Proof. "Our society and the friends of colonization wish to be
distinctly understood upon this point. From the beginning they have
disavowed, and they do yet disavow, that their object is the emancipation
of slaves."--(Speech of James S. Green, Esq., First Annual Report of the
New Jersey Colonization Society.)
"This institution proposes to do good by a single specific course of
measures. Its direct and specific purpose is not the abolition of
slavery, or the relief of pauperism, or the extension of commerce and
civilization, or the enlargement of science, or the conversion of the
heathen. The single object which its constitution prescribes, and to
which all its efforts are necessarily directed, is African colonization
from America. It proposes only to afford facilities for the voluntary
emigration of free people of color from this country to the country of
their fathers."
"It is no abolition society; it addresses as yet arguments to no master,
and disavows with horror the idea of offering temptations to any slave.
It denies the design of attempting emancipation, either partial or
general."
"The Colonization Society, as such, have renounced wholly the name and
the characteristics of abolitionists. On this point they have been
unjustly and injuriously slandered. Into their accounts the subject of
emancipation does not enter at all."
"From its origin, and throughout the whole period of its existence, it
has constantly disclaimed all intention of interfering, in the smallest
degree, with the rights of property, or the object of emancipation,
gradual or immediate." . . . "The society presents to the American
public no project of emancipation."--( Mr. Clay's Speech, Idem, vol. vi.
pp. 13, 17.)
"The emancipation of slaves or the amelioration of their condition, with
the moral, intellectual, and political improvement of people of color
within the United States, are subjects foreign to the powers of this
society."
"The society, as a society, recognizes no principles in reference to the
slave system. It says nothing, and proposes to do nothing, respecting
it." . . . "So far as we can ascertain, the supporters of the
colonization policy generally believe that slavery is in this country a
constitptional and legitimate system, which they have no inclination,
interest, nor ability to disturb."