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It is a self-evident proposition, that just so far as you alleviate the pressure of guilt upon the consciences of evil doers, you weaken the power of motive to repent, and encourage them to sin with impunity. To descant upon the wrongs of the slavesystem, and yet exonerate the supporters of it from reprehension, is to deal in absurdities: we might preach in this manner until the crack of doom, and never gain a convert. Paradoxes may amuse, but they never convince the mind.

Now, I defy the most ingenious advocates of perpetual slavery to produce stronger arguments in its favor than are given in the foregoing extracts. What better plea could they make ? what higher justification could they need? Nay, these apologies of colonizationists represent oppression not merely as innocent, but even commendable-as a system of benevolence, upheld by philanthropists and sages!

'I do not condemn the detention of the slaves in bondage under the circumstances which are yet existing,' says an advocate; by which consolatory avowal we are taught that the criminality of man-stealing depends upon circumstances, and not upon the fact that it is a daring violation of the rights of man and the laws of God.

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The planter sees that the condition of the great mass of emancipated Africans is one, in comparison with which the condition of his slaves is enviable,' assert the Board of Managers a concession which transforms robbery into generosity, cruelty into mercy, and leads the slaveholder to believe that, instead of deserving censure, his conduct is really meritorious! -a concession which is at war with common sense, and contráry to truth.

'I am not complaining of the owners of slaves-I do not doubt that the slaves are happier than they could be if set free in this country,' declares an apologist, even in Massachusetts ! Stripes and servitude would doubtless soon alter his opinion. With him, to sell human beings at public auction, and to separate husbands and wives, and children and parents, is not a subject of complaint! and to be a slave, to be fed upon a peck of corn per week, unable to possess property, liable to be torn from the partner of his bosom and children at a moment's warn

ing, mal-treated worse than a brute, &c. &c. &c. is more desirable than to be a free man, able to acquire wealth, unrestricted in his movements, from whom none may wrest his wife or children, and who can find redress for any outrage upon his person or property!

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Policy, and even humanity,' cries another, 'forbid the progress of manumission'! Indeed! But is it right to hold our fellow creatures as chattels, and to perpetuate their ignorance and servitude? O no! this is wrong, but it would be a greater wrong to emancipate them! Is this folly or villany? To oppress our brother is wrong, but to cease from oppressing him would not be right!

'I would be a slaveholder to-day without scruple,' says another advocate.

Many owners of slaves,' another declares, hold them in strict accordance with the principles of humanity and justice'!!! Yes, to deprive men of their inalienable rights is to do unto them as we would have them do unto us!

Finally, another boldly declares that the slaves are treated too indulgently!—The laws which regard them as beasts, but punish them for the commission of crime as severely as if they possessed the knowledge of angels, he must suppose are too lenient. Their allowance of corn is too liberal; they ought not to wear any raiment; to sleep in their wretched huts is calculated to make them effeminate-the open field is a more suitable place for cattle; no religious instruction should be granted even orally to them! The slaves, as a body, too kindly treated! The Lord have compassion upon any of their number who shall come under the control of him who holds this opinion!

Sentiments, like these, act upon the consciences of slave owners like opiates upon the body, lulling them into a slumber as profound and fatal as death. It were almost as hopeless a task to attempt to arouse, alarm and animate them, so long as they repose under the stupefying effects of this poison, as to raise the dead. This must not be. Slaveholders are the enemies of God and man; their garments are red with the blood of souls; their guilt is aggravated beyond the power of language to describe; and they must be made to see and realise their

awful condition. Truth must send its arrows into their consciences, and Terror rouse them to exertion, and Conviction bring them upon their knees, and Repentance propitiate the anger of Heaven, or they perish by the sword. The slaves must be free; and He who is no respecter of person is now holding out to us this alternative-either to wait until they burst their chains and wade through a river of blood to freedom, or to liberate them willingly ourselves. Can we hesitate in our choice? Be this our only reply to those who apologise for the oppressors, and fix the standard of policy higher than that of duty: Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!'

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SECTION III.

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY RECOGNISES SLAVES AS PROPERTY.

THE heresies of this combination are flagrant and numerous. A larger volume than this is needed to define and illustrate them all. Much important evidence, and many pertinent reflections, I am compelled to suppress.

My next allegation against it is, that it recognises slaves as property. This recognition is not merely technical, or strictly confined to a statutable interpretation. I presume the advocates of the Society will attempt to evade this point, by saying that it never meant to concede the moral right of the masters to possess human beings; but the evidence against them is full and explicit. The Society, if language mean any thing, does unequivocally acknowledge property in slaves to be as legitimate and sacred as any other property, of which to deprive the owners either by force or by legislation, without making restitution, would be unjust and tyrannical. Here is the proof:

'It interferes in no wise with the rights of property.' * * 'It is utterly opposed to any measures which might infringe upon the rights of property.' * * 'We hold their slaves as we hold their other property, SACRED.' [African Repository, vol. i. pp. 39, 225, 283.]

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Does this Society wish to meddle with our slaves as our rightful property? I answer no, I think not.' * * The Society cannot be justly charged with aiming to disturb the rights of property or the peace of society.' seeks to affect no man's property.' * * 6 To found in Africa, an empire of christians and republicans; to reconduct the blacks to their native land, without disturbing the order of society, the laws of property, or the rights of individuals,' &c.-[African Repository, vol. ii. pp. 13, 58, 334, 375.]

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They are also convinced, that the Society have conducted their operations with so much prudence, as to give no cause of alarm to the holders of slaves, for the security of this property.'-[African Repository, volume iii. p. 341.]

The rights of masters are to remain sacred in the eyes of the Society.'-[African Repository, vol. iv. p. 274.]

The Society has never interfered, and has no disposition to interfere with the rights of private property.' * * The alarm for the rights of property appears to have subsided, and the Society is no longer charged with any sinister or insidious design. It has constantly disclaimed any intention of disturbing the rights of others; and its conduct entitles its declaration to credit.' * * The American Colonization Society has, at all times, solemnly disavowed any purpose of interference with the institutions or rights of our Southern communities.' * * "Our friends, who are cursed with this greatest of human evils (slavery) deserve our kindest attention and consideration. Their property and safety are both involved.'-[African Repository, vol. v. pp. 215, 241, 307, 334.]

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'It has constantly disclaimed all intention whatever of interfering, in the smallest degree, with the rights of property.' * * 6 The Society, from considerations like these, whilst it disclaims the remotest idea of ever disturbing the right of property in slaves,' &c. It is not the object of this Society to liberate slaves, or touch the rights of property.' ** Honorable instances might be adduced of disinterested benevolence on the part of the owners of slaves, and of their sacrificing property to a large amount, in their enfranchisement and restoration to the land of their ancestors.' * * The American Society has disclaimed from the first moment of its institution, all intention of interfering with rights of property.' * * 'The federal government has no control over this subject it concerns rights of property secured by the federal compact, upon which our civil liberties mainly depend; it is a part of the same collection of political rights; and any invasion of it would impair the tenure by which

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every other is held.' * 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.'

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The slaveholder, so far from having just cause to complain of the Colonization Society, has reason to congratulate himself, that in this Institution a channel is opened up, in which the public feeling and public action can flow on, without doing violence to his rights.'-[African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 13, 69, 81, 153, 165, 169, 205, 363.]

'It was proper again and again to repeat, that it was far from the intention of the Society to affect, in any manner, the tenure by which a certain species of property is held. He was himself a slaveholder; and he considered that kind of property as inviolable as any other in the country.'-[Speech of Henry Clay. First Annual Report.]

'Your committee would not thus favorably regard the prayer of the memorialists, if it sought to impair, in the slightest degree, the rights of private property.'-[Report of the committee of the House of Representatives of the United States, on the memorial of the President and Board of Managers of the Colonization Society.-Second Annual Report.]

The Society has at all times recognised the constitutional and LEGITIMATE existence of slavery.'-[Tenth Annual Report.]

The Society protests that it has no designs on the rights of the master in the slave or the property in his slave, which the laws guarantee to him.'-[Fourteenth Annual Report.]

'Something he must yet be allowed to say, as regarded the object the Society was set up to accomplish. This object, if he understood it aright, involved no intrusion on property, NOR EVEN UPON PREJUDICE.'-[Fifteenth Annual Report.]

"To the slaveholder, who had 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.' * * 'Equally absurd and false is the objection, that this Society seeks indirectly to disturb the rights of property, and to interfere with the well established relation subsisting between master and slave.'-[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 100, 228.]

I repeat, that though not a slaveholder, yet I think that every man ought to be protected in his property, and as the laws of our country have decreed that negroes are property, every person that holds a slave, according to these laws, ought to be protected.'-['A new and interesting View of Slavery.' By Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]

We are made to disregard this description of property, and to touch without reserve the rights of our neighbors.'-[Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the New-Jersey Colonization Society.]

Thus the American Colonization Society shamelessly surrenders the claims of justice, and leaves the enemies of oppression weaponless! Hence it rejects the proposition, that man cannot hold property in man; and we are called upon to prove that which is self-evident. No accidental differences of condition or complexion-no vicissitudes of fortune-no reprisal or purchase or inheritance, can justly make one individual the slave of another. When God created man, he gave him dominion over the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field; but not over his fellow man. 'All men are born free and equal,' and are 'made of one blood.' Shall we look to wealth as giving one a title to the labor and freedom of another? Wealth is the creature of circumstances, and not an arbitrary law of nature. It takes to itself wings, and flies away; and he who is an opulent tyrant to

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