"It is equally plain and undeniable that the society, in the prosecution
of this work, has never interfered or evinced even a disposition to
interfere in any way with the rights of proprietors of slaves."
"To the slave-holder, who has charged upon them the wicked design of
interfering with the rights of property under the specious pretext of
removing a vicious and dangerous free population, they address themselves
in a tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know your rights, say they,
and we respect them."
4. It boasts that its measures are calculated to perpetuate the detested
system of slavery, to remove the fears of the slave-holder, and increase
the value of his stock of human beings.
Proof. "They (the Southern slave-holders) will contribute more
effectually to the continuance and strength of this system (slavery) by
removing those now free than by any or all other methods which can
possibly be devised."
"So far from being connected with the abolition of slavery, the measure
proposed would be one of the greatest securities to enable the master to
keep in possession his own property."--(Speech of John Randolph at the
first meeting of the Colonization Society.)
"The tendency of the scheme, and one of its objects, is to secure slave-
holders, and the whole Southern country, against certain evil
consequences growing out of the present threefold mixture of our
population."
"There was but one way (to avert danger), but that might be made
effectual, fortunately. It was to provide and keep open a drain for the
excess beyond the occasions of profitable employment. Mr. Archer had
been stating the case in the supposition, that after the present class of
free blacks had been exhausted, by the operation of the plan he was
recommending, others would be supplied for its action, in the proportion
of the excess of colored population it would be necessary to throw off,
by the process of voluntary manumission or sale. This effect must result
inevitably from the depreciating value of the slaves, ensuing their
disproportionate multiplication. The depreciation would be relieved and
retarded at the same time by the process. The two operations would aid
reciprocally, and sustain each other, and both be in the highest degree
beneficial. It was on the ground of interest, therefore, the most
indisputable pecuniary interest, that he addressed himself to the people
and legislatures of the slave-holding states."
"The slave-holder, who is in danger of having his slaves contaminated by
their free friends of color, will not only be relieved from this danger,
but the value of his slave will be enhanced."
5. It denies the power of Christian love to overcome an unholy prejudice
against a portion of our fellow-creatures.
Proof. "The managers consider it clear that causes exist and are
operating to prevent their (the blacks) improvement and elevation to any
considerable extent as a class, in this country, which are fixed, not
only beyond the control of the friends of humanity, but of any human
power. Christianity will not do for them here what it will do for them
in Africa. This is not the fault of the colored man, nor Christianity;
but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws
of Nature!"--(Last Annual Report of the American Colonization Society.)
"The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society--prejudices
which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religion
itself, can subdue--mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as
the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable. The African in
this country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society, and
from that station he can never rise, be his talents, his enterprise, his
virtues what they may. . . . They constitute a class by themselves, a
class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which none
can be depressed."
"Is it not wise, then, for the free people of color and their friends to
admit, what cannot reasonably be doubted, that the people of color must,
in this country, remain for ages, probably forever, a separate and
inferior caste, weighed down by causes, powerful, universal, inevitable;
which neither legislation nor Christianity can remove?"
6. It opposes strenuously the education of the blacks in this country as
useless as well as dangerous.
Proof. "If the free colored people were generally taught to read it
might be an inducement to them to remain in this country (that is, in
their native country). We would offer then no such inducement."--
(Southern Religious Telegraph, February 19, 1831.)
"The public safety of our brethren at the South requires them (the
slaves) to be kept ignorant and uninstructed."
"It is the business of the free (their safety requires it) to keep the
slaves in ignorance. But a few days ago a proposition was made in the
legislature of Georgia to allow them so much instruction as to enable
them to read the Bible; which was promptly rejected by a large
majority."--(Proceedings of New York State Colonization Society at its
second anniversary.)
E. B. Caldwell, the first Secretary of the American Colonization Society,
in his speech at its formation, recommended them to be kept "in the
lowest state of ignorance and degradation, for (says he) the nearer you
bring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give them
of possessing their apathy."
My limits will not admit of a more extended examination. To the
documents from whence the above extracts have been made I would call the
attention of every real friend of humanity. I seek to do the
Colonization Society no injustice, but I wish the public generally to
understand its character.
The tendency of the society to abolish the slave-trade by means of its
African colony has been strenuously urged by its friends. But the
fallacy of this is now admitted by all: witness the following from the
reports of the society itself:--
"Some appalling facts in regard to the slave-trade have come to the
knowledge of the Board of Managers during the last year. With
undiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now carried on
all along the African coast. Slave factories are established in the
immediate vicinity of the colony; and at the Gallinas (between Liberia
and Sierra Leone) not less than nine hundred slaves were shipped during
the last summer, in the space of three weeks."
April 6, 1832, the House of Commons of England ordered the printing of a
document entitled "Slave-Trade, Sierra Leone," containing official
evidence of the fact that the pirates engaged in the African slave-trade
are supplied from the stores of Sierra Leone and Liberia with such
articles as the infernal traffic demands! An able English writer on the
subject of Colonization thus notices this astounding fact:--
"And here it may be well to observe, that as long as negro slavery lasts,
all colonies on the African coast, of whatever description, must tend to
support it, because, in all commerce, the supply is more or less
proportioned to the demand. The demand exists in negro slavery; the
supply arises from the African slave-trade. And what greater convenience
could the African slave-traders desire than shops well stored along the
coast with the very articles which their trade demands. That the African
slave-traders do get thus supplied at Sierra Leone and Liberia is matter
of official evidence; and we know, from the nature of human things, that
they will get so supplied, in defiance of all law or precaution, as long
as the demand calls for the supply, and there are free shops stored with
all they want at hand. The shopkeeper, however honest, would find it
impossible always to distinguish between the African slave-trader or his
agents and other dealers. And how many shopkeepers are there anywhere
that would be over scrupulous in questioning a customer with a full
purse?"
But we are told that the Colonization Society is to civilize and
evangelize Africa.
"Each emigrant," says Henry Clay, the ablest advocate which the society
has yet found, "is a missionary, carrying with him credentials in the
holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions."
Beautiful and heart-cheering idea! But stay who are these emigrants,
these missionaries?
The free people of color. "They, and they only," says the African
Repository, the society's organ, "are qualified for colonizing Africa."
What are their qualifications? Let the society answer in its own words:--
Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves."--
(African Repository, vol. ii. p. 328.)
"A horde of miserable people--the objects of universal suspicion--
subsisting by plunder."
"An anomalous race of beings the most debased upon earth."--(African
Repository, vol. vii. p. 230.)
"Of all classes of our population the most vicious is that of the free
colored."--(Tenth Annual Report of the Colonization Society.)
I might go on to quote still further from the "credentials" which the
free people of color are to carry with them to Liberia. But I forbear.
I come now to the only practicable, the only just scheme of emancipation:
Immediate abolition of slavery; an immediate acknowledgment of the great
truth, that man cannot hold property in man; an immediate surrender of
baneful prejudice to Christian love; an immediate practical obedience to
the command of Jesus Christ: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so to them."
A correct understanding of what is meant by immediate abolition must
convince every candid mind that it is neither visionary nor dangerous;
that it involves no disastrous consequences of bloodshed and desolation;
but, on the, contrary, that it is a safe, practicable, efficient remedy
for the evils of the slave system.
The term immediate is used in contrast with that of gradual. Earnestly
as I wish it, I do not expect, no one expects, that the tremendous system
of oppression can be instantaneously overthrown. The terrible and
unrebukable indignation of a free people has not yet been sufficiently
concentrated against it. The friends of abolition have not forgotten the
peculiar organization of our confederacy, the delicate division of power
between the states and the general government. They see the many
obstacles in their pathway; but they know that public opinion can
overcome them all. They ask no aid of physical coercion. They seek to
obtain their object not with the weapons of violence and blood, but with
those of reason and truth, prayer to God, and entreaty to man.
They seek to impress indelibly upon every human heart the true doctrines
of the rights of man; to establish now and forever this great and
fundamental truth of human liberty, that man cannot hold property in his
brother; for they believe that the general admission of this truth will
utterly destroy the system of slavery, based as that system is upon a
denial or disregard of it. To make use of the clear exposition of an
eminent advocate of immediate abolition, our plan of emancipation is
simply this: "To promulgate the true doctrine of human rights in high
places and low places, and all places where there are human beings; to
whisper it in chimney corners, and to proclaim it from the house-tops,
yea, from the mountain-tops; to pour it out like water from the pulpit
and the press; to raise it up with all the food of the inner man, from
infancy to gray hairs; to give 'line upon line, and precept upon
precept,' till it forms one of the foundation principles and parts
indestructible of the public soul. Let those who contemn this plan
renounce, if they have not done it already, the gospel plan of converting
the world; let them renounce every plan of moral reformation, and every
plan whatsoever, which does not terminate in the gratification of their
own animal natures."
The friends of emancipation would urge in the first instance an immediate
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories
of Florida and Arkansas.
The number of slaves in these portions of the country, coming under the
direct jurisdiction of the general government, is as follows:--
District of Columbia ..... 6,119
Territory of Arkansas .... 4,576
Territory of Florida .... 15,501