ger to the Southern States, arises not from the intelligence, but from the brutal ignorance of their colored population. And we are happy to have observed that the great body of the friends of colonization, favor the instruction and improvement of the people of color here. We are happy to know that many a friend of colonization at the South is teaching these unfortunate beings, and preparing them for usefulness. We do not say that our author, when he wrote and uttered and published the above statement, knew it to be untrue; but he ought to have made some candid inquiry, and if he had done so, he would have known that such a representation, applied to the great body of intelligent and benevolent men who support the Colonization Society by their benefactions, is very far from the truth. He might have known that generally the very same people who are the steady contributing friends of the Colonization Society, are in deed as well as in word, the patrons of every discreet effort to enlighten and improve the people of color here. They proceed on the belief that the best way to promote the voluntary emigration of the blacks, is to give them knowledge, and to elevate them in the scale of being, and thus to teach them how to calculate for themselves and their posterity.

But "colonizationists," says the orator, "generally agree in apologizing for the crime of slavery." Colonizationists generally, it is true, do not indulge in such reproaches as are sometimes uttered against all who in any way happen to be masters of slaves. Yet Mr. G. himself is not ignorant that the great body of those interested in the Colonization Society, are the enemies of slavery, intent on its peaceful and legal abolition, and are pursuing this enterprise chiefly as an anti-slavery effort. But what is the slavery for which he says they apologize. Notice his language:—

Colonizationists generally agree in apologizing for the crime of slavery. They get behind the contemptible subterfuge, that it was entailed upon the planters. As if the continuance of the horrid system were not criminal! as if the robberies of another generation justified the robberies of the present! as if the slaves had not an inalienable right to freedom! as if slavery were not an individual as well as a national crime! as if tearing asunder families, limb from limb,-branding the flesh with red hot irons,-mangling the body with whips and knives,-feeding it with husks and clothing it with rags,-crushing the intellect and destroying the soul,,—as if such inconceivable cruelty were not chargeable to those who inflicted it!

We need not say how deceptive and calumnious is such a representation. Some friends of colonization have sometimes thought that a man is not to blame simply for being, in consequence of his descent, and by the laws of the land, invested with great power over the persons and character of a hundred or five hundred fellow beings. Some have thought, that such a man might even be conscientiously at a loss what to do with that power; whether, on

the one hand, to throw it down altogether, and dissolve the relation of mutual dependence between himself and his servants, or on the other hand, to employ it as well as he can for the protection, government and happiness of the unfortunate beings thus thrown upon him. But what friend of the Colonization Society ever thought of apologizing for the abuse of that power? Who has ever pretended or implied, that such cruelties as the orator here enumerates, are not chargeable to those who inflict them? Let the author furnish from his own energetic vocabulary the epithet which may most properly describe such insinuations.

In all this, the reader must observe, Mr. G. has hardly touched ou the tendency and bearing of the scheme itself, but has spoken almost exclusively of the character and motives of its supporters. Why is this? The scheme of planting colonies in Africa, by the voluntary emigration of free people of color from America, is a scheme which may be understood and considered independently of all the views and hopes of its projectors, a scheme as definite and simple as the construction of a railway on a given route from New-York to Philadelphia. The most important questions to be considered, are, What will be the tendencies and results of this project, if it is carried into execution?-and, Is there reason to believe that funds subscribed to this scheme will be faithfully applied? Inquiries into the motives and wishes, the benevolence or selfishness, of all who happen to befriend the enterprise, are of inferior moment. The construction of a railway upon a given route will have its results; and those results will not depend at all on the motives or expectations of individual subscribers to the stock. One man subscribed because it was to bring business to his city, and another because it was to turn the current of trade in the opposite direction. One man subscribed, perhaps, hoping that it would cut up and destroy a beautiful farm, the envied possession of his enemy; another because he had calculated that it would curtail the profits of a great steam-boat proprietor. But the question of the utility of the enterprise, is a question altogether independent of these views. The road will be none the less a public benefit, because certain individuals had in their view, mainly, their own private accommodation, or the indulgence of wicked personal prejudices. So with this definite enterprise. If the man of color who removes to Liberia will find there a home and a rich inheritance of privileges for himself and his children, it is comparatively of little consequence to him what are the motives of those who offer him that home and that inheritance. If flourishing christian colonies of Africans, established on the shores of their own fatherland, will tend necessarily to the elevation of the free blacks here and every where, the motives of those-if any such there areVOL. IV.

42

who favor the enterprise from selfishness, or from sheer malignity, will not defeat this tendency, which is inseparable from the doing of the thing proposed. The fact-if it be a fact-that sundry persons in a certain part of the country think that the colonization of free blacks will increase the value of slaves considered as merchandise, does not prove that such will be the actual result. If it be true that the progress of this work will by and by throw into every market free produce, in such quantities and at such rates as to preclude any competition on the part of slave-holding cultiva tors; the motives of certain slave-holders who patronize and aid the work in the expectation of perpetuating slavery by these means, cannot affect the real merits of the scheme. Why then, we ask again, why all this effort to prejudice the people of color and others against this enterprise, by impugning the motives of its supporters? Is not this whole method of proceeding unfair and deceptive? Does it not seem especially unfair, when it is considered that the author himself is constrained to acknowledge "the benevolent and disinterested intentions of many individuals" enlisted in this cause.

But perhaps this attack on colonizationists is only preliminary to an investigation of the intrinsic merits of their enterprise. Let us

see.

As to the effect of colonization upon slavery, it is rather favorable than injurious to the system. Now and then, indeed. there is a great flourish of trumpets, and glowing accounts of the willinguess of planters to emancipate their slaves on condition of their transportation to Africa. Now and then a slave is actually manumitted and removed, and the incident is dwelt upon for months. Why, my friends, hundreds of worn-out slaves are annually turned off to die, like old horses. No doubt their masters will thank the Colonization Society, or any one else, to send them out of the country; especially as they will obtain much glori fication in the newspapers for their disinterested sacrifices. Let no man be deceived by these manœuvres.

What have we here? First, the assertion that this work of colonization is rather favorable than injurious to slavery. Next, instead of proof, or any examination of the results to which this enterprise of planting colonies in Africa will naturally tend, we have such a representation of certain notorious facts, as we will not undertake to characterize. What are the facts to which the author sneeringly alludes when he speaks of the "flourish of trumpets, etc.? His own language implies the notoriety of the particulars. They have been published from time to time in the African Repository, a work surely not out of the reach of a man devoted to the interests of the people of color. The following recapitulation is from the Appendix to the fifteenth Annual Report of the Society, lately published.

A lady near Charlestown, Va. liberated all her slaves, ten in number, to be sent to Liberia, and moreover purchased two whose families were among her slaves. For the one she gave $450, and for the other $350.

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The late Wm. H. Fitzhugh bequeahted their freedom to all his slaves, after a certain fixed period, and ordered that their expenses should be paid to whatsoev. er place they should think proper to go. And, "as an encouragement to them to emigrate to the American Colony on the coast of Africa, where," adds the will, "I believe their happiness will be most permanently secured, I desire not only that the expenses of their emigration be paid, but that the sum of fifty dollars shall be paid to each one on his or her arrival in Africa.”

Col. Smith, an old revolutionary officer, of Sussex co. Va. ordered in his will, that all his slaves, seventy or eighty in number, should be emancipated, and be queathed upwards of $5000 tod efray the expense of transporting them to Liberia. Patsey Morris, of Louisa co. Va. directed by will, that all her slaves, sixteen in number, should be emancipated, and left $500 to fit them out, and defray the expenses of their passage.

The schooner Randolph, which sailed from Georgetown, S. C. had on board 26 slaves liberated by a benevolent individual near Cheraw.

Of 105 emigrants who sailed in the brig Doris from Baltimore and Norfolk, 62 were emancipated on condition of their being conveyed to Liberia.

Herbert B. Elder, of Petersburgh, Va. bequeathed their freedom to all his slaves, twenty in number, with directions that they should be conveyed to Libe ia by the first epportunity.

A gentleman (the late Dr. Bradley) in Georgia, has recently left 49 slaves free, on condition of their removal to Liberia.

In this work, the Society of Friends, as in many other cases, have nobly distinguished themselves. They have, in North Carolina, liberated no less than 652 slaves, whom they had under their care, besides, as says my authority, an unknown number of children, husbands and wives, that were connected with them. In the performance of these acts of benevolence, they expended $12,769. They had remaining under their care, in Dec. 1830, 402 slaves, for whom the same arrangements were to be made.

In addition to these instances, several others might be added, particularly that of Richard Bibb, Esq. of Kentucky, who proposes to send sixty slaves to Liberia -two gentlemen in Missouri, who desire to send eleven slaves-a lady in Kentucky offers 40-the Rev. John C. Burress, of Alabama, who intends preparing all his slaves for colonization-the Rev. William L. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, manumited 11 slaves, which sailed a few weeks ago from New-Orleans-the Rev. Wm. Jones, and Dr. Stephen Jones, of Kentucky, have also tendered to the Society all their slaves, amounting to 38 in number-and besides these, the Society has received information that many others are looking to Liberia as the ultimate asylum of those slaves whose interests are dear to them, and for whose benefit they are willing to make almost any pecuniary sacrifice.

Now what shall be said of the man who has the hardihood to represent such facts in such a manner? What shall be said of the man who, in view of all these facts circumstantially detailed to the public, as he himself implies, can say that a slave is manumitted and removed only now and then? How much credit is due to that man's assertion that "hundreds of worn-out slaves are annually turned off to die, like old horses"? And what terms will properly define and describe the innuendo, that all the emancipated slaves sent to Liberia are worn-out slaves turned off by their masters "like old horses"-turned off as no humane man would turn off the dumb beast that had served him-to die.

In conclusion, he borrows language uttered by Brougham respecting the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and applies it to the state of affairs in this country, thus:

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I trust that at length the time is come, when the people of the free States will no longer bear to be told that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right-I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the saine, that rejects it. In vain you tell me of the laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes. *** In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African slave-trade; such treaties did they cite. Yet, in despite of law and of treaties, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not assuredly by Congress leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware-let their assemblies beware-let the government beware!-the same country is once more awake,-awake to the condition of African slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; and, if it shall descend again, they on whom its crash shall fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judg ments of God! Pp. 23. 24.

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Such language is as appropriate and judicious as it is powerful, when we suppose it uttered by Henry Brougham on the floor of Parliament, respecting the subject planters and the dependent colonial assemblies of the West Indies. But what does it mean in the mouth of Mr. Garrison, addressed to a promiscuous meeting of free people of color in the United States? "The time is come,' says, "when the people of the free states will no longer bear to be told that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery." What does this mean? Who believes that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery? When have the people of the free states ever submitted their minds to such a dogma? But are not slave-owners the only lawgivers on this subject? Who else can legislate on this subject, unless the Africans themselves give laws with the torch and the battle-ax? What if the property of the master in the persons of his slaves is a nullity;-who is to pluck that property from his grasp? What if the laws which sanction his claim are all reversed by an appeal to that higher law "written by the finger of God on the heart of man ;"-who is to execute that decree of reversal? What if "the covenants of the Almighty" denounce the constitution of the United States for compromising the subject of slavery;-who is to pronounce the dissolution of that august compact, and to declare all the people absolved from their allegiance? The slave-trade was abolished by a law which Congress had right by compact to enact and execute; but what is the gathering and descending cloud, the crash of which is to abolish slavery, and against whose destroying bolts Mr. Garrison warns the