Thoughts on African Colonization

'I do not deny, Sir, that the evils of practical slavery may be lessened. By parliamentary enactments, by colonial arrangements, by appeals to the judgment and feelings of planters, and by various other means, a certain degree of melioration may be secured. But I say, in the first place, that, with all that you can accomplish, or reasonably expect, of mitigation, you cannot alter the nature of slavery itself. With every improvement you have superinduced upon it, you have not made it less debasing, less cruel, less destructive, in its essential character. The black man is still the property of the white man. And that one circumstance not only implies in it the transgression of inalienable right and everlasting justice, but is the fruitful and necessary source of numberless mischiefs, the very thought of which harrows up the soul, and the infliction of which no superintendence of any government can either prevent or control. Mitigate and keep down the evil as much as you can, still it is there in all its native virulence, and still it will do its malignant work in spite of you. The improvements you have made are merely superficial. You have not reached the seat and vital spring of the mischief. You have only concealed in some measure, and for a time, its inherent enormity. Its essence remains unchanged and untouched, and is ready to unfold itself whenever a convenient season arrives, notwithstanding all your precaution, and all you vigilance, in those manifold acts of injustice and inhumanity, which are its genuine and its invariable fruits. You may white-wash the sepulchre, – you may put upon it every adornment that fancy can suggest, – you may cover it over with all the flowers and evergreens that the garden or the fields can furnish, so that it will appear beautiful outwardly unto men. But it is a sepulchre still, – full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Disguise slavery as you will, – put into the cup all the pleasing and palatable ingredients which you can discover in the wide range of nature and of art, – still it is a bitter, bitter draught, from which the understanding and the heart of every man, in whom nature works unsophisticated and unbiassed, recoils with unutterable aversion and abhorrence. Why, Sir, slavery is the very Upas tree of the moral world, beneath whose pestiferous shade all intellect languishes, and all virtue dies. And if you would get quit of the evil, you must go more thoroughly and effectually to work than you can ever do by any or by all of those palliatives, which are included under the term "mitigation." The foul sepulchre must be taken away. The cup of oppression must be dashed to pieces on the ground. The pestiferous tree must be cut down and eradicated; it must be, root and branch of it, cast into the consuming fire, and its ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven. It is thus you must deal with slavery. You must annihilate it, – annihilate it now, – and annihilate it for ever.

'Get your mitigation. I say in the second place, that you are thereby, in all probability farther away than ever from your object. It is not to the Government or the Parliament at home that you are to look – neither is it to the legislatures and planters abroad that you are to look – for accomplishing the abolition of negro slavery. Sad experience shows that, if left to themselves, they will do nothing efficient in this great cause. It is to the sentiments of the people at large that you are to look, to the spread of intellectual light, to the prevalence of moral feeling, to the progress, in short, of public opinion, which, when resting on right principles and moving in a right direction, must in this free and Christian country prove irresistible. But observe, Sir, the public mind will not be sufficiently affected by the statement of abstract truths, however just, or by reasonings on the tendencies of a system, however accurate. It must be more or less influenced by what is visible, or by what is easily known and understood of the actual atrocities which accompany slavery, wherever it is left to its own proper operation. Let it be seen in its native vileness and cruelty, as exhibited when not interfered with by the hand of authority, and it excites universal and unqualified detestation. But let its harsher asperities be rubbed off; take away the more prominent parts of its iniquity; see that it look somewhat smoother and milder than it did before; make such regulations as ought, if faithfully executed, to check its grosser acts of injustice and oppression; give it the appearance of its being put under the humanizing sway of religious education and instruction; do all this, and you produce one effect at least, – you modify the indignation of a great number of the community; you render slavery much less obnoxious; you enable its advocates and supporters to say in reply to your denunciations of its wickedness, "O, the slaves are now comfortable and happy; they do not suffer what they did; they are protected and well treated," and in proof of all this, they point to what are called "mitigations." But mark me, Sir; under these mitigations, slavery still exists, ready at every convenient season to break forth in all its countless forms of inhumanity; meanwhile the public feeling in a great measure subsides; and when the public feeling – such an important and indispensable element in our attempts to procure abolition – is allowed to subside, tell me, Sir, when, and where, and by what means it is again to be roused into activity. I must say, for one, that though I sympathize with my sable brethren, when I hear of them being spared even one lash of the cart-whip; yet when I take a more enlarged view of their condition – when I consider the nature of that system under which they are placed, and when I look forward to their deliverance, and the means by which alone it is to be effected, I am tempted, and almost if not altogether persuaded, to deprecate that insidious thing termed "mitigation," because it directly tends to perpetuate the mighty evil, which will by and by throw off the improvements by which it is glossed over as quite unnatural to it, will ultimately grow up again into all its former dreadfulness, and continue to wither and crush beneath it, all that is excellent and glorious in man.

'But if our rulers and legislators will undertake to emancipate the slaves, and do it as it ought to be done, immediately, I beg those who set themselves against such a measure, to point out the danger, and to prove it. The onus lies upon them. And what evidence do they give us? Where is it to be found? In what circumstance shall we discover it? From what principles and probabilities shall we infer it? We must not have mere hypothesis – mere allegations – mere fancied horrors, dressed up in frightful language. We must have proof to substantiate, in some good measure, their theory of rebellion, warfare, and blood. If any such thing exists, let them produce it.' * * * 'But if you push me, and still urge the argument of insurrection and bloodshed, for which you are far more indebted to fancy than to fact, as I have shown you, then I say, be it so. I repeat that maxim, taken from a heathen book, but pervading the whole Book of God, Fiat justitia—ruat cælum. Righteousness, Sir, is the pillar of the universe. Break down that pillar, and the universe falls into ruin and desolation. But preserve it, and though the fair fabric may sustain partial dilapidations, it may be rebuilt and repaired – it will be rebuilt, and repaired, and restored to all its pristine strength, and magnificence, and beauty. If there must be violence, let it even come, for it will soon pass away – let it come and rage its little hour, since it is to be succeeded by lasting freedom, and prosperity and happiness. Give me the hurricane rather than the pestilence. Give me the hurricane, with its thunder, and its lightning, and its tempest; – give me the hurricane, with its partial and temporary devastations, awful though they be; – give me the hurricane, with its purifying, healthful, salutary effects; – give me that hurricane, infinitely rather than the noisome pestilence, whose path is never crossed, whose silence is never disturbed, whose progress is never arrested, by one sweeping blast from the heavens; which walks peacefully and sullenly through the length and breadth of the land, breathing poison into every heart, and carrying havoc into every home, enervating all that is strong, defacing all that is beautiful, and casting its blight over the fairest and happiest scenes of human life – and which, from day to day, and from year to year, with intolerant and interminable malignity, sends its thousands and its tens of thousands of hapless victims into the ever-yawning and never-satisfied grave!'

It is said, by way of extenuation, that the present owners of slaves are not responsible for the origin of this system. I do not arraign them for the crimes of their ancestors, but for the constant perpetration and extension of similar crimes. The plea that the evil of slavery was entailed upon them, shall avail them nothing: in its length and breadth it means that the robberies of one generation justify the robberies of another! that the inheritance of stolen property converts it into an honest acquisition! that the atrocious conduct of their fathers exonerates them from all accountability, thus presenting the strange anomaly of a race of men incapable of incurring guilt, though daily practising the vilest deeds! Scarcely any one denies that blame attaches somewhere: the present generation throws it upon the past – the past, upon its predecessor – and thus it is cast, like a ball, from one to another, down to the first importers of the Africans! 'Can that be innocence in the temperate zone, which is the acme of all guilt near the equator? Can that be honesty in one meridian of longitude, which, at one hundred degrees east, is the climax of injustice?' Sixty thousand infants, the offspring of slave-parents, are annually born in this country, and doomed to remediless bondage. Is it not as atrocious a crime to kidnap these, as to kidnap a similar number on the coast of Africa?

It is said, moreover, that we ought to legislate prospectively, on this subject; that the fetters of the present generation of slaves cannot be broken; and that our single aim should be, to obtain the freedom of their offspring, by fixing a definite period after which none shall be born slaves. But this is inconsistent, inhuman and unjust. The following extracts from the speech of the Rev. Dr. Thomson are conclusive on this point:

'In the first place, it amounts to an indirect sanction of the continued slavery of all who are now alive, and of all who may be born before the period fixed upon. This is a renunciation of the great moral principles upon which the demand for abolition proceeds. It consigns more than 800,000 human beings to bondage and oppression, while their title to freedom is both indisputable and acknowledged. And it is not merely an inconsistency on the part of the petitioners, and a violation of the duty which they owe to such a multitude of their fellow-men, but it weakens or surrenders the great argument by which they enforce their application for the extinction of colonial slavery.

'Besides, it is vain to expect that the planters will acquiesce in such a prospective measure, any more than in the liberation of the existing slaves, for the progeny of the existing slaves must be considered by them as much a part of their property as these slaves themselves. And they would regard it equally unjust to deprive them of what is hereafter to be produced from their own slave stock, as it would be to deprive a farmer, by an anticipating law of all the foals and of all the calves that might be produced in his stable and in his cow-house, after a given specified date.

'We must be true to our own maxims, which are taken from the word of God; and ask for all that we are entitled to have on the ground of justice and humanity, and be contented with nothing less.

'In the second place, the plan objected to is not merely an acquiescence in the continuance of crime, it is a violation of the best feelings of our nature. For, let any man but reflect on the circumstance of children being born to slavery, merely because they came into the world the last hour of December 1830, instead of the first hour of January 1, 1831 – and of children in the same family, brothers and sisters – some of them destined to bondage for life, and others gifted with freedom, for no other reason than that the former were born before, and the latter after, a particular day of a particular year – and of parents being unjustly and inhumanly flogged in the very sight of their offspring arbitrarily made free, while they are as arbitrarily kept slaves – let any man but reflect on those things, and unless the sensibilities of his heart be paralysed even to deadness, he must surely revolt at such a cruel and cold blooded allotment in the fortune of those little ones, and be satisfied with nothing short of the emancipation of the whole community, without a single exception.

'In the third place, supposing all children born after January 1, 1831, were declared free, how are they to be educated? That they may be prepared for the enjoyment of that liberty with which you have invested them, they must undergo a particular and appropriate training. So say the gradualists. Very well; under whom are they to get this training? Are they to be separated from their parents? Is that dearest of natural ties to be broken asunder? Is this necessary for your plan? And are not you thus endeavoring to cure one species of wickedness by the instrumentality of another? But if they are to be left with their parents and brought up under their care, then either they will be imbued with the faults and degeneracies that are characteristic of slavery, and consequently be as unfit for freedom as those who have not been disenthralled: or they will be well nurtured and well instructed by their parents, and this implies a confession that their parents themselves are sufficiently prepared for liberty, and that there is no good reason for withholding from them, the boon that is bestowed upon their children.

'Whatever view, in short, we take of the question, the prospective plan is full of difficulty or contradictions, and we are made more sensible than ever that there is nothing left for us, but to take the consistent, honest, uncompromising course of demanding the abolition of slavery with respect to the present, as well as to every future generation of the negroes in our colonies.'

We are told that 'it is not right that men should be free, when their freedom will prove injurious to themselves and others.' This has been the plea of tyrants in all ages. If the immediate emancipation of the slaves would prove a curse, it follows that slavery is a blessing; and that it cannot be unjust, but benevolent, to defraud the laborer of his hire, to rank him as a beast, and to deprive him of his liberty. But this, every one must see, is at war with common sense, and avowedly doing evil that good may come. This plea must mean, either that a state of slavery is more favorable to the growth of virtue and the dispensation of knowledge than a state of freedom – (a glaring absurdity) – or that an immediate compliance with the demands of justice would be most unjust – (a gross contradiction.)

It is boldly asserted by some colonizationists, that 'the negroes are happier when kept in bondage,' and that 'the condition of the great mass of emancipated Africans is one in comparison with which the condition of the slaves is enviable.' What is the inference? Why, either that slavery is not oppression – (another paradox) – or that real benevolence demands the return of the free people of color to their former state of servitude. Every kidnapper, therefore, is a true philanthropist! Our legislature should immediately offer a bounty for the body of every free colored person! The colored population of Massachusetts, at $200 for each man, woman and child, would bring at least one million three hundred thousand dollars. This sum would seasonably replenish our exhausted treasury. The whole free colored population of the United States, at the same price, (which is a low estimate,) would be worth sixty-five millions of dollars!! Think how many churches this would build, schools and colleges establish, beneficiaries educate, missionaries support, bibles and tracts circulate, railroads and canals complete, &c. &c. &c.!!!

The Secretary of the Colonization Society assures us, (vide the African Repository, vol. v. p. 330,) that 'were the very spirit of angelic charity to pervade and fill the hearts of all the slaveholders in our land, it would by no means require that all the slaves should be instantaneously liberated'!! – i. e. should the slaveholders become instantaneously metamorphosed into angels, they would still hold the rational creatures of God as their property, and yet commit no sin! Think, for one moment, of an angel in the capacity of a man-stealer – feeding his victims upon a peck of corn per week, or three bushels of corn and a few herrings every 'quarter-day,' as a compensation for their severe labor – flourishing a cowskin over their heads, and applying it frequently to their naked bodies! Think of him selling parents from children, and children from parents, at private sale or public auction!

Many slaveholders are giving up their slaves from conscientious motives; they cannot, they dare not longer keep them in servitude; they believe that the law of God has a higher claim upon their obedience than the laws of their native State. Now suppose all the owners of slaves in our land should be suddenly and simultaneously convicted of sin, and moved to repentance in a similar manner, and should say to their slaves, 'God forbid that we should longer call you our property, or place you on a level with our cattle, or defraud you of your just dues, or sell you or your wives or children to others, or deny you the means of instruction, or lacerate your bodies! henceforth you are free – but you want employment, and we need laborers – go and work as freemen, and be paid as freemen!' – suppose, I say, a case like this should happen, and a troop of gradualists should surround these penitent oppressors, and cry, 'Were the very spirit of angelic charity to pervade and fill your hearts, it would by no means require that all your slaves should be instantaneously liberated – your throats will be cut, your houses pillaged, and desolation will stalk through the land, if you carry your mad purpose into effect – emancipate by a slow, imperceptible process!' – how would this advice sound? What should be their reply? Clearly this: 'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto men more than unto God, judge ye.' Here would be presented a strange spectacle indeed – one party confessing and resolving to forsake their sins, and another urging them to disregard the admonitions of conscience, and to leave off sinning by degrees! To be sure, a few, a very few, would be generously allowed to reform instanter!

Those who prophesy evil, and only evil, concerning immediate abolition, absolutely disregard the nature and constitution of man, as also his inalienable rights, and annihilate or reverse the causes and effects of human action. They are continually fearful lest the slaves, in consequence of their grievous wrongs and intolerable sufferings, should attempt to gain their freedom by revolution; and yet they affect to be equally fearful lest a general emancipation should produce the same disastrous consequences. How absurd! They know that oppression must cause rebellion; and yet they pretend that a removal of the cause will produce a bloody effect! This is to suppose an effect without a cause, and, of course, is a contradiction in terms. Bestow upon the slaves personal freedom, and all motives for insurrection are destroyed. Treat them like rational beings, and you may surely expect rational treatment in return: treat them like beasts, and they will behave in a beastly manner.

Besides, precedent and experience make the ground of abolitionists invulnerable. In no single instance where their principles have been adopted, has the result been disastrous or violent, but beneficial and peaceful even beyond their most sanguine expectations. The immediate abolition of slavery in Mexico, in Colombia, and in St. Domingo,[16 - The history of the Revolution in St Domingo is not generally understood in this country. The result of the instantaneous emancipation of the slaves, in that island, by an act of the Conventional Assembly of France in the month of February, 1794, settles the controversy between the immediatists and gradualists. 'After this public act of emancipation,' says Colonel Malenfant, who was resident in the island at the time, 'the negroes remained quiet both in the South and in the West, and they continued to work upon all the plantations.' 'Upon those estates which were abandoned, they continued their labors, where there were any, even inferior agents, to guide them; and on those estates, where no white men were left to direct them, they betook themselves to the planting of provisions; but upon all the plantations where the whites resided, the blacks continued to labor as quietly as before.' 'On the Plantation Gourad, consisting of more than four hundred and fifty laborers, not a single negro refused to work; and yet this plantation was thought to be under the worst discipline and the slaves the most idle of any in the plain.' General Lacroix, who published his 'Memoirs for a History of St Domingo,' at Paris, in 1819, uses these remarkable words: 'The colony marched, as by enchantment, towards its ancient splendor; cultivation prospered; every day produced perceptible proofs of its progress. The city of the Cape and the plantations of the North rose up again visibly to the eye.' General Vincent, who was a general of a brigade of artillery in St Domingo, and a proprietor of estates in that island, at the same period, declared to the Directory of France, that 'every thing was going on well in St Domingo. The proprietors were in peaceable possession of their estates; cultivation was making rapid progress; the blacks were industrious, and beyond example happy.' So much for the horrible concomitants of a general emancipation! So much for the predicted indolence of the liberated slaves! Let confusion of face cover all abolition alarmists in view of these historical facts! This peaceful and prosperous state of affairs continued from 1794, to the invasion of the island by Leclerc in 1802. The attempt of Bonaparte to reduce the island to its original servitude was the sole cause of that sanguinary conflict which ended in the total extirpation of the French from its soil. – [Vide Clarkson's 'Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies,' &c.]] was eminently preservative and useful in its effects. The manumitted slaves (numbering more than two thousand,) who were settled in Nova Scotia, at the close of our revolutionary war, by the British government, 'led a harmless life,' says Clarkson, 'and gained the character of an industrious and honest people from their white neighbors.' A large number who were located at Trinidad, as free laborers, at the close of our last war, 'are now,' according to the same authority, 'earning their own livelihood, and with so much industry and good conduct, that the calumnies originally spread against them have entirely died away.' According to the Anti-Slavery Reporter for January, 1832, three thousand prize negroes at the Cape of Good Hope had received their freedom – four hundred in one day; 'but not the least difficulty or disorder occurred: servants found masters, masters hired servants – all gained homes, and at night scarcely an idler was to be seen.'

These and many other similar facts show conclusively the safety of immediate abolition. Gradualists can present, in abatement of them, nothing but groundless apprehensions and criminal distrust. The argument is irresistible.

SECTION VI

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY IS NOURISHED BY FEAR AND SELFISHNESS

The reader will find on the fifth page of my introductory remarks, the phrase 'naked terrors;' by which I mean, that, throughout all the speeches, addresses and reports in behalf of the Society, it is confessed, in language strong and explicit, that an irrepressible and agonizing fear of the influence of the free people of color over the slave population is the primary, essential and prevalent motive for colonizing them on the coast of Africa – and not, as we are frequently urged to believe, a desire simply to meliorate their condition and civilize that continent. On this point, the evidence is abundant.

'In reflecting on the utility of a plan for colonizing the free people of color, with whom our country abounds, it is natural that we should be first struck by its tendency to confer a benefit on ourselves, by ridding us of a population for the most part idle and useless, and too often vicious and mischievous.' * * * 'Such a class must evidently be a burden and a nuisance to the community; and every scheme which affords a prospect of removing so great an evil must deserve to be most favorably considered.

'But it is not in themselves merely that the free people of color are a nuisance and burthen. They contribute greatly to the corruption of the slaves, and to aggravate the evils of their condition, by rendering them idle, discontented and disobedient. This also arises from the necessity under which the free blacks are, of remaining incorporated with the slaves, of associating habitually with them, and forming part of the same class in society. The slave seeing his free companion live in idleness, or subsist however scantily or precariously by occasional and desultory employment, is apt to grow discontented with his own condition, and to regard as tyranny and injustice the authority which compels him to labor.[17 - How very strange that the slave should 'regard as tyranny and injustice the authority which compels him to labor' without recompense!!!]

'Great, however, as the benefits are, which we may thus promise ourselves, from the colonization of the free people of color, by its tendency to prevent the discontent and corruption of our slaves,' &c. * * 'The considerations stated in the first part of this letter, have long since produced a thorough conviction in my mind, that the existence of a class of free people of color in this country is highly injurious to the whites, the slaves and the free people of color themselves: consequently that all emancipation, to however small an extent, which permits the persons emancipated to remain in this country, is an evil, which must increase with the increase of the operation, and would become altogether intolerable, if extended to the whole, or even to a very large part of the black population. I am therefore strongly opposed to emancipation, in every shape and degree, unless accompanied by colonization.' – [General Harper's Letter – First Annual Report, pp. 29, 31, 32, 33, 36.]

'The slaves would be greatly benefitted by the removal of the free blacks, who now corrupt them and render them discontented.' – [Second An. Rep.]

'What are these objects? They are in the first place to aid ourselves, by relieving us from a species of population pregnant with future danger and present inconvenience.' – [Seventh Report.]

'They are dangerous to the community, and this danger ought to be removed. Their wretchedness arises not only from their bondage, but from their political and moral degradation. The danger is not so much that we have a million and a half of slaves, as that we have in our borders nearly two millions of men who are necessarily any thing rather than loyal citizens – nearly two millions of ignorant and miserable beings who are banded together by the very same circumstances, by which they are so widely separated in character and in interest from all the citizens of our great republic.' – [Seventh Annual Report.]

'It may be safely assumed, that there is not an individual in the community, who has given to the subject a moment's consideration, who does not regard the existence of the free people of color in the bosom of the country, as an evil of immense magnitude, and of a dangerous and alarming tendency. Their abject and miserable condition is too obvious to be pointed out. All must perceive it, and perceiving it, cannot but lament it. But their deplorable condition is not more obvious to the most superficial observer, than is (what is far worse, and still more to be dreaded,) the powerful and resistless influence which they exert over the slave population. While their character remains what it now is, (and the laws and structure of the country in which they reside, prevent its permanent improvement,) this influence must of necessity be baneful and contaminating. Corrupt themselves, like the deadly Upas, they impart corruption to all around them. Their numbers too, are constantly and rapidly augmenting. Their annual increase is truly astonishing, certainly unexampled. The dangerous ascendency which they have already acquired over the slaves, is consequently increasing with every addition to their numbers; and every addition to their numbers is a subtraction from the wealth and strength, and character, and happiness, and safety of the country. And if this be true, as it unquestionably is, the converse is also true; the danger of their undue influence will lessen with every diminution of their numbers; and every diminution of their numbers must add, and add greatly, to the prosperity of the country.' – [Twelfth Annual Report.]

'Another reason is, the pressing and vital importance of relieving ourselves, as soon as practicable, from this most dangerous element in our population.' * * 'We all know the effects produced on our slaves by the fascinating, but delusive appearance of happiness, exhibited in some persons of their own complexion, roaming in idleness and vice among them. By removing the most fruitful source of discontent from among our slaves, we should render them more industrious and attentive to our commands.' – [Fourteenth Annual Report.]

'What is the free black to the slave? A standing perpetual incitement to discontent. Though the condition of the slave be a thousand times the best – supplied, protected, instead of destitute and desolate – yet, the folly of the condition, held to involuntary labor, finds, always, allurement, in the spectacle of exemption from it, without consideration of the adjuncts of destitution and misery. The slave would have then, little excitement to discontent but for the free black.' – [Fifteenth Annual Report.]

'The evils which arise from the communication of the free people of color with our slaves, must be obvious to every reflecting mind; and the consequences which may result from this communication at some future day, when circumstances are more favorable to their views, are of a more alarming character. Sir, circumstances must have brought us to the conclusion, if our observation had not enabled us to make the remark, that it is natural for our slaves, so closely allied to the free black population by national peculiarities, and by relationship, to make a comparison between their respective conditions, and to repine at the difference which exists between them. This is a serious evil, and can only be removed by preventing the possibility of a comparison.

'By removing these people, we rid ourselves of a large party who will always be ready to assist our slaves in any mischievous design which they may conceive; and who are better able, by their intelligence, and the facilities of their communication, to bring those designs to a successful termination.' – [African Repository, vol. i. p. 176.]

'The labors of the Colonization Society appear to us highly deserving of praise. The blacks, whom they carry from the country, belong to a class far more noxious than the slaves themselves. They are free without any sense of character to restrain them, or regular means of obtaining an honest livelihood. Most of the criminal offences committed in the southern States are chargeable to them, and their influence over the slaves is pernicious and alarming.' * * * 'What is the true nature of the evil of the existence of a portion of the African race in our population? It is not that there are some, but that there are so many among us of a different caste, of a different physical, if not moral, constitution, who never can amalgamate with the great body of our population. In every country, persons are to be found varying in their color, origin and character, from the native mass. But this anomaly creates no inquietude or apprehension, because the exotics, from the smallness of their number, are known to be utterly incapable of disturbing the general tranquillity. Here, on the contrary, the African part of our population bears so large a proportion to the residue of European origin, as to create the most lively apprehension, especially in some quarters of the Union. Any project, therefore, by which, in a material degree, the dangerous element in the general mass, can be diminished or rendered stationary, deserves deliberate consideration.' – [African Repository, vol. ii. pp. 27, 338.]

'Made up, for the most part, either of slaves or of their immediate descendants; elevated above the class from which it has sprung, only by its exemption from domestic restraint; and effectually debarred by the law, from every prospect of equality with the actual freemen of the country; it is a source of perpetual uneasiness to the master, and of envy and corruption to the slave.' * * 'To remove these persons from among us, will increase the usefulness, and improve the moral character of those who remain in servitude, and with whose labors the country is unable to dispense. That instances are to be found of colored free persons, upright and industrious, is not to be denied. But the greater portion, as is well known, are a source of malignant depravity to the slaves on the one hand, and of corrupt habits to many of our white population on the other. The arts of subsistence with many of them, are incompatible with the security of property.' * * * 'I am a Virginian – I dread for her the corroding evil of this numerous caste, and I tremble for the danger of a disaffection spreading through their seductions, among our servants.' * * * 'Are they vipers, who are sucking our blood? we will hurl them from us. It is not sympathy alone, – not sickly sympathy, no, nor manly sympathy either, – which is to act on us; but vital policy, self-interest, are also enlisting themselves on the humane side in our breasts.' – [African Repository, vol. iii. pp. 10, 67, 197, 201.]

'All must concur in regarding the present condition of the free colored race in America as inconsistent with its future social and political advancement, and, where slavery exists at all, as calculated to aggravate its evils without any atoning good. Among those evils, the most obvious is the restraint imposed upon emancipation by the laws of so many of the slaveholding States: laws, deriving their recent origin from the obvious manifestation which the increase of the free colored population has furnished, of the inconvenience and danger of multiplying their number where slavery exists at all.' * * * 'By the success of this scheme, our country will be enriched. The free blacks constitute a material spoke in that wheel which is crushing down the wealth of our land. The moment we carry this plan into vigorous prosecution, we shall call many of our countrymen to a state of comparative wealth. The removal of the annual increase of our colored population, would give to our mariners a considerable scope of employment, whilst the trade of the Colony would be a source of profit.' * * 'It places the attainment of the grand object in view, that is, to withdraw from the United States annually, so many of the colored population, and provide them a comfortable home and all the advantages of civilization in Africa, as will make the number here remain stationary.' * * * 'Let us recur to the principle abovementioned – that every black family occupies the room of a white family. On this principle we are lost, if we suffer the colored population to multiply, unchecked, upon our hands; because they will increase faster than the whites, and will crowd them out of all the Southern country. But on the same principle we are saved, if by any means of colonization, we can retard the increase of the blacks, and gain ground on them in the South. That we can do with ease, if our people will unite in prosecuting the scheme. Every family taken from the blacks, will add also a family to the whites, and make an actual difference of two families in our favor. This exchange will leave fewer blacks to remove, while it will increase our ability to remove them. Self-interest and self-preservation furnish motives enough to excite our exertions.' * * 'By thus repressing the rapid increase of blacks, the white population would be enabled to reach and soon overtop them. The consequence would be security.' – [African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 53, 141, 271, 276, 344.]

'The existence of a class of men in the bosom of the community, who occupy a middle rank between the citizen and the slave – who encountering every positive evil incident to each condition, share none of the benefits peculiar to either, has been long clearly seen and deeply deplored by every man of observation. The master feels it in the unhappy influence which the free blacks have upon the slave population. The slave feels it in the restless, discontented spirit which his association with the free black engenders.' * * * * 'But, there is yet a more important and alarming view, in which this subject necessarily presents itself to the mind of every Virginian. A community of the character that has been described, with this additional peculiarity, that it differs from the class from which it has sprung, only in its exemption from the wholesome restraints of domestic authority, is found in the midst of a numerous and rapidly increasing slave population; and while its partial freedom, trammelled, as it is, by the necessary rigors of the law, is nevertheless sufficiently attractive, to be a source of uneasiness and dissatisfaction to those who have not attained to its questionable privileges, its exemption from the prompt and efficient inquisition appertaining to slavery, makes it an important instrument in the corruption and seduction of those, who yet remain the property of their masters.' * * * '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, and kindle the lights of science and civilization through Africa? Who that has reflection, does not tremble for the political and moral well-being of a country, that has within its bosom, a growing population, bound to its institutions by no common sympathies, and ready to fall in with any faction that may threaten its liberties?' * * * 'The existence of this race among us; a race that can neither share our blessings nor incorporate in our society, is already felt to be a curse; and though the only curse entailed on us, if left to take its course, it will become the greatest that could befal the nation.

'Shall we then cling to it, and by refusing the timely expedient now offered for deliverance, retain and foster the alien enemies, till they have multiplied into such greater numbers, and risen into such mightier consequence as will for ever bar the possibility of their departure, and by barring it, bar also the possibility of fulfilling our own high destiny?' * * 'The object of this Society is two-fold; for while it immediately and ostensibly directs its energies to the amelioration of the condition of the free people of color, it relieves our country from an unprofitable burden, and which, if much longer submitted to, may record upon our history the dreadful cries of vengeance that but a few years since were registered in characters of blood at St. Domingo.' * * 'It is the removal of the free blacks from among us, that is to save us, sooner or later, from those dreadful events foreboded by Mr Jefferson, or from the horrors of St. Domingo. The present number of this unfortunate, degraded, and anomalous class of inhabitants cannot be much short of half a million; and the number is fast increasing. They are emphatically a mildew upon our fields, a scourge to our backs, and a stain upon our escutcheon. To remove them is mercy to ourselves, and justice to them.' – [African Repository, vol. v. pp. 28, 51, 88, 278, 304, 348.]

'All admit the utility of the separation of the free people of color from the residue of the population of the United States, if it be practicable. It is desirable for them, for the slaves of the United States, and for the white race. The vices of this class do not spring from any inherent depravity in their natural constitution, but from their unfortunate situation. Social intercourse is a want which we are prompted to gratify by all the properties of our nature. And as they cannot obtain it in the better circles of society, nor always among themselves, they resort to slaves and to the most debased and worthless of the whites. Corruption, and all the train of petty offences, are the consequences. Proprietors of slaves in whose neighborhood any free colored family is situated, know how infectious and pernicious this intercourse is.' * * * 'Who, if this promiscuous residence of whites and blacks, of freemen and slaves, is for ever to continue, can imagine the servile wars, the carnage and the crimes which will be its probable consequences, without shuddering with horror?' * * 'It were madness to shut our eyes to these facts and conclusions. This rapid increase of the blacks is as certain as the progress of time. The fatal consequences of that increase, if it be not checked, are equally so. Something must be done. The American Colonization Society proposes a remedy – the removal to Africa of the blacks who are free, or shall hereafter become so, with their consent.' * * 'The colored population is considered by the people of Tennessee and Alabama in general, as an immense evil to the country – but the free part of it, by all, as the greatest of all evils… They feel severely the effects of the deleterious influence which the free negroes exert upon the slaves – and they look, moreover, into futurity, and there they behold an appalling scene – in less than one hundred years, (a short time, we should hope, in the life of this republic,) 16,000,000 of blacks.' * * * * 'Since the recent revolution in the island of St. Domingo, which has placed it in the hands of the African race, it was thought by some that there an asylum might be found for this part of our population. But to that place there were also serious objections, which would prevent its adoption to any considerable extent. The nearness of that Island to our southern borders, and the evil consequences that might result from embodying the free persons of color in the vicinity of those parts of the United States, where slaves are so numerous, forbade the friends of humanity to provide a home for them in that Island.' – [African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 17, 23, 68, 77, 226.]

'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. They constitute a large mass of human beings, who hang as a vile excrescence upon society – the objects of a low debasing envy to our slaves, and to ourselves of universal suspicion and distrust.' * * 'If this process were continued a second term of duplication, it would produce the extraordinary result of forty white men to one black in the country – a state of things in which we should not only cease to feel the burdens which now hang so heavily upon us, but actually regard the poor African as an object of curiosity, and not uneasiness.' * * 'Enough, under favorable circumstances, might be removed for a few successive years – if young females were encouraged to go – to keep the whole colored population in check.' – [African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 230, 232, 246.]

'The existence of such a population among us is a most manifest evil. And every year adds to its threatening aspect. They are more than a sixth of our population! Their ratio of increase exceeds that of the whites. They have all the lofty and immortal powers of man. And the time must arrive, when they will fearlessly claim the prerogatives of man. They may do it in the spirit of revenge. They may do it in the spirit of desperation. And the result of such a mustering of their energies – who can look at it even in distant prospect without horror? Almost as numerous are they now, as our whole population when this nation stood forth for freedom in a contest with the mightiest power of the civilized world. And if nothing is done to arrest their increase, we shall have in twenty years four millions of slaves; in forty years eight millions; in sixty years sixteen millions, and a million of free blacks; – seventeen millions of people; seven millions more than our present white population; – enough for a powerful empire! And how can they be governed? Who can foretel those scenes of carnage and terror which our own children may witness, unless a seasonable remedy be applied? The remedy is now within our reach. We can stop their increase; we can diminish their number.' – [Rev. Baxter Dickinson's Sermon delivered at Springfield, Mass. in 1829.]

'We have a numerous people, who, though they are among us, are not of us; who are aliens and outcasts in the land of their birth. A people whose condition is degraded and miserable; who, so far from adding to our national strength, are an element of weakness, and detract from the amount of human effort. A people, whose condition, while it excites our commiseration, must awaken our fears.' * * 'Those persons of color who have been emancipated, are only nominally free; and the whole race, so long as they remain among us, and whether they be slaves or free, must necessarily be kept in a condition full of wretchedness to them and full of danger to the whites. This view of the subject is rendered the more alarming by the rapid increase of this portion of our population.' – [Second Annual Report of the New-York State Colonization Society, pp. 4, 34.]

'We would ask, whence have the troubles, which have taken place among the slaves of Louisiana, originated? Trace the causes, and we will invariably find them to have proceeded from the suggestions and officious interferences of the free blacks. Their very existence in our limits, enjoying supposed independence, excites the envy and dissatisfaction of the slaves. The latter naturally inquire, why is it, that persons of the same color, are permitted to possess more privileges than they do?.. We know the danger to which we are exposed from such a class of beings living in the very heart of our population, and increasing greatly every year.' – [An advocate of the Society in the New-Orleans Argus.]

'Among us the free negroes are multiplying rapidly; both conscience and religion, as well as propagation, increase them, and, unless instant and decisive steps are taken to prevent their increase, you will soon have 50,000 determined and vengeful enemies in the heart of your country, protected there by the constitution, forsooth, by which it seems we are forbidden to expel the free negroes, or to prevent farther importations of this deadly pest in the persons of slaves.' – [Louisville Focus.]

'Will not the people of the United States be induced to do something to remove their colored population? I refer to their condition, whether bond or free. They are wretched and dangerous, and should be removed. And the danger arises, not because we have thousands of slaves within our borders, but because there are nearly two millions of colored men, who are by necessity any thing rather than loyal citizens.' – [Address by Gabriel P. Disosway, Esq.]

'It is not now a novel or a debateable proposition, that slavery is a great moral and political curse. It is equally clear that its multitudinous evils are greatly increased by the existence among us of a mongrel population, who, freed from the shackles of bondage, yet bear about them the badge of inferiority, stamped upon them indelibly by the hand of nature, and are therefore deprived of those rights of citizenship, without which they must necessarily be a degraded caste – depraved in morals and vicious in conduct, and exercising a mischievous and dangerous influence over those to whom they are nominally superior. Their mere existence among the slaves is sufficient, of itself, to excite in the bosoms of the latter a feeling of dissatisfaction with their own condition, apparently worse, because of the coercion to labor which it imposes; but essentially better, because of the comforts which that labor procures, and of which the idle and dissolute habits of the free negro almost invariably deprive him. The slave, however, is not capable of reasoning correctly, if he reasons at all, on these truths. He envies the free negro his idleness, and his freedom from restraint, with all its attendant disadvantages of poverty and disease, crime and punishment – and hence, he will sometimes indulge the delusive dream of effecting his own emancipation by the murder of those who hold him in bondage. Take away from him this cause of dissatisfaction, and this incentive to insurrection, and then these "impracticable hopes," which now sometimes flit before his imagination, will no longer embitter his hours of labor, and urge him to the commission of those horrid deeds of massacre, which, though they may glut a momentary revenge, must result disastrously, not only to the slaves engaged immediately in their perpetration, but to all that unfortunate race. Our true interests require that they shall remove from among us – and no longer be a source of disquietude to the whites, of envy to the slaves, and of degradation to themselves.' – [Lynchburg (Va.) Virginian.]

'For the most conclusive reasons this removal should be to Africa. If it be to the West Indies, to Texas, to Canada, then, how strong and various the objections to building up, in the vicinity of our own nation, a mighty empire, from a race of men, so unlike ourselves? But, if the removal be to Africa, then it is to a happy distance from us and to their father land… Then let it aid in removing that population, which, under its peculiar relation to the whites, and under its degrading social and civil disabilities, is a most fruitful source of national dishonor, demoralization, weakness and horrid danger.' – [Memorial of the New-York State Colonization Society.]

'The males removed should be persons between 16 and 17 years of age; the females between 13 and 14. Now as a number would be annually removed equal to the whole increase, and as that number would be composed of individuals, of such ages that their removal would affect the future increase of the race in the greatest possible degree, I believe that their numbers would not only not increase, but would diminish. And the number removed might be increased as the proportion of white persons in the State became greater, until the removal reached a point at which all the males who attained the age of sixteen, and all the females who attained the age of fourteen, in any given year, would during that year be removed.' – [Petersburg (Va.) Times.]

'They are well calculated to render the slaves sullen, discontented, unhappy and refractory – and the masters suspicious, fearful of consequences, and disposed to enhance the rigor of the condition of their slaves, in order to avert the dangers that appear to impend over them from the promulgation of the anti-slavery doctrines; thus, in this case, as in so many others, the imprudent zeal of friends is likely to produce as much substantial injury as the animosity of decided enemies could accomplish.' – [Mathew Carey's Essays.]

'Hatred to the whites is, with the exception in some cases of an attachment to the person and family of the master, nearly universal among the black population. We have then a foe, cherished in our very bosoms – a foe willing to draw our life-blood whenever the opportunity is offered, and, in the mean time, intent upon doing us all the mischief in his power.' – [Southern Religious Telegraph.]

Does the reader wish for any additional proof that the governing motive of the American Colonization Society is fear – undisguised, excessive FEAR? Language is altogether inadequate to express my indignation and contempt, in view of such a heartless and cowardly exhibition of sentiment. There is a deep sense of guilt, an awful dread of retribution, manifested in the foregoing extracts; but we perceive no evidence of contrition for past or present injustice, on the part of those terror-stricken plotters. Instead of returning to those, whom they have so deeply injured, 'with repenting and undissembling love;' instead of seeking to conciliate and remunerate the victims of their prejudice and oppression; instead of resolving to break the yoke of servitude and let the oppressed go free; it seems to be their only anxiety and aim to outwit the vengeance of Heaven, and strengthen the bulwarks of tyranny, by expelling the free people of color from our shores, and effecting such a diminution of the number of slaves as shall give the white population a triumphant and irresistible superiority! 'Check the increase!' is their cry – 'let us retain in everlasting bondage as many as we can, safely; but the proportion must be at least ten millions of ourselves to two millions of our vassals, else we shall live in jeopardy! To do justly is not our intention; we only mean to remove the surplus of our present stock; we think we shall be able, by this prudent device, to oppress and rob with impunity. Our present wailing is not for our heinous crimes, but only because our avarice and cruelty have carried us beyond our ability to protect ourselves: we lament, not because we hold so large a number in fetters of iron, but because we cannot safely hold more!'