and no person of common intelligence would conjecture from the resolution, that the "selection" mentioned in it, was utterly at variance with, and directly opposed to the avowed objects of the Society. Slavery in our country cannot be abolished by Colonization, without removing more than two millions of slaves; and how is it possible to remove this number, and yet select for colonists only "the moral, indus trious and temperate ?" Nevertheless, the meeting "Resolved that the friends of humanity and the friends of God, should cherish the Colonization Society, because of its influence TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, and advance the best interests of the African race."

Pages might be quoted to show that the professed ultimate object of the Society, is to remove the whole colored population to Africa, without any selection whatever. In 1824, a Committee of the Board, in an official report declared, that the national interests " required that the whole mass of free persons of color, and those who may become such with the consent of their owners, should be progressively removed from us, as fast as their own consent can be obtained, and as the means can be found for their re moval and for their proper establishment in Africa." Rep. VII. p. 113 of buy

Af.

"But the Colonization Society hopes for and aims at much more-the abolition of slavery, and the removal of ALL the black people from the United States." Proceed ings of New-York Col. Soc. 2nd Anniversary.

We have remarked that EXPEDIENCY is unhappily the governing principle of the Society, and to this principle must be attributed the recent talk about select emigrants.

Funds are low, and temperance is popular, and all at once we hear that the colonies in Liberia are to be temperance colonies; and that the emigrants are to be "moral, industrious, and temperate." And so we are to send the good negroes away, and keep the bad at home! And yet, by transporting the few moral, industrious, and temperate individuals that can be selected in a vicious and ignorant population of between two and three millions, we are to abolish slavery!! Surely Colonizationists, by holding such language pay but a poor compliment to their own candor, or the common sense of the

community. The truth is there never has been, and never will be a selection made. The two last cargoes sent by the Society, were by the public confession of Mr. Breckenridge "two cargoes of vagabonds." Will it be pretended that all the coercion exerted to induce the blacks to emigrate, operates only on the good; or that it is the drunken and profligate who find favor in the eyes of the friends of Colonization, and are permitted to remain in peace and quietness at home!

The Society itself has borne abundant testimony to the depravity of the free blacks, and all Colonizationists with scarcely an exception zealously maintain that the slaves are unfit for freedom; and yet as we have seen, it is proposed to transport them all to Africa. And now we would ask, on what principle of common sense, on what record of experience does the Society expect that a population which in a land of Bibles and churches, is sunk in vice and ignorance, will, when landed on the shores of Africa, and immersed in all the darkness of paganism, become on a sudden, a Christian society, and employed in teaching thousands of barbarians "the doctrine of immortality, the religion of the Son of God!"

Pious Colonizationists would themselves be shocked at the proposal of disgorging on the islands of the Pacific the tenants of our prisons, under the pretext of instructing the natives in " religion and the arts;" and yet they flatter themselves, that emigrants, who, by their own showing are less intelligent, and scarcely less guilty than our prisoners, will by undergoing a salt water baptism, land in Africa wholly regenerated; and qualified as heralds of the cross, to convert millions and millions to the faith of the Gospel. So monstrous an absurdity, can be the offspring only of a deep and sinful prejudice. Hatred to the blacks can alone delude us into the belief that in banishing them from our soil, we are doing God service. Were it not for this hatred, we should feel and acknowledge, that Christianity must be propagated in Africa, as elsewhere, by faithful and enlightened missionaries. If the climate or other circumstances require that such missionaries be of African descent, it is our duty to educate them, before we send them. But alas, instead of educating negroes, we wish to keep

them in ignorance, and yet pretend that our nuisances will, in Africa, be converted into blessings. But if Colonizationists are so perverse as to believe that a bitter fountain will send forth sweet waters, let them contemplate the following picture of Sierra Leone, drawn by a devoted friend of the Society.

"Including the suburbs of the town, (Free Town) there are some six or eight thousand inhabitants, about eighty of whom are white.-The morals of Free Town are fearfully bad. As in colonies too generally, where the restraints of home, of friends, of those we love, and those we fear are broken off, licentiousness prevails to a most lamentable degree. The abomination is not committed under the cover of midnight, nor am I speaking of the natives whose early habits might plead some apology for themit is done at noonday, and to use a figure, the throne as well as the footstool has participated in the evil; and the evil, I am told, is increasing. Sanctioned as it is, by those who take the lead in the society, and who ought to form the morals of the colony, avarice has been added to lust, and those who otherwise might have been virtuous, have sold themselves to work wickedness.-Humanity and phi lanthropy which have struggled so hard and so long to help this degraded country, must weep and cover itself with sackcloth, to see its best interests so wickedly perverted!" Letter from Rev. M. B. Cox, Methodist Missionary in Libeberia. Af. Rep. IX. p. 209.

There is still an important consideration, which does. not seem to have engaged the attention of Colonizationists. It is proposed to transport to Africa, our whole colored population, and of course to found a mighty nation in Liberia. But how long will this nation remain dependent on the Board of Managers at Washington? Instead of millions, suppose the colony to be only ten thousand strong. Who is to govern it, who defend it, and fight its battles? Were the colony now to declare independence, how would the Society reduce it to subjection; and if not subjected, what becomes of the mighty plan of making it the receptacle of our slaves and free negroes? Suppose the colonists like their brethren of Sierra Leone engage in the slavetrade, who is to punish or control them? Suppose in time

they find the influx of emigrants inconvenient, and refuse to admit them, who shall coerce them?

On the whole, the system of African Colonization is full of absurdities and contradictions, and evils, which are not seen, because they are concealed by a veil of prejudice. It is a system which strikingly exposes the folly of human wisdom, when opposed to the precepts of the Gospel of Christ. Had America possessed that fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of true wisdom, slavery would long since have ceased from among us, and our colored brethren, treated with Christian kindness, instead of being nuisances, would have been valued and useful citizens; and our churches, instead of uniting to send " cargoes of vagabonds" to Africa under the guise of Christian missionaries, would have aided the descendants of her sons, furnished by us with all the stores of human learning, and selected for their piety and zeal, in proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation, throughout that benighted continent.

CHAPTER V.

Influence of the Society on Slavery.

IN 1822, a committee was appointed by a public meeting in Boston, to report on the character and tendency of the American Colonization Society. The committee in their report remark:

"It is only from the belief which the committee very cordially entertain, that the active members of the American Colonization Society are perfectly disposed to frame their measures with reference to the entire suppression of the slave trade, and to a gradual and prudent, but comPLETE EMANCIPATION of those now held in slavery, that we can regard the Society as having any claim upon the pathy or assistance of the people of New-England.”

sym

Such were the expectations by which northern philanthropists were at first induced to countenance the Society. There is scarcely to be found a Colonization article or

70

speech that does not warrant these expectations, that does not promise the exertion by the Society of a mighty MORAL INFLUENCE in abolishing slavery.

Now it is obvious that such an influence must operate in one or more of the following ways, viz:

1. On the conscience of the slave holder, convincing. him that slave holding is sinful, and that his Maker requires him to liberate his slaves.

2. On the reputation of the slave holder, making him feel, that his standing in the community is lowered by keeping his fellow men in bondage, and enjoying, without compensation, the fruits of their labor.

3. On the interests of the slave holder, persuading him, that emancipation would enhance his property.

4. On the fears of the slave holder, alarming him for the safety of himself and family.

5. By the power of example, showing the slave holder, by the conduct of others whom he esteems, what his own ought to be.

We flatter ourselves, that we shall prove, that the influ ence of the Society is in no degree exerted in any one of these ways, except the last. Of the extent of this last mode, we shall speak hereafter.

It will not be pretended, that the Society addresses itself to the conscience of the slave holder. Such addresses are not authorised by the constitution, and have been repeatedly disclaimed by the Society. But when the Society disclaims appeals to the conscience, it disclaims the most powerful of all means for the removal of slavery.

"We never made any headway," says a British writer, "in the abolition of the slave trade, and of slavery, till it was taken up by the religious men, prosecuted as a concern of the soul, with reference to eternity, and by motives drawn from the cross of Christ Mr. G. Smith, a most estimable officer of the Society, remarked, in a temperance address:

་་

"I never heard that temperance had any success any where, unless the appeals in its favor were made directly to the consciences of the rum dealers. Strike out these, and it is vain that you seek for other means to propel the triumphant car of temperance. Hitch to that car, health,