr Mercer's Speech in Congress.]

In order to wipe off the reproach due to this violent expulsion, it was necessary, on the part of the Society, to find some pretext that would not only seem to justify but confer credit on the measure. Accordingly, it agreed to represent the colored inhabitants of the United States as aliens and foreigners, who, cast upon our shores by a cruel fatality, were sighing to return to their native land. 'Poor unfortunate exiles!' – how touching the appeal, how powerful the motive to assist, how likely to excite the compassion of the nation! Ah! what an air of disinterested benevolence, of generous compassion, of national attachment, must such an enterprise wear in the eyes of the world! Who that loved his own country, and deprecated an eternal absence from it, could refuse to help in restoring the unfortunate Africans to their long-estranged home? Such was, and is, and is likely to be, the artifice resorted to, in order to cover a base conspiracy, and give popularity to one of the wildest and most disgraceful crusades the world has ever witnessed. Let the following evidence suffice:

'At no very distant period, we should see all the free colored people in our land transferred to their own country.' * * 'Let us send them back to their native land.' * * 'By returning them to their own ancient land of Africa, improved in knowledge and in civilization, we repay the debt which has so long been due them.' – [African Repository, vol. i. pp. 65, 146, 176.]

'And though we may not live to see the day when the sons of Africa shall have returned to their native soil,' &c. * * 'To found in Africa an empire of christians and republicans; to reconduct the blacks to their native land,' &c. – [Idem, pp. 13, 375.]

'Who would not rejoice to see our country liberated from her black population? Who would not participate in any efforts to restore those children of misfortune to their native shores?' * * 'The colored population of this country can never rise to respectability here; in their native soil they can.' * * 'The only remedy afforded is, to colonize them in their mother country.' * * 'They would go to that home from which they have been long absent.' * * 'Shall we … retain and foster the alien enemies?' – [Idem, 88, 179, 185, 237.]

'Be all these benefits enjoyed by the African race under the shade of their native palms.' – [Idem, vol. vi. p. 372.]

'We have a numerous people, who, though they are among us, are not of us.' – [Second Annual Report of the N. Y. State Col. Soc.]

'Among us is a growing population of strangers.' * * 'It will furnish the means of granting to every African exile among us a happy home in the land of his fathers.' – [Rev. Baxter Dickinson's Sermon.]

'Africa is indeed inviting her long exiled children to return to her bosom.' – [Circular of Rev. Mr Gurley.]

Nothing could be more invidious or absurd than the foregoing representation. The great mass of our colored population were born in this country. This is their native soil; here they first saw the light of heaven, and inhaled the breath of life; here they have grown from infancy to manhood and old age; from these shores they have never wandered; they are the descendants of those who were forcibly torn from Africa two centuries ago; their fathers assisted in breaking the yoke of British oppression, and achieving that liberty which we prize above all price; and they cherish the strongest attachment to the land of their birth. Now, as they could not have been born in two countries, and as they were certainly born here, it follows that Africa is not their native home, and, consequently, that the Society has dealt in romance, or something more culpable, in representing them as strangers and aliens. It might as rationally charge them with being natives of Asia or Europe, or with having descended from the regions of the moon. To see ourselves gravely represented in a British periodical as natives of Great Britain, I doubt not would create great merriment; and a scheme for our transportation would add vastly to our sport.

'But,' we are told, 'God has put a mark upon the black man.' True; and he has also put a mark upon every man, woman and child, in the world; so that every one differs in appearance from another – is easily identified – and, to make the objection valid, should occupy a distinct portion of territory, be himself a nation, enact his own laws, and live in perpetual solitude! The difference between a black and a white skin is not greater than that between a white and a black one. In either case, the mark is distinctive; and the blacks may as reasonably expel the whites, as the whites the blacks. To make such a separation we have no authority; to attempt it, would end only in disappointment; and, if it were carried into effect, those who are clamorous for the measure would be among the first to be cast out. The all-wise Creator, having 'made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,' it is proper for them to associate freely together; and he is a proud worm of the dust who is ashamed to acknowledge this common relationship.

Again we are told: 'The God of Nature intended the blacks should be a distinct community.' But has he been frustrated in his intentions? Where is the proof of such purpose? Let us have something more than the ipse dixit of the Society. Yes, we are seriously assured that Nature has played falsely! Colored persons were born by mistake in this country: they should have been born in Africa! We must therefore rectify the error, with all despatch, by transporting them to their native soil! Truly, a most formidable enterprise! There occur at least sixty thousand of such mistakes, annually; while the Society has corrected only about two thousand in fourteen years! But – courage! men engaged in a laudable enterprise should never despair!

There are some difficulties, however, in the accomplishment of this mighty task, which cannot be easily overcome. Granting the position assumed by colonizationists, that the blacks and the whites should occupy different countries, how do they intend to dispose of that numerous and rapidly increasing class who are neither white nor black, called mulattoes? We have not been informed to what country they belong; but the point ought to be settled before any classification be made. Colonizationists must define, moreover, the exact shade of color which is to retain or banish individuals; for every candid mind will admit, that it would be as unnatural to send white blood to Africa, as to keep black blood in America. 'If the color of the skin is to give construction to our constitution and laws, let us, at once, begin the work of excision. Let us raise an army of pure whites, if such an army can be found; and let us drive out and transport to foreign climes, men, women and children, who cannot bring the most satisfactory vouchers, that their veins are flowing with the purest English blood. Indeed, let us shut up our ports against our own mariners, who are returning from an India voyage, and whose cheeks and muscles could not wholly withstand the influence of the breezes and tropics to which they were exposed. Let us make every shade of complexion, every difference of stature, and every contraction of a muscle, a Shibboleth, to detect and cut off a brother Ephraimite, at the fords of Jordan. Though such a crusade would turn every man's sword against his fellow; yet, it might establish the right of precedence to different features, statures and colors, and oblige some friends of colonization to test the feasibility and equity of their own scheme.'

If I must become a colonizationist, I insist upon being consistent: there must be no disagreement between my creed and practice. I must be able to give a reason why all our tall citizens should not conspire to remove their more diminutive brethren, and all the corpulent to remove the lean and lank, and all the strong to remove the weak, and all the educated to remove the ignorant, and all the rich to remove the poor, as readily as for the removal of those whose skin is 'not colored like my own;' for Nature has sinned as culpably in diversifying the size as the complexion of her progeny, and Fortune in the distribution of her gifts has been equally fickle. I cannot perceive that I am more excusable in desiring the banishment of my neighbor because his skin is darker than mine, than I should be in desiring his banishment because he is a smaller or feebler man than myself. Surely it would be sinful for a black man to repine and murmur, and impeach the wisdom and goodness of God, because he was made with a sable complexion; and dare I be guilty of such an impeachment, by persecuting him on account of his color? I dare not: I would as soon deny the existence of my Creator, as quarrel with the workmanship of his hands. I rejoice that he has made one star to differ from another star in glory; that he has not given to the sun the softness and gentleness of the moon, nor to the moon the intensity and magnificence of the sun; that he presents to the eye every conceivable shape, and aspect, and color, in the gorgeous and multifarious productions of Nature; and I do not rejoice less, but admire and exalt him more, that, notwithstanding he has made of one blood the whole family of man, he has made the whole family of man to differ in personal appearance, habits and pursuits.

I protest against sending any to Africa, in whose blood there is any mixture of our own; for, I repeat it, white blood in Africa would be as repugnant to Nature, as black blood is in this country. Now; most unfortunately for colonizationists, the spirit of amalgamation has been so active for a long series of years, – especially in the slave States, – that there are comparatively few, besides those who are annually smuggled into the south from Africa, whose blood is not tainted with a foreign ingredient. Here, then, is a difficulty! What shall be done? All black blood must be sent to Africa; but how to collect it is the question. What shall be done! Why, we must resort to phlebotomy!

'Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
– nor cut thou less nor more,
But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more,
Or less, than just a pound, – be it but so much
As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance,
Or the division of the twentieth part
Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate!'

The colonization crusade cannot now fail of being popular. Phlebotomy being agreed to as a dernier resort, I shall briefly enumerate some of the various professions and classes which may expect to derive no inconsiderable gain from its execution; for as our government, in conjunction with benevolent associations, is to appropriate millions of dollars to accomplish this object, the pay will be sure and liberal.

In the first place, there will be more than a million patients, for whose accommodation hospitals must be erected. These hospitals will employ brick-makers, masons, carpenters, painters, glaziers, &c. &c. &c.; of course, the approval of a large body of mechanics is readily secured.

Physicians will next obtain an extensive practice. Their patients, in consequence of a free application of the lancet, must necessarily be debilitated, and can be kept 'quite low' until a long score of charges be run up against the government.

Among so many patients and so much unavoidable sickness, druggists and apothecaries will obtain a profitable sale for their medicines. Nurses will be next in demand, who may expect high wages. Even the lowly washers of soiled clothes will find the life-blood of the victims 'coined into drachms' for their reward. It is highly probable that many of the patients may die under the expurgatory process, and hence sextons and coffin-makers may calculate upon good times. With death come mourning and lamentation, and 'weeds of wo.' Dealers in crape will doubtless secure a handsome patronage. Lawyers may hope to profit by the demise of those who possess property. Indeed, almost every class in community must, to a greater or less extent, feel the beneficial effects of this philanthropic but novel experiment. The blood, taken from the veins of the blacks, may be transfused into our own, and the general pulse acquire new vigor.

Supposing a majority of the patients should recover, three other classes will thrive by their expulsion – namely, ship-builders, merchants and seamen. As our vessels are all occupied in profitable pursuits, new ones must be built – freights will rise – and the wages of seamen be proportionably enhanced. – But a truce to irony.

The American Colonization Society, in making the banishment of the slaves the condition of their emancipation, inflicts upon them an aggravated wrong, perpetuates their thraldom, and disregards the claims of everlasting and immutable justice. The language of its most distinguished supporters is, 'Emancipation, with the liberty to remain on this side of the Atlantic, is but an act of dreamy madness' – 'Emancipation, without removal from the country, is out of the question' – 'All emancipation, to however small an extent, which permits the person emancipated to remain in this country, is an evil' – 'They cannot be emancipated as a people, and remain among us.' Thus the restoration of an inalienable right, and an abandonment of robbery and oppression, are made to depend upon the practicability of transporting more than one sixth portion of our whole population to a far distant and barbarous land! It is impossible to imagine a more cruel, heaven-daring and God-dishonoring scheme. It exhibits a deliberate and perverse disregard of every moral obligation, and bids defiance to the requisitions of the gospel.

Listen to the avowal of Mr Mercer of Virginia, one of the main pillars and most highly extolled supporters of the Society: 'The abolition of slavery was no object of desire to him, unless accompanied by colonization. So far was he from desiring it, unaccompanied by this condition, that he would not live in a country where the one took place without the other'! This language may be correctly rendered thus: 'I desire to see two millions of human beings plundered of their rights, and subjected to every species of wrong and outrage, ad infinitum, if they cannot be driven out of the country. I am perfectly willing to live with them while they are treated worse than cattle, – ignorant, vicious, and wretched, – and while they are held under laws which forbid their instruction; and not only am I willing thus to live, but I am determined to practise the same oppression. But, if they should be emancipated with liberty to remain here, and placed in a situation favorable to their moral and intellectual improvement – a situation in which they could be no longer bought and sold, lacerated and manacled, defrauded and oppressed – I would abandon my native land, and never return to her shores.' And this is the language of a philanthropist! and this the moral principle of the boasted champion of the American Colonization Society! Whose indignation does not kindle, whose astonishment is not profound, whose disgust is not excited, in view of these sentiments?

But this is not the acme of colonization insanity. The assertion is made by a highly respectable partisan, and endorsed by the organ of the Society, that 'it would be as humane to throw the slaves from the decks in the middle passage, [i. e. into the ocean,] as to set them free in our country'!!! And even Henry Clay, who is an oracle in the cause, has had the boldness to declare, that the slaves should be held in everlasting servitude if they cannot be colonized in Africa!! And this sentiment is echoed by another, who says, 'Liberate them only on condition of their going to Africa or Hayti'!

I will not even seem to undervalue the good sense and quick perception of the candid and intelligent reader, by any farther endeavors to illustrate the sacrifice of principle and inhumanity of purpose which are contained in the extracts under the present section. With so strong an array of evidence before him, no one, who is not mentally blind or governed by prejudice, can fail to rise from its perusal with amazement and abhorrence, and a determination to assist in overthrowing a combination which is based upon the rotten foundation of expediency and violence.

The Colonization Society expressly denies the right of the slaves to enjoy freedom and happiness in this country; and this denial incontestibly tends to rivet their fetters more firmly, or make them the victims of a relentless persecution.

SECTION VIII

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY IS THE DISPARAGER OF THE FREE BLACKS

The leaders in the African colonization crusade seem to dwell with a malignant satisfaction upon the poverty and degradation of the free people of color, and are careful never to let an opportunity pass without heaping their abuse and contempt upon them. It is a common device of theirs to contrast the condition of the slaves with that of this class, and invariably to strike the balance heavily in favor of the former! In this manner, thousands are led to look upon slavery as a benevolent system, and to deprecate the manumission of its victims. Nothing but a love of falsehood, or an utter disregard of facts, could embolden these calumniators to deal so extensively in fiction. What! the slaves more happy, more moral, more industrious, more orderly, more comfortable, more exalted, than the free blacks! A more enormous exaggeration, a more heinous libel, a wider departure from truth, was never fabricated, or uttered, or known. The slaves, as a body, are in the lowest state of degradation; they possess no property; they cannot read; they are as ignorant, as their masters are reckless, of moral obligation; they have no motive for exertion; they are thieves from necessity and usage; their bodies are cruelly lacerated by the cart-whip; and they are disposable property. And yet these poor miserable, perishing, mutilated creatures are placed above our free colored population in dignity, in enjoyment, in privilege, in usefulness, in respectability!!

'There is a class, however, more numerous than all these, introduced amongst us by violence, notoriously ignorant, degraded and miserable, mentally diseased, broken-spirited, acted upon by no motives to honorable exertions, SCARCELY REACHED IN THEIR DEBASEMENT BY THE HEAVENLY LIGHT; yet where is the sympathy and effort which a view of their condition ought to excite? They wander unsettled and unbefriended through our land, or sit indolent, abject and sorrowful, by the "streams which witness their captivity." Their freedom is licentiousness, and to many RESTRAINT WOULD PROVE A BLESSING. To this remark there are exceptions; exceptions proving that to change their state would be to elevate their character; that virtue and enterprise are absent, only, because absent are the causes which create the one, and the motives which produce the other.' – [African Repository, vol. i. p. 68.]

'Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves.' * * * 'They knew that where slavery had been abolished it had operated to the advantage of the masters, not of the slaves: they saw this fact most strikingly illustrated in the case of the free negroes of Boston. If, on the anniversary celebrated by the free people of color, of the day on which slavery was abolished, they looked abroad, what did they see? Not freemen, in the enjoyment of every attribute of freedom, with the stamp of liberty upon their brows! No, Sir; they saw a ragged set, crying out liberty! for whom liberty had nothing to bestow, and whose enjoyment of it was but in name. He spoke of the great body of the blacks; there were some few honorable exceptions, he knew, which only proved what might be done for all.' – [African Repository, vol. ii. p. 328.]

'Although there are individual exceptions distinguished by high moral and intellectual worth, yet the free blacks in our country are, as a body, more vicious and degraded than any other which our population embraces.' * * * 'If, then, they are a useless and dangerous species of population, we would ask, is it generous in our southern friends to burthen us with them? Knowing themselves the evils of slavery, can they wish to impose upon us an evil scarcely less tolerable? We think it a mistaken philanthropy, which would liberate the slave, unfitted by education and habit for freedom, and cast him upon a merciless and despising world, where his only fortune must be poverty, his only distinction degradation, and his only comfort insensibility.' * * * 'I will look no farther when I seek for the most degraded, the most abandoned race on the earth, but rest my eyes on this people. What but sorrow can we feel at the misguided piety which has set free so many of them by death-bed devise or sudden conviction of injustice? Better, far better, for us, had they been kept in bondage, where the opportunity, the inducements, the necessity of vice would not have been so great. Deplorable necessity, indeed, to one borne down with the consciousness of the violence we have done. Yet I am clear that, whether we consider it with reference to the welfare of the State, or the happiness of the blacks, it were better to have left them in chains, than to have liberated them to receive such freedom as they enjoy, and greater freedom we cannot, must not allow them.' * * 'There is not a State in the Union not at this moment groaning under the evil of this class of persons, a curse and a contagion whereever they reside.' * * 'The increase of a free black population among us has been regarded as a greater evil than the increase of slaves.' – [African Repository, vol. iii. pp. 24, 25, 197, 203, 374.]

'Mr. Mercer adverted to the situation of his native State, and the condition of the free black population existing there, whom he described as a horde of miserable people – the objects of universal suspicion; subsisting by plunder.' – [Idem, vol. iv. p. 363.]

'They leave a country in which though born and reared, they are strangers and aliens; where severe necessity places them in a class of degraded beings; where they are free without the blessings and privileges of liberty; where in ceasing to be slaves of one, they have become subservient to many; where, neither freemen nor slaves, but placed in an anomalous grade which they do not understand and others disregard; where no kind instructer, no hope of preferment, no honorable emulation prompts them to virtue or deters from vice; their industry waste, not accumulation; their regular vocation, any thing or nothing as it may happen; their greater security, sufferance; their highest reward, forgiveness; vicious themselves and the cause of vice in others; discontented and exciting discontent; scorned by one class and foolishly envied by another; thus, and WORSE CIRCUMSTANCED, they, cannot but choose to move.' – [Idem, vol. v. p. 238.]

'Of all the descriptions of our population, and of either portion of the African race, the free people of color are, by far, as a class, the MOST CORRUPT, DEPRAVED, AND ABANDONED. The laws, it is true, proclaim them free; but prejudices, more powerful than any laws, deny them the privileges of freemen. They occupy a middle station between the free white population and the slaves of the United States, and the tendency of their habits is to corrupt both.' * * * 'That the free colored population of our country is a great and constantly increasing evil must be readily acknowledged. Averse to labor, with no incentives to industry or motives to self-respect, they maintain a precarious existence by petty thefts and plunder, themselves, or by inciting our domestics, not free, to rob their owners to supply their wants.' * * * 'If there is in the whole world, a more wretched class of human beings than the free people of color in this country, I do not know where they are to be found. They have no home, no country, no kindred, no friends. They are lazy and indolent, because they have no motives to prompt them to be industrious. They are in general destitute of principle, because they have nothing to stimulate them to honorable and praise-worthy conduct. Let them be maltreated ever so much, the law gives them no redress unless some white person happens to be present, to be a witness in the case. If they acquire property, they hold it by the courtesy of every vagabond in the country; and sooner or later, are sure to have it filched from them.' – [Idem, vol. vi. pp. 12, 135, 228.]

'The existence, within the very bosom of our country, of an anomalous race of beings, THE MOST DEBASED UPON EARTH, who neither enjoy the blessings of freedom, nor are yet in the bonds of slavery, is a great national evil, which every friend of his country most deeply deplores… Tax your utmost powers of imagination, and you cannot conceive one motive to honorable effort, which can animate the bosom, or give impulse to the conduct of a free black in this country. Let him toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom – let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature – and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and "unspotted from the world" – it is all nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because, in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent. Whether these feelings are founded in reason or not, we will not now inquire – perhaps they are not. But education and habit, and prejudice have so firmly riveted them upon us, that they have become as strong as nature itself – and to expect their removal, or even their slightest modification, would be as idle and preposterous as to expect that we could reach forth our hands, and remove the mountains from their foundations into the vallies, which are beneath them.' – [African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 230, 331.]

'We have been charged with wishing only to remove our free blacks, that we may the more effectually rivet the chains of the slave. But the class we first seek to remove, are neither freemen nor slaves; but between both, AND MORE MISERABLE THAN EITHER.' * * * 'Who is there, that does not know something of the condition of the blacks in the northern and middle States? They may be seen in our cities and larger towns, wandering like foreigners and outcasts, in the land which gave them birth. They may be seen in our penitentiaries, and jails, and poor-houses. They may be found inhabiting the abodes of poverty, and the haunts of vice. But if we look for them in the society of the honest and respectable – if we visit the schools in which it is our boast that the meanest citizen can enjoy the benefits of instruction – we might also add, if we visit the sanctuaries which are open for all to worship,[20 - A cruel taunt. The wonder is not that colored persons do not more generally visit our sanctuaries, but that they ever should attend. If they go, they are thrust into obscure, remote and unseemly pens or boxes, as if they were not embraced in the offers of redeeming love, and were indeed a part of the brute creation. It is an awful commentary upon the pride of human nature. I never can look up to these scandalous retreats for my colored brethren, without having my soul overwhelmed with emotions of shame, indignation and sorrow. No black man, however virtuous, respectable or pious he may be, can own or occupy a pew in a central part of any of our houses of worship. And yet it is reproachfully alleged – by a clergyman, too! – that 'if we visit the sanctuaries which are open to all (!) to worship, and to hear the word of God, we shall not find them there'! No – I hope they will respect themselves and the religion of Jesus more, than to occupy the places alluded to.] and to hear the word of God; we shall not find them there.' * * 'Leaving slavery and its subjects for the moment entirely out of view, there are in the United States 238,000 blacks denominated free, but whose freedom confers on them, we might say, no privilege but the privilege of being more vicious and miserable than slaves can be.' – [Seventh Annual Report, pp. 12, 87, 99.]

'Placed midway between freedom and slavery, they know neither the incentives of the one, nor the restraints of the other; but are alike injurious by their conduct and example, to all other classes of society.' – [Eight Annual Report.]

'Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites.' – [Tenth Annual Report.]

'The question arises, where shall these outcasts go? Ohio, and the free States of the West, which formerly invited them into their bosom, no longer offer them a welcome home. Disgusted with their laziness and vice, the inevitable concomitants of the anomalous relation in which they stand to society, the authorities of those States are seeking to get rid of what they find, too late, to be a curse to any settlement of whites – a thriftless race of vagabonds, whose footsteps are the sure precursors of indigence and crime. One of the most intelligent gentlemen of Ohio, (Mr Charles Hammond,) in a recent notice of this subject, says, "This dangerous class of population has increased considerably within a few years past, and the slaves States cannot too soon adopt efficient measures to get rid of it. Emigrations to Liberia ought to be provided for, and insisted upon, and the legislatures should pass laws to prevent emancipation, without adequate provision for the transportation of the manumitted."' – [Lynchburg Virginian.]

'As it is now, they are for the most part in a debased and wretched condition. They have the vices of our community without its virtues. And what is worse, I speak of the majority, they have no desire to rise from their state of abject depression – no wish to gain a respectable elevation of character. Consequently it is difficult, if not impossible, to present them motives Which shall incite them to enter on a course of industry and virtue.' * * * 'Bound by no political ties to the community in which they dwell, and excluded for the most part from exercising the rights and privileges of freemen, on the ground of their alleged inferiority and worthlessness, they have no inducements to abandon lives of indolence, sensuality and recklessness, or to support the laws and institutions of the government placed over them. Nothing but the fear of suffering the penalty of violated law, can prevent them from preying on those among whom they live.' – [Middletown (Ct.) Gazette.]

'They have taken the free black that, as a class, dwells among us a living nuisance, nominally free, but bowed to the ground by public opinion – IN ONE PART OF THE COUNTRY DULL AS A BRUTISH BEAST, IN ANOTHER THE WILD STIRRER UP OF SEDITION AND INSURRECTION – they have shewn him to be capable of quiet and judicious self-government. – … We cannot shut our eyes any longer upon the disadvantages of our black population, whether in slavery or freedom. It is a sword perpetually suspended over our heads by a single hair; it is the fountain of bitter waters that poisons all our enjoyments.' – [Speeches of J. R. Townsend, Esq. and W. W. Campbell, Esq. New-York city.]