The African race is a race of barbarians, and civilization to that
race would be an artificial state of existence.[3] The vestiges of
barbarism characterize the African, in his normal state. The latent
principle of cannibalism, lurks, in dormant energy, within the very
core of his being, and constitutes a prominent characteristic of his
animal existence. The economy and order of nature is no less marked in
the _carnivorous_ than in the herbivorous mammalia and quadrumana; and
although their physical distinctions are not always so marked as to
render apparent, to superficial observation, the uses and functions of
their entire organism, yet science has been a tolerably faithful
interpreter of cause and effect, and has not failed to recognize those
organic qualities, and the structural adaptability of the African
race, which qualify it for its mission as the representative of
barbaric fury and degradation, and the type, in human form, of that
chaotic element of self-annihilation, which nature has kindly
restricted to the fewest number of the lowest orders of animated
being.[4] The inhabitants of Southern and Central Africa, from whence
our slaves are drawn, the Feejeean, the Caffrarian, the New-Zealander,
and the Hottentot, are stamped by nature with the unmistakable
character of unmitigated barbarism, and absolute antagonism to
civilization; and their improvement when brought in contact with
civilization is so slow as almost to escape detection. Indeed it is
doubtful whether the arts of European and American civilization have
succeeded in so fascinating the African race among us as to warrant
the expectation of permanency to the colony of Liberia, except from
the light reflected by constant and continued emigration; and it is
believed, by many shrewd philanthropists whose efforts have been long
devoted to the cause of African colonization, that should emigration
to the colony cease, the Negroes there would immediately relapse into
their former habits and customs, and ultimately resume their original
character of cannibals.