In reading the foregoing discussion, we have been utterly astonished
at the grossness and magnitude of the falsehoods--not to mention the
numerous miscolorings and misrepresentations--which the reverend
apologist for slavery has, with brazen effrontery, unblushingly
uttered even though aware of the fact that they were to be published
to the world. It would seem as if feeling the necessity of defending a
desperate cause by desperate means, he had resolved to pour out his
misstatements and inaccuracies with such lavish liberality, that his
opponent would be absolutely unable, in the time allotted to him, to
correct them all, and thus contrive to make some of his falsehoods,
because uncontradicted, pass for truth, and some of his distortions
and perversions for fair representations. The event, we cannot help
thinking, will show that he has presumed with far too much rashness on
the supposed ignorance of the British people. Some of his falsehoods,
mistakes, and misrepresentations, which were either wholly unnoticed,
or not fully answered by Mr. Thompson, for want, as he has informed
us, of time to do it, we shall briefly notice here,
First, however, we would call attention to the remark, that 'he is not
a slaveholder,' with which Dr. Wardlaw introduced Mr. Breckinridge to
the audience, and in reference to it quote part of a letter from Dr.
A. L. Cox of New York, to the editor of the emancipator. 'The only
knowledge I have on this subject,' says Dr. C., 'is what I derived
from the confession of R. J. Breckinridge, extorted at an anniversary
meeting of the Colonization Society in this city, in the spring of
1834.' After mentioning some of the circumstances which led him to
speak, the letter goes on to say, 'Just as Robert J. Breckinridge was
on the point of speaking, one of the assembly inquired, 'Is he a
slaveholder?' The orator seemed somewhat disconcerted, but answered
'_I have_ that honor.'
In the first evening's discussion, page 6, Mr. Breckinridge says that
the British people 'had sent out agents to America, who had returned
defeated. They have failed--they admit they have failed in their
object.' To say nothing of the accuracy which speaks in the plural
number of a single individual, and which can easily be excused to one
who in encountering him, probably felt that that individual was
himself a host,--when or where has the alleged admission been made?
Never. Nowhere. The assertion is untrue.
During the same evening, page 7, Mr. B. tells his audience that 'of
the twelve [free] states, at least four, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Maine never had a slave.' What says the United States' census? In
1830, there were 2 slaves in Maine, 6 in Ohio, 3 in Indiana, and
747[A] in Illinois. In 1820, there were 190 in Indiana, and 917 in
Illinois. In 1810, Indiana contained 237, Illinois 168. In 1800, there
were 135 in Indiana. But Mr. B. says, that 'since 1785, till this
hour, there never had been one slave in any of these states.'
[A] Called indented apprentices, but from the connection
in which it stands in the census, we infer that they are
virtually slaves.
'America,' he tells us, 'was the first nation upon earth, which
abolished the slave trade and made it piracy.' See page 8. This will
be unwelcome news to Messrs. Franklin and Armfield of Alexandira, D.
C., whose standing advertisements in the Washington papers, offer cash
for negroes of both sexes, from 12 to 25 years of age, and announce
the 'regular trips' twice a month, of their vessels engaged in the
slave trade between the District and New Orleans. It will be
unpleasant intelligence in the city of Washington, where for $400 a
year, the 'trade or traffic in slaves' is licensed for the benefit of
the canal fund. It will be news to the keepers of the prisons in the
District, who, in their official capacity, carry on the slave trade by
selling men 'for their prison and other expenses, _as the law
directs_.'
But Mr. B. means the _foreign_ slave trade, not the domestic. The
latter, indeed, may be licensed, and protected, and deemed honorable
as it is lucrative. Those who engage in it, may be like Armfield and
Woolfolk, gentlemen 'of engaging and graceful manners,' reported to be
'mild, indulgent, upright, and scrupulously honest,' but the _foreign_
trade is _piracy_ by the law of the land. Very meritorious truly! and
worthy of abundant eulogy! to prohibit piracy on the high seas, or the
African coast, while selling permission to do along her own coast, and
on her own territories, the same acts which, when done abroad,
constitute piracy. But to what does her abolition of even the foreign
slave trade amount? Do her cruizers ever capture a slave ship? Seldom,
if ever. Does she consent to such arrangements, in her treaties with
other nations which are in earnest in their endeavors to suppress the
slave trade, as will prevent her flag from being made a protection to
the detestable traffic? No. The N. Y. Journal of Commerce, in a recent
article very truly asserts, that 'We neither do any thing ourselves to
put down the accursed traffic, nor afford any facilities to enable
others to put it down. Nay, rather, we stand between the slave and his
deliverer. We are a drawback--a dead weight on the cause of bleeding
humanity.' And a late number of the Edinburgh Review, speaking of the
application of the British Government to this, for its co-operation,
says, 'The final answer, however, is, that _under no condition, in no
form, and with no restrictions, will the United States enter into any
convention or treaty, or make combined efforts of any sort or kind,
with other nations for the suppression of the trade_.' With what face,
then, can she claim praise for having merely made a law, which she
almost never executes, and to the execution of which, by others, she
permits her flag to be used as a hindrance.
The next assertion of Mr. B's that we notice, is the astounding one,
that America, 'as a nation, has done every thing in her power' for the
abolition of slavery. See page 8. This, while the national domain is
the home of slavery and the seat of the slave trade! While the
domestic slave trade, so far from being abolished by the National
Legislature, as it may constitutionally be, is shielded and licensed!
This, while the moral power of the nation is slumbering, or if awake,
arrayed to a great extent, in the defence of slavery! That a man who
values his reputation--that a minister of the gospel of Mr. B's
intelligence and knowledge of the country's condition and history in
regard to this matter, should make such a declaration, is truly most
wonderful. Could he have expected it to be believed? Could he have
believed it himself?
Mr. B., page 15, by way of explaining why Mr. Thompson was so
differently received in Glasgow and Boston, applauded in the one
place, and abused in the other, says that he took up the question of
slavery as one of political organization. We give to this assertion,
the answer of the editor of the Emancipator. 'This we pronounce
_utterly and unequivocally false_. We were with Mr. Thompson, while he
was in this country, as much probably as any other one individual. We
were with him in private and in public, in the house and by the way,
in the public convention and the public lecture, and we most solemnly
declare, that we never heard George Thompson, on any occasion, take up
or discuss the question of American Slavery, 'as one of civil
organization.' He always discussed it primarily and essentially as a
moral and religious question, and never went into its political
relations and bearings, except to answer the objections of cavillers
and opponents. And we are astonished that R. J. Breckinridge should
dare to make such an assertion, when, we venture to say, he never
heard George Thompson in America.'
The same editor has furnished a better solution than Mr. B's, of
the--not very difficult--problem of Mr. Thompson's different reception
in Boston and Glasgow. 'For the same reason that Knibb, and Taylor,
and Burchell did not meet with the same reception in Glasgow and
Jamaica--because, and simply because the slave spirit was diffused
through the land, infecting and corrupting alike the leading
influences of Church and State, so that Mr. T. could not condemn
slavery and prejudice 'in Boston as in Glasgow,' without constraining
the conviction and the outcry from the implicated and the prejudiced,
"so saying thou condemnest us also."'
'There is not a sane man in the free states, who does not wish the
world rid of slavery.' This Mr. B. states as his conviction, page 15.
Perhaps it is correct, but if so, there are a great many _insane_ men
in the free states, or a great many who have a very strange way of
manifesting their wishes. The fact is notorious, that Northern men who
remove to the South, almost uniformly become slaveholders the moment
their convenience or pecuniary interest can thereby be promoted.
On page 20, Mr. B. accuses Garrison of having written placards to stir
up a mob against him, when he lectured in Boston, in behalf of
colonization. A charge more utterly false was never made, and it
requires a great exercise of charity to believe that Mr. B. did not
know its falsehood. It will have been seen that Mr. Thompson
challenged proof of the accusation, but none was produced except the
word of the accuser--evidence on which, any reader who compares his
assertions in several other instances, with facts, will place very
little reliance.
Another of Mr. B's accusations against 'some of the friends of the
Anti-Slavery Society,' is, that they procured a writ to take the two
'African princes,' who had been sent to the Maryland Colonization
Society to be educated, and that Elizur Wright was the instigator of
the measure, on pretence that the boys had been kidnapped. See page
20. The truth of this matter as given in the Emancipator, on Mr.
Wright's authority, is that, on learning that two native African boys,
supposed to be slaves, were on board a schooner in New York harbor,
bound for Baltimore, Mr. Wright made inquiries on board, and could
only learn that they were brought from Africa by a passenger, and
consigned to some one in Baltimore. To make sure of the means of
prosecuting a legal inquiry, a writ was obtained, but as soon as Mr.
W. discovered that the lads were sent to this country to be educated,
he ordered the officer _not to serve it_.
The next slanderous charge uttered by the reverend delegate is, that
Elizur Wright tried to stir up a mob to liberate a fugitive slave
confined in New York prison. The story of course is wholly false.
In the second evening's discussion, Mr. B. says, page 34, the
admission of a clause into the Constitution prohibiting the abolition
of the slave trade for twenty years, 'was one of the brightest virtues
in the escutcheon of America,' A dark escutcheon, then, must be hers,
if the protection of the slave trade for twenty years is the
'brightest' spot on it. The 'importation of such persons,' &c.
(meaning slaves,) 'shall _not_ be prohibited prior to 1808,' says the
Constitution, 'The brightest virtue in her escutcheon!' exclaims Mr.
Breckinridge.
'It was well known that the slavery existing in the United States was
the mildest to be seen in any country under heaven.' Page 34. Of this
assertion of Mr. B., we have only to say in the words of the
Emancipator, 'It is "well known that the slavery existing in the
United States," is _not_ "the mildest to be seen in any country under
heaven," and to say so is demonstration absolute of the most
"unpardonable ignorance, or a purpose to mislead." Witness the fact,
that the man who teaches the slave to read, or gives him the religious
tract, or the Bible even, does it at his peril. Witness the fact, on
the testimony of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, that the
large majority of the slave population are "heathen, and will bear
comparison with the heathen in any country in the world." Witness the
slave-code every where--particularly the following, which is the law
of North Carolina, and in Georgia nearly the same, "that if any person
hereafter shall be guilty of killing a slave, he shall, upon the first
conviction, suffer the same punishment as if he had killed a free
man"--(i. e. if any white man is witness, and will come forward to
testify in the case, for the testimony of a million of colored men
would go for nothing,) and "_Provided always, that this act shall not
extend to the person killing a slave outlawed_, (and running away,
concealment, and the stealing of a hog, or some animal of the cattle
kind, to sustain life, outlaws him,) _or to any slave in the act of
resistance to his lawful owner or master or to any slave_ DYING UNDER
MODERATE CORRECTION"--thus by the very law which prohibits, giving the
master express license to kill as many, and as often as he pleases,
provided he will only take care to do it, first, when no white men are
present who will inform or testify against him, or secondly, when the
slave is an outlaw; or, thirdly, when he lifts his hand in opposition
to his master, no matter how cruel the punishment or how base the
design upon his or her person; or, fourthly, by "moderate correction."
Let him only see to it, that it is done in one or all of these ways,
and under one or all these circumstances, and if reckless enough to do
so, he may kill ad libitum, and nobody to say why do ye so. Witness
the fact, trumpeted through all the papers within five years, that a
Southern man seeing another passing across his grounds in the evening,
and supposing that he was a runaway slave, _shot him dead_, because,
although he hailed him, he did not stop--when lo! it appeared that he
had shot a white neighbor, and that, the wind being high, he did not
hear, and therefore did not stop at the summons!--a striking
illustration of the carelessness and perfect impunity with which, as
a matter of fact, black men are and may be shot when attempting an
escape from their thraldom. And, once more, witness the fact, that the
way to emancipation is hedged up in this country so as it is in no
other "country under heaven," and then say what but "ignorance, or a
purpose to mislead," could lead to such statements?'
'Perhaps the great reason against the exercise of that power' [to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,] was, that it would
_inevitably_ produce a dissolution of the Union. Put 'this and that
together.' 'There is not a sane man in the free states, but wishes the
world rid of slavery;' the free states contain 'seven millions out of
the eleven millions of the white population of the Union;' (see page
7,) 'a large minority in the slaveholding states, in some nearly one
half of the population,' (see page 13,) 'are _zealously_ engaged in
furthering the abolition of slavery,' and yet the exercise by Congress
of its constitutional power to abolish slavery in the national
district would '_inevitably_ dissolve the Union.' Verily, the old
proverb hath well said that a certain class of persons should have a
good memory.
Mr. B. sneers at 'Mr. Thompson's argument about the standing army
employed in keeping down the slaves,' and declares that it was
'complete humbug, founded upon just nothing at all.' Will the citizens
of Southampton county, Virginia, who called in the aid of the U. S.
dragoons to quell an insurrection a few years ago, corroborate his
testimony? 'An officer of the United States' army, who was in the
expedition from fortress Monroe, against the Southampton slaves in
1831, speaks with constant horror of the scenes which he was compelled
to witness. Those troops, agreeably to their orders, which were to
exterminate the negroes, killed all that they met with, although they
encountered neither resistance, nor show of resistance: and the first
check given to this wide, barbarous slaughter grew out of the fact,
that the law of Virginia, which provides for the payment to the master
of the full value of an executed slave, was considered as not applying
to the cases of slaves put to death without trial. In consequence of
numerous representations to this effect, sent to the officer of the
United States' army, commanding the expedition, the massacre was
suspended.'--_Child's Oration._
And what says Mr. B. to this assertion of John Q. Adams, that were it
not for the protection of the western frontier against the Indians,
and of the Southern slaveholder against his human 'machinery,' this
country would scarcely have any need of a standing army. Is that
'complete humbug' too?
Mr. B. ventures to say that 'there are not ten persons in the whole
state of Kentucky, holding anti-slavery principles, in the Garrison
sense of the word.' Page 40. We know not how many there may be now,
but in 1835, a constitution of a state society, framed on anti-slavery
principles, 'in the Garrison sense of the word,' was signed by more
than forty persons.
Mr. B. tells about a minister who was driven, he says, from Groton,
Mass., by the storm of abolitionism, and who seems to have fled to
Baltimore, doubtless, seeking a congenial climate. See page 40. But
Mr. B. forgot to mention the many cases in which the _slave_ spirit,
'like a storm of fire and brimstone from hell,' has driven faithful
pastors from their charges, just for the crime of praying and
preaching now and then for the enslaved.
Mr. B. says of a document from which his opponent quoted certain
Maryland laws that placed the 'benevolent colonization scheme' in any
thing but a favorable light, that it was said in America, and he
believed truly, to contain not the laws, but only schemes of laws
which never passed the Assembly. See page 47. On this the Emancipator
remarks, 'This was never alleged against the pamphlet. The pamphlet
contains the laws precisely as they stand in the statute book of
Maryland, as Mr. B. would have seen had he ever taken the trouble to
compare them. And for him to make such assertions, without having done
so, is only another instance of "unpardonable ignorance, or a purpose
to mislead."'
In the third evening's discussion, Mr. B. asserted, page 50, that Mr.
Garrison was among the first who opposed the Colonization Society, 'on
the ground that its operations were injurious to the colored race in
America.' To this the Emancipator says, 'This is partly true and
partly not. The Society was decidedly opposed, at the outset, both by
the colored people and by those who, up to that time, had been most
active in promoting the cause of emancipation. As early as August,
1817, the subject came before the "American Convention for Promoting
the Abolition of Slavery," &c., at its session in Philadelphia. This
body, representing for the most part Friends, and made up of delegates
from abolition and manumission societies in different parts of the
country, after a full discussion, appointed a committee on the
subject. That committee reported, that "they must express their
unqualified wish, that no plan of colonization shall be permitted to
go into effect without an _immutable pledge_ from the slaveholding
states of a just and wise system of gradual emancipation;" and they
conclude their report, which was approved and adopted by the
Convention with the following resolution:--
"Resolved, As a sense of this Convention, that the gradual
and total emancipation of all persons of color, and their
literary and moral education, should precede their
colonization."
When the Convention met again in 1819, the Pennsylvania society, in
sending up a statement of its views and proceedings, warned the
"abolitionists of our country to retain in view the lessons of
experience, and avoid substituting for them, schemes however splendid,
yet of questionable result;" and added, "for ourselves there is but
one principle on which we can act. It is the principle of immutable
justice! We can make no compromise with the prejudices of slavery, or
with the slavery of prejudice. The same arguments that are now urged
against emancipation, unless the subjects of it be removed from our
territory, were used with more plausibility when abolition was an
experiment, yet they were combatted with success."
Mr. B. says, page 52, it 'would-be difficult, if not utterly
impossible, for evidences of friendship to the Colonization Society
from an avowed friend of slavery to be culled out, as occurring within
the last three or four years.' Says the Emancipator, "So far is this
from being true, that the most decisive evidences of this sort are
found, _within_ the last three or four years. Scarce a pro-slavery
mob, or speech, or meeting, during this whole time, but has contained,
in one and the same breath, a condemmnation of abolition and a
commendation of colonization."
After quoting the resolution against the Colonization Society, in
Boston last year, Mr. B. remarks, 'that the verbiage of this
resolution, showed its parentage. No one who had ever heard one of Mr.
Thompson's speeches could, for a moment, doubt the authorship of the
resolution!' This is a small mistake indeed, and among so many great
ones, scarce merits a notice, but to show that Mr. B's sagacity in
conjecture, exceeds not much his veracity in assertion, we just
mention in passing, that the 'authorship of the resolution' belongs
_not_ to Mr. Thompson.
'The abolitionists,' says Mr. B. page 54, 'have been going about, from
Dan to Beersheba, not only attacking and vilifying the whites, for
proposing to colonize the blacks, with their own free consent; but
equally attacking the blacks for availing themselves of the offer.' An
assertion utterly false, and wickedly slanderous.
On page 55, Mr. B. introduces an extract from an address of some of
the Cape Palmas Colonists to their friends in America, for the purpose
of showing the prosperity of the Colony. In connection with this, let
the following letter from a colonist be read:--
'CAPE PALMAS, MAY 5TH, 1834.
_Dear Mother_,--I write you with regret. It is true, I wrote
to you of my passage, how I enjoyed it. I spent a very
agreeable time, and also on my first arrival; but now I am
distressed, and all Mr. C's family also. * * * O! I am sorry!
yes, sorry that I ever came to this country. It is true,
mother, had I taken your advice, I would not have been here.
I have suffered and all my family, and Mr. C's family too,
and we still continue to suffer. Not a cent of money have any
of us got. Now, mother, if you can get any gentleman to
advance the amount of three hundred dollars, or two hundred
and fifty dollars I will work for them for it four years. I
will serve as a waiter in a house, or any thing at all, to
pay for it. My wife says she would maintain herself and
sister, if that could get her home once more, for here they
can do nothing, for we are not able, the country is so
sickly--we have been sick ever since we have been here--* * *
I will serve any way or at any thing. _I will sell myself as
a slave_, for the sake of getting HOME once more. Try for me,
if you please, for my _family's_ sake. If I was by myself, I
might scuffle for myself.'
In a subsequent letter, dated August 3, 1834, this same writer
communicates the additional intelligence, that Mrs. C 'died of grief.'
'Every benevolent and right thinking person must see, that the scheme
of colonizing Africa by black men, is necessary to enlighten Africa,
and prevent the extirpation of the black man there.' So says Mr.
Breckinridge. Doubtless it was to _enlighten_ the poor natives, and
_prevent their_ extirpation, that a brisk traffic in rum, tobacco,
gunpowder, and spear-pointed knives, has been carried on with them by
black men colonized in Africa--that nine pound balls from 'a gun of
great power' were discharged into a body of eight hundred men,
standing within sixty yards, pressed shoulder to shoulder, in so
compact a form that a child might easily walk upon their heads from
one end of the mass to the other' and 'every shot literally spent its
force in a solid mass of living human flesh[B]--that by fraud and
injustice the colonists excited the hostility of the Africans, and
stirred up a war with King Joe Harris, which resulted in the slaughter
of numbers of the ignorant barbarians, who were unable to cope with
the superior arms, and discipline, and military prowess of the
American blacks--the 'missionaries in the holy cause of civilization,
religion, and free institutions.'[C]
[B] See Gurley's Life of Ashmun, page 139.
[C] Speech of Henry Clay. Tenth Annual Report of the
American Colonization Society.
'America,' says Mr. B., 'was christianized by colonization.' Yea,
verily! and in this case we have another precious example of the
enlightening, civilizing, and christianizing influence of colonies.
The poor Indian has felt, and faded away before it, along the
Atlantic-shores, and still the 'missionary' work is going on at the
far southwest. Ask the Seminoles and the Creeks if colonization has
not Christianized America. Ask the shades of Metacom, and Canonicus,
and Sarsacus; ask the feeble remnants of the mighty tribes which once
dwelt from the lakes to the Gulf, and from the ocean to the Alleghany,
and learn of them the process of christianization which colonies have
introduced into America. Is it by a similar process that 'colonizing
Africa by black men,' is to 'prevent the extirpation' of the natives
of that continent?
'The climate' of Africa Mr. B. says, page 58 'suits the black man,
while hundreds of white men have fallen victims to it.' And how many
'hundreds of black men' have fallen victims to it? Those especially
who have gone from the Northern states, have found it as fatal as have
the whites themselves, nor has it been very remarkably healthy to any
portion of the colonists.
Mr. B. is very certain that colonizing Africa will destroy the slave
trade. He says the colonists 'would put an end to the trade the moment
they were able to chastise the pirates, or make reprisals on the
nations to which they belonged. Nothing is plainer, than that any
nation that will make reprisals, will have none of the inhabitants
stolen. If reprisals were made effective, the slave trade would be
immediately stopped.' A Christian mode of reforming vices and removing
evils, truly! '_Any nation that will make reprisals!_' So, if Peter
steals John's child, John must steal Peter's by way of reprisal, and
that will put a stop to the mischief at once! And why not reprisals
prevent all other kinds of violence, as well as man-stealing? If an
Englishman shoots a Frenchman, let a Frenchman shoot an Englishman in
return, and the quarrel is settled, and peace restored! For 'nothing
is plainer, than that any nation that will make reprisals, will have
none of the inhabitants' shot. Does past history sustain this
doctrine? Do present facts sustain it? No longer let our clergy
preach, that 'all they who take the sword, shall perish by the sword.'
'Nothing is plainer,' than that those nations 'which take the sword'
to 'make reprisals,' 'will have none of the inhabitants' injured by
the sword. But where is the need of colonies? If the 'Foulahs' will
only steal as many men, women, and children, from the 'Ialoffs,' as
the latter from the former, 'nothing is plainer than that these two
tribes will have none of the inhabitants stolen.' Do the various
African tribes never make reprisals? How happens it then, that the
slave trade, and the whole business of man-stealing has not been long
since suppressed?
'On one hundred leagues of the African coast,' says Mr. B., 'it is
already to a great degree suppressed' by the operation of the
colonization societies and their colonies. To this the Emancipator
says, 'These statements are far, very far from true, and we can
account for them only on the ground of "unpardonable ignorance, or a
purpose to mislead." Again and again have we been assured, and on
colonial colonization authority too, that the trade still goes on in
the vicinity of the colony as briskly as ever, nay, that it is even
prosecuted within the limits of the colony, and in sight of Monrovia
itself. Indeed, at this very moment the colony, instead of being able
to suppress or destroy the trade, is in danger of being itself
destroyed by it, and is sending out its appeal to this country for
help, praying that some "American vessels" may be sent upon the coast
to seize the traders, and to protect the colony. Let our friends in
this country and in England peruse the following extracts from the
Liberia Herald just received in this country, and then say what shall
be thought of the man or the men who, in the face of such and similar
testimony repeatedly received, can unblushingly pretend "that on one
hundred leagues of the African coast, the trade is already to a great
degree suppressed?"
Extracts from late Liberia papers, received at the office of the N. Y.
Commercial Advertiser:--
"_Slave Trade._--This nefarious traffic is again lifting its
horrid head in our vicinity, and increasing in a fearful
ratio. Within one hundred miles of the settlement, there are
at this very time, at least _four_ factories for the purchase
of slaves, and one of them not more than eighteen miles off!
The consequences are most severely felt by the colony. It is
now impossible to purchase rice, at any rate that would not
starve the most fortunate man. In our immediate vicinity, it
is reported, slavers have lately given the natives a musket
for four cross! the retail price of which, in the colony, is
six dollars! To the Spaniards, in view of a successful voyage,
the profits of which are so enormous, goods are of no value;
but it is far otherwise with us. The natives, like other men,
disposed to get the most for their articles, will of course
sell to those who will give the highest. This being the case,
we ask, _how are the people of this colony to live_? We have
sometimes thought if the people of the United States once
knew the _inconvenience_ to which the slave trade subjects
us, and what an _effectual check_ it is upon the advancement
and prosperity of the colony, and how little of those surplus
and useless millions, whose proper place of deposite has
created so much contention, that without an exception, saints
and sinners, politicians, philosophers, colonizationists, and
abolitionists, anti-colonizationists, anti-abolitionists, and
anti-all, would rise up, and with one general voice decree,
that a small armed vessel shall ply between Sherbro Islands
and Kroo country, and thus _effectually protect_ a few poor
OUTCASTS, while millions of their brethren are faithfully
slaving to enrich us at home."
And so, notwithstanding the Paradise to which they have gone, and
their "free consent" to go, they are "poor outcasts" when they get
there after all; and the very trade which they were sent to abolish,
is in a fair way of abolishing them, unless government vessels go out
to their aid!'
Of the remark said to have been made by him at the colonization
meeting, in 1834, that certain emigrants to Liberia 'were coerced
away, as truly as if it had been done with a cart-whip,' Mr. B. says
'it was an unfair report, got up by Mr. Leavitt, the editor of the N.
Y. Evangelist, to serve a special purpose.' The Emancipator answers
the assertion thus, 'This passage has been quoted and requoted in this
country, in times and ways well nigh innumerable, but, to the best of
our knowledge, it was never before pronounced an unfair report, either
by Mr. B. or any other individual. And now, while we leave Mr. Leavitt
to answer for himself on the question of its fairness, we take the
liberty to say, that if unfair, it will not relieve Mr. B. of
difficulty. For if the report be fair, and Mr. B. did say the things
attributed to him, why then, as every body knows, he said what was
true. If, however, it be unfair, and he did not say those things, then
as every body knows, he did _not_ say what was true, and what, if he
had spoken the truth, he would have said. For that they were "coerced
away as truly as if it had been done with a cart-whip," every body
knows to be fact.'
_Mr. Leavitt's Note to the Editor of the Emancipator._
'In reply to Mr. Breckinridge's allegation, that I "got up"
a report of his speech, "to serve a special purpose," I will
only say, that Mr. Breckinridge did prudently to go across
the Atlantic before he made that charge. My character as a
_fair_ reporter, will not be affected _here_ by such
insinuations. I have no doubt that the report in question
gives the ideas Mr. B. uttered, mostly in the very language
he used. My recollection, in this case, is very distinct, and
the words taken down at the time.