Tf '".' '; ' 'I a' .^^^ is I " ir I n u !+¦ YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Phillips Collection AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHARACTER AND TENDENCY op THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION. AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES. BY WILLIAM JAY. ** Gire me the liberty to know, ta atter, aad to axgxte freely^ accordlnf to my cooscieBce, above all liberties."— Miltoh. FOURTH EDITION. NEW YORK.- PUBLISHED BY R. G. WILLIAMS, FOR THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 143 NASSAU STREET. 1837. P Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835, bj 'W'lLLUM Jay, it tli« Clerk's Office of the District Court of th* Southern District of New York. ' Ch%0.t(pSci CONTENTS, PART J. AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. Introduction ----- .-„_._- ^agb 5^ Chapter I. Origin, Constitution, and Character of the American Colonization Society, .- - - r ^ - - .- - - IJ Chapter II. Influence of the Society on the condition of Free Per sons of Color. 17 Chapter III. Influence of the Society on Africa — Suppression of the Slave Trade. ,,,^^ 5^ Chapter IVi Influence of the Society on Africa — ^Difiiision of Civili zation and Christianity. ---...--.61 Chapter V. Influence of the -Society on Slavery. ------ ^ PART II. AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. Chapter I. Principles of the Society — 'Character of American Slavery. - - - ----- - ^ - rJ27 Chapter II. Proposed Objects and Measures of the Society — Gen-- 8ure of Abolitionists. -..----^,- J^ 4 CONTENTS. Chapter III. Fanaticism of Abolitionists, ..------ 145 Chapter IV. Incendiarism and Treason of Abolitionists. - - - 149 Chapter V. Slavery under the authority of Congress. .... 154 Chapter VI. Slavery under State authority. ....... 162 Chapter VII. Safely of Immediate Emancipation. . - . - . 168 Chapter VIII. Emancipation in St. Domingo and Gaudaloupe, and present state of St. Domingo. ---.-.. 171 Chapter IX. Emanicipation in the British West Indies. - - . . 187 Chapter X. Gradual and Immediate Emancipation. .... igg Chapter XI. Slanger of Continued Slavery. ....... ipn PREFACE, Tfo allusion has been made, in the following pages, to certain popular objections to the Colonization Society ; nor have any cases of individual cruelty been cited, te illustrate -the evils of slavery. It is proper, that the rea sons for thisdepMrture from the ordinary mode of discus sing these two subjeets, should be ^iven, that they may fiot be misunderstoo(|. The objections I have pnritted to notice, are, the mor- tahty to which the emigrants are .exposed, in conse- Huence of the climate of Liberia ; the demoralizing -traf-- tic, which the colonists have carried on with the natives, la rum and military stores ; and the improvident appli cation of the fun^ of the Society, which, has rendered ift bEmkrupt 'These objections, serious as they are in themsdves, are -not inseparable from the system of Colonization. Another and more salubrious site, may be ^selected ; the traffic complained of, may be discqntimied ; and the fiscal affairs of the Society, may hereaftea: be naapaged with prudence and economy. But there -are inherent evils in the system, and it is important that the public attention should not be .diverted from these evils, by the .contem plation of others, which are onLy,a<;ciden,tai. So, also, it is important, jtbatt -the §infiiLness of slavery, should not be merged in that of its unauthorized abuses. Many contend, for the lawfulness of slavery who readily V PREFACE. admit the sinfulness of insulated cases of cruelty. It has, therefore, been my object to show, that admitting the slaves to be treated as a prudent farmer treats his cattle —that they have enough to eat — are sheltered from the andemency ¦of the weather, and are not subjected to a greater degree of severity than is necessary, to extort from them a due amount of labor — American slavery is, nevertheless, a heinous sin, and, like every other sin, ought to be immediately abandoned. February, 1835. PART T. AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY- INT RODUCTI^N. On the 1st of January., 1B35, there were in the United States, 2,245,144 slaves.* This number about «quals the population of Holland, and exceeds that of -iScotland, of the Danish Donamons, of the Swiss Confederation, and of various Republics in South America. These millions of human beings, are held as chattels by a people professing ¦to acknowledge, that " all men are created equal, and endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness :" — they are, moreover.kept in ignorance, and compelled to live without God, and to die without hope, by a ^people professing to reverence the obRgations of Christianity. But slavery has ceased in other countries, -where it for merly prevailed ; and may we not hope that'll is gradually expiring in this ? Such a hope.is, alas, forbidden by the follow ing statement of our slave population,;at difierent periods;: United Stiites, 1790, 697,697, 1835, 2,245,144 Kentucky, do. 12,430 1830, . 165,350 Mississippi and > jg^^ .g^gg g^ jg3 953 Louisiana, 1810, 34,660 do. 109,631 Missouri, do. 3,011 do. 24,990 Perhaps, however, the political evils of slavery may be .gradually mitigated, and finally removed, by an increas- ¦* -Aceerding to the ratio of increase-between 1820 and 1830. ;S. Carolina, 8;7 Alabama, 124. Mississippi, 66.8 Louisiana, 25.6 Missouri, 104.3 Tennessee, 59.5 Kentucky, 19.6 8 INTRODUCTION. ing preponderance in the white population. Unfortunately, we are compelled by facts to anticipate a very different re sult, A comparison of the census of 1830, with that of 1820, affords us the following ratio of increase in the .free and slave ipopulation, for the intermediate ten yearsr: N. Carolina, Free 13.4 per ct Mave 20.2 per ct. 22.1 180.4100.1 ¦58.7 144.7 77.730.4 Arkansas Territory,104.8 1^80. It is obvious, from these details, that, if the present sys tem be continued, the. time cannot be, far distant, when -the slaves win possess ¦- a frightful numerical superiority ovej their masters. Already do they bear to the whites, in the slave States and Territories, the proportion of 1, to 2.'79. In South-Carolina, and Louisiana, they are now a ma jority. But in our contemplation of slavery, the sufferings of the slaves claim our consideration, no less thajj the dangers to which the whites are exposed. The ordinary evils of slavery are in this country greatly ,aggrava.ted, by a cru^ and extensive slave trade.- Yarious circumstances have of late years combined, to lessen the demand for slave labour in the more northern, and to increase it in the more south ern and western portions of the slave region ; while thje enlarged consumption of sugar and cotton is enhancing the market value of slaves. The most prqfitable employment of this species of labour, is . unfortunately found injhosc States, which, from their recent settlement, possess im mense, tracts which are still to be brought into cultivation, and in which, consequently, there novvjs, and will long continue to be, an urgent demand -for slaves. Hence has arisen a prodigious and annually increasing transportation of slaves to the south and west. There are no official data, from which the amount of this transportation can be ascertained; but from facts that have transpired, and from .estimates made . at ^the Southa INTRODUCTION. 9 thepe is reason to believe that it exceeds 30,000 a year ! One of the peculiar abominations of this trade is, that its victims are almost exclusively children and youths. In stead of removing whole families and gangs of negroes, the dealers for the most part, according to their own advertise ments, select individuals " of both sexes, from twelve to twenty-five y-ears." He snrely can have little claim to the character of a patriot, or a Christian, who does not desire, that bis coun try may be delivered from the sin and curse of slavery ; or who reiuses even to consider the means proposed for effect ing this great object. A powerjuT^ institution is now in operatios. which prn- fessesTo be, not merely a remedy for slaverymJuit-lhajmu reinedy that can be devised. It appeals to religion and patriotism, tor those pecuniary aids, which, it contends, are alone wanting, to enable it to transport our whole colored population to Africa, there to enjoy the freedoiin denied to them here ; and there to'becOme "the dispensers .ffiLrgligifln, afl?HJre ¦arfi''ancl sciencesj^ to that benighted_continent, "^f-thtrClaims^oT the American Colonization Society arc founded in ¦truth, the^jBannot be jeei&ted -without g-nili. Very many, ho-wever, -who are alike distinguished for piety and talents, instead of allowing these claims, strenu ously maintain, that the yracfical ti>f\,Ae.nr.y of j^" Sr^-icty, i is to perpetuate the evife it professes to remove ; and to extend to Africa, the vices, but 'not the blessings of civiliza tion. These conflicting opinions, on a subject so momen tous, demand a calm and patient investigation ; since he who either supports or opposes the Colonization Society, ¦without first ascertaining its true character, the results it has produced, and the influence it exerts, incurs the hazard, as far as his example and efforts extend, of in creasing the -wretchedness he would relieve ; and of fasten ing upon his country, the burden under which she is strug gling. If, in a question, involving the temporal and eternal happiness of unborn millions, we could satisfy our con- Bciences, by bowing to the authority of great names, we should still be painfully embarrassed in selecting those, to whose decision we should surrender our own judgments-. 10 INTRODUCTION. The excellent of the earth, are to be found among the friends and enemies of this association ; and if various ecclesiastical bodies in our own country, have recommend ed it to the patronage of their churches, it is regarded with abhorrence by almost the whole religious community of Great Britain .; and the last effort made by Wilberforce in the great cause of negro liberty, was, to address to the people of -Great Britain his solemn ptrotfist .against the doc trines and conduct of the American Colonization Society. This Institution may have been formed by good men, and from the purest motives, yet it is possible, that its opera tion may not have been such as they anticipated. " So many unforeseen, concealed, and inappreciable causes," says a very eminent writer, "have an influence on human insti tutions, that it is impossible to judge a •priori of their effects. Nothing but a long series of experiments, can unfold these effects, and point out the means of counteracting those that are hurtful." The following inquiry has been commenced, and pur sued, under a deep sense of the importance of the subject, and with a solemn recollection, that no deviation from truth, can escape the notice and displeasure of Him, unto whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid. CHAPTER 1. ORIGIN, CONSTITUTION, AND CHARACTER OF THE AMERlt' CAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. On the 23d December, 1816, the Legislature of Vir ginia passed a resolution requesting the Governor to cor respond with the President of the United States, " for the purpose of obtaining a territory on the coast of Africa, oj- at some other place not within any of the States, or terri-. forial governilients of the United States, to serve as an &sylum for such persons of colour as are now free, and may desire the same, and for those who may hereafter be eman cipated ¦within this commonwealth." Within a few days of the date of this resolution, a meet ing was held at Washington to take this very subject into consideration. It was composed almost entirely of_§fi3ith- em gentlemen. Judge ~\Vashington_^presi<^efl ; Mi-T Clay, Mr. Randolph, and others, took part in the, dipcnssipna which ensued, and which resulted in the organization^ of- the Ameriea"n Colonization Society. Judge Washington was chosen President, and of the seventeen Vice Presidents, only five were selected from the free States, while the twelve managers were, it is believed, without one excep tion, slave-holders. i- The first two articles of the constitution, are the only ones relating' to the ol^ect of the Society. They are as follows : Art. I. This Society shall be called the American So^ ciety for colonizing the free people of colour of the United States. Art. II. The object to which its attention is to be exclu- tively directed, is to promote and execute a plan for coloni- Jang (with their consent) the free people of color residing in our country in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall 12 ABSENCE or AVOWED MOTIVES. deem most expedient. And the Society shall act to effect this object in co-operation with the general government and such of the States as may adopt regulations on the subject. It is worthy of remark, that this constitution has no preamble setting forth the motives which led to its adop tion, and the sentiments entertained by its authors. There is no one single principle of duty or policy recognized in it, and the members may, without inconsistency, be Christians or Infidels : they may be the friends or enemies of slavery, and may be actuated byjsindness or by hatred towards " the free people orEolor." "^ The omission of all avowal of motives was, probably, not without design, and has not been without effect. It has secured the co-operation of three distinct classes. First, such as sincerely desire to afford the free blacks an asylum from the oppression they sufter here, and by their means to extend to Africa the blessings of Christianity and civili zation, and who at the same time flatter theiaiSfiJves_jthat colonization will have a salutary influence in accelerating the abolition ot slavery: aeconaiy, such as expect to en- harJceTKeTaTue and security of slave property, by removing thelfee blacks : And, thirdly, such a^ seek relief from a bad -population, without the trouble arid "expense of improving; it. The doors of the Society being thrown open to all, a heterogeneous multitude has entered, and within its portals men are brought into contact, who, in the ordinary walks of life, are separated by a common repulsion. The devoted missionary, ready to pour out his life on the sands of Africa, is jostled by the trafficker in human flesh ; the humble, self-denying Christian, listens to the praises of the Society from the unblushing profligate ; and the friend of human rights and human happiness greets as his fellow^- laborer the man whose very contribution to the cause is extorted from the unrequited labor of his fellow-men. This anomalous amalgamation of characters and motives, has necessarily led to a lamentable compromise of princi ple. Whatever may be the object each member proposes to himself, he is conscious it can be effected only by the harmonious co-operation of all the other members. Hence it is all important to avoid giving and taking offence; *nd never was the maxim, " bear and forbear," more scru- COMPROjrlSE OF PRINCIPLES. 13 pulously obeyed. Certain irreconcileable opinions, but regarded by their holders as fundamental, are, by common consent, wholly suppressed ; while in matters of less .im portance, the expression of opposite sentiments is freely allowed and borne with commendable patience. The advocates of slavery forbear shocking its opponents, by justifying it in the abstract, and in return for this com plaisance, those opponents forbear condemning it in par ticulars. Each party consents to make certain conces sions to conciliate the other. The Southron admits slavery to be a political evil ; the northern member courteously replies, that under present circumstances, it is unavoidable, and therefore justifiable. X^'f n'^t""^ f nnHitinn nf thp alnvp. his mental bondage, his bodily sufferings, arejmd^rstoodjo be forbidden topics- ' The oppressor of the free negro dwells on his depravity and degradation ; the friend of the free negro admits, and often aggravates the charges agai'ast him, but carefully ab stains from all allusion to the true Causes of that depravity and degradation, unless to excuse them as being ine.vitable. Both parties unite in depicting in glowing colors, the effects ot the oppression of the free negro, in or'dCT t6 prove the hTrmanit'if oi banishing- him frntri the country; while both retrain from all attempts to remove or lessgn the oppres sion. "Tf^he simplicity of the object of the Society as stated in its constitution, tends in a powerful degree to encourage and enforce this compromise of principle. The constitu tion, in fact, vests a drscretibnify veto in every membefjon the expression of uripaIatabre"6pinions. T£ft_altention_of the Society is to be""'"exclHaIvely-'-dii^cteaToTE^'^Im zatio"n "oTperaons ot rninr^ anH t.h'ft cnnstitution contains lio allusion to slavery. Hgnce any denunciation of slavery as sinful.* any argument' arffll-pgiPfl tn slavp. holders, to^nduce .aem to manumit their slaves, would be unconstitutjoMl, andjyc th^fiil'ore Carelully avoiaed. But the free"]Hacks ¦* Candor requires the admission that thore is at least one exception to this remark. At the annual meeting of the Society in 1834, the Rev.. Mr. Breck- enridge in his speech insisted on the sinfulness of slavery. A distingmshed lay member of the Society, who was present, complamed to lhe\aulhor ot Mr. B.'s unconstitutional conduct, and declared that he was ¦•^trongljf; tempted publicly to call him to order. \ i4 cioMPROMISE OF PR^NCItE^i^. «!arinot be transgorted without^ money, and much money tJamToFbeliaarwItEourtHe "aid of the enemies of ^avery. It is therefore permitted to represent theSociety as an an tidote to slavery, as tending to effect its abolition, any thing in the constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. But fhen this abolition is to 6e b^rought about at^omejutijre TnggBnjtP pp^?7rg: T'ru6 it is, that tne constitution is as silent, with respect to manumission, as" it is to slavery ; but by common consent, this silence is not permitted to inter pose the slightest obstacle to a unanimous, vigorous, and persevering' opposition to present manumission. Were the American Bible Society to deprecate the emancipation of slaves, and to censure all who proposed it, the outrage ¦would excite the indignation of the whole community. But what would be a perversion of its avowed object in a Bible Society, is perfectly lawful in a Colonization Society, not because it is auth'oriifed by the constitution, but because it is expedient to conciliate the slave holders. Many of the supporters of the Society are interested in the American slave trade* — a trade replete with cruelty and injustice. To condemn this trade, or to labor for its «"pp''p°'^if\n, would be unconstitutionan Tim African clave trade rather interferes with, than promotes the interests of tbe slave ownersi and the Society deem it unnecessary to seek for aiiy constitutional warrant to justify the most vio.' lent denunciation of the foreign traffic;' dr an application fo foreign powers to declare it piratical.f To hold tip the free blacks to the detestation of the Community, is constitutional — to recommend them to the ; sympathy of Christians, jp^ropose schools for Jheir in- struction, plans for encouraging their industry. an3""eflbrts for their moral ancfTeligiotrs improvemeni,.m>uld-bfe.such a flagrant departure "fromtKe"" e^tclusive"" object oLths^oci- , ety, that no'membur liaw htthprtnhwr^ raah"qy|^itr>i ^ jTTjfrf. the attempt: "At -the-same-tiffie it isquite constitutional to vindicate the cru^l laws-^whtehrarlTEriisteiSg' these people in the dust, and to show that the oppression they suffer is " an ordination of Providence.'' tec^nsMe^ftblf delle"' "' ^' ^°"'''' "'^'' "' ^^ =''=^" '"' l^^^'ft^-"' "« f See proceedings of Am. Col. Society of aoth January, ISar. .CONSEdUKNCES OF THE COMPROMISE. 15 The constitution indeed, forbids the transportation of the free~blacks witiiout ~" their consent ;" but it is very consti- tptionartg- juijtify and encourage Stiiih 6ppi'ust therefore be disfranchised ! Apprentices (" thdse bound to service for a term of years,") are likewise inclu ded among free persons, and they also cannot be citizens ! Had free white persons been spoken of as citizens, and free black persons only as " persons," then indeed there would have been some force in the Judge's first reason ; but as there is not the slightest reference in the Constitu tion to the complexion of the " free persons," we cannot understand the argument, and proceed, therefore, to his 2d reason. " They (free negroes) are not so styled, (citi zens,) so far as 1 am aware, in the laws of Congress, or of any of the States." It would thus seem that men with black skins cannot be citizens, unless the laws expressly declare them to be so. So far as we are aware, men with red hair are not styled citizens in the laws of Congress, or of any of the States. 3d reason. " His Honor then read from Kent's Com mentary, Vol. II. p. 210, a note in which the commentator speaks of the degraded condition of the blacks, and the dis abilities under which they labor, and thence inferred that, in Kent's opinion, they were not citizens." Had the Judge found it convenient to consult the text of this learned and independent jurist, the following passage would have saved him the trouble of drawing an inference. " The article in the Constitution of the United States, declaring that citizens of each State were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, applies to natural born or duly naturalized citizens, and if they remove from one State to another, the,y are entitled to the privileges that persons of the same description are en titled to in the State to which the removal is made, and to JUDGE Daggett's charge. 41 none other. If, therefore, for instance, free persons of color are not entitled to vote in Carolina, free pei'sons of color emigrating there from a Northern State would not be entitled to vote." Here is an express admission of the ci izenship of free colored persons, and their case is cited to illustrate the rights of citizens under the federal Consti tution. If a free black, according to the Commentary, moving from one State to another, is, under the federal Constitution, entitled only to such privileges as the free blacks in the latter State enjoy, it follows irresistibly that he is entitled to such privileges as the free blacks do there enjoy. Now, the free blacks of Connecticut enjoy a legal right to go to school, and to any school that will receive them ; hence, according to Chancellor Kent, a free black removing from another State into Connecticut, has the same right, and hence the Black Act is plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 4th " Another reason for believing that people of color are not considered citizens, is found in the fact, that when the United States Constitution was adopted, every State except Massachusetts tolerated slavery." Why a free black man cannot be a citizen, because another black man is a slave, is a problem we confess our selves unable to solve. Such are the arguments, and the only ones adduced by the Judge, to support his portentous decision — a decision which tends to strip the free negro of his property and rights ; renders him an alien in the land of his birth ; ex poses him to contumely and oppression, and prepares the way for his forcible deportation to the shores of Africa. In order to do full justice to Judge Daggett, it may be proper to notice his answers to objections, since these an swers may perhaps be regarded as negative arguments. To the assertion that free blacks own vessels. which participate in the peculiar privileges of American shipping, and that they sue in the United States courts, he simply replied, that these claims have never been settled by judicial decisions, To the argument that free blacks may be guilty of high treason, he replied, " So may any person who resides un der the government, and enjoys its protection, if be dses up against it." 4* 42 FREE BLACKS CITIZENS. Having thus fairly stated the Judge's arguments, we will now take the liberty of presenting a {ew facts having an important bearing on this question ; facts, be it remember ed, that were accessible to the Judge, had he thought it worth while to look for them. By the fourth of the " Articles of Confederation " ft was provided, that "the free inhabitants of these States shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citi zens in the several States." While these articles were un der consideration in Congress, it appears from the journals, that on the 25th June, 1778, " the delegates from South Carolina moved the following amendment in behalf of their State — ' In Article fourth, between the words free inhabit ants, insert white.' Passed in the negative — Ayes 2 States, Nays 8 States — 1 State divided." Here then was a solemn decision of the revolutionary Congress, that free negtoes should be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States, Judge Daggett thinks that the Constitution of the United States did not regard free blacks as citizens, because in 1788 all the States with one exception tolerated slavery ; yet in 1778, Congress de cided that free blacks were citizens, although all the States, without one exception, tolerated slavery. Ten years after this decision, the new Constitution was formed, and the clause respecting citizenship in the several States was transferred to it from the Articles of Confederation, with slight verbal alterations. That the clause embraced free negroes, at the time it was transferred, was settled by the vote we have quoted — no words were added to exclude them ; no intimation was given that the new Constitution was disfranchising thousands, and tens of thousands, who Congress had declared were invested with all the rights and immunities of free citizens. No desire was expressed to disfranchise these people, and in the debates on the Con stitution, this disfranchisement was never alluded to either in the language of praise or of censure, — and for more than forty years after the adoption of the Constitution, no sus picion existed that it had divested the free blacks of the citizenship they enjoyed under the confederation, till the discovery was made by the agent and orator of the Wind ham Colonization Society, and juridically announced by FREE BLACKS CITIZENS. 43 the Vice President of the New Haven Colonization So ciety. _ Judge Daggett " is not aware that free blacks are styled citizens in the laws of Congress or of any of the States .'" How laborious has been his search for such laws, we shall now see. Probably the Judge will admit that when the laws speak of male citizens, they recognize the existence of female citizens ; and most Judges would admit, that where the law speaks of white citizens, they recognize the exist ence of citizens who are not white. The act of Congress of 1792, for organizing the militia, provides for the enrolment of •• free white male citizens." The act of Congress of 1803, " to prevent the importa tion of certain persons into certain States, when by the laws thereof their admission is prohibited," enacts that masters and captains of vessels shall not "import or bring, or cause to be imported or brought, any negro, mulatto, or other person of color, not being a native, a CITIZEN or regis tered seaman of the United States," &:c. The Constitution of Judge Daggett's own State, limits the right of sufii-age to '• free white male citizens." Why 7nale citizens if there are no female citizens ; and why white citizens, if there can be no colored ones ? Seven or eight State Constitutions, in the same manner, recognize the existence of colored citizens. Had the Judge extended his inquiries into State laws, to those of Massachusetts, he would have fomid one prohibiting any negro, " other than a CITIZEN of the United States," or a subject of the Emperor of Morocco, from tarrying, in the Commonwealth, longer than two months. Had he taken the trouble to consult the statute book of New York, he would have found the fol lowing clause in the act relative to elections, viz. : " If the person so offering to vote be a colored man, the following oath shall be tendered to him. 'You do swear (or affirm) that you are of the age of twenty-one years, that for three years you have been a CITIZEN of this state,' " vfec. Revised Statues, 1. 134. Had the Judge condescended to look into the debates of the New York Convention of 1821, on the question of ad mitting the free blacks to the right of suffrage, he would have discovered to his astonishment, that the New York 44 FREE BLACKS CITIZENS. lawyers and judges had no hesitation in admitting these people to be citizens, whatever might be their objections to permitting them to vote. He would have found Chancellor Kent earnestly contending for their rights to citizenship in other States under the federal Constitution. He would have found Rufus King, (no mean authority) concluding an argument in their behalf with these words — " As certainly as the children of any white man are citizens, so certainly the children of the black man are citizens." Had the Judge opened the Constitution of the State of New York, he would have met with a, clause in the Article respecting the elective franchise, declaring, " No man of color, unless he shall have been three years a CITIZEN OF THIS STATE," &C. On the 4th of September, 1826, Governor Clinton, of New York, addressed a letter to the President of the United States, demanding the immediate liberation of Gil bert Horton, a colored man, as "A CITIZEN of this State," he having been imprisoned in Washington as a fugitive slave. In every State in the Union, we believe without one ex ception, a native free born negro may legally take, hold, and convey real estate. Will Judge Daggett deny this to be an attribute of citizenship ?* Will he maintain that any but citizens may exercise the right of suffrage ? But in eight or ten States free negroes may legally vote. True it is, that in others this privilege is denied to them, but it is not true that none are citizens who cannot vote. The act of Congress respecting naturalization provides, that in a certain case, the widow and children of a deceased alien " shall be citizens of the United States." Impressed colo.red sailors have been claimed by the Na tional government as " citizens of the United States ;" and colored men going to Europe have received passports from the department of State, certifying that they wefe citi zens of the United States. The proposed Constitution of the new State of Missouri * Real estate in the city of Ne^w York to the value of 50,000 dollars -was lately devised to a free colored man in that city, but according to the Judge he IS not a citizen, and of course cannot talie by devise. If so tlie nro- perty must go to the heir at law, or escheat to the State, ' FREE BLACKS CITIZENS. 46 required the Legislature to pass such laws as might be necessary " to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to settle in the State, under any pretext whatever." The Legislature of New York, in reference to this pro vision, on the 15th November, 1820, " Resolved, if the pro visions contained in any proposed Constitution of a new State deny to any citizens of the existing States the privi leges and immunities of citizens of such new State, that such proposed Constitution should not be accepted or con firmed, the same, in the opinion of this Legislature, being void by the Constitution of the United States." This re solution was adopted in high party times, by an almost unanimous vote. The Constitution being submitted to Congress, the article excluding colored citizens, was deemed by the House of Representatives a violation of the national compact, and that body refused to receive Missouri into the Union. A compromise was at last agreed to, and Congress admitted Missouri on the express condition that the offensive clause in her Constitution should never authorize any law by which any citizen of any of the States should be excluded from the enjojinent of any of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled by the Constitution of the United States ; and that the Legislature of Missouri should by a solemn Act declare their assent to this condition. The Legislature passed the Act required, and thereupon the" Stale became a member of the Union. Yet Judge Daggett is not aware of any Act of Congress recognizing free blacks as citizens ! Admit free negroes to be men, and to be born free in the United States, and it is impossible to frame even a plausible argument against their citizenship. The onl)^ ar gument on this point, we have ever met with, in which the conclusion is legitimately deduced from the premises, is by a late writer,* who maintains that the negroes are a distinct race of animals. Now it must be conceded, that the negro, if not a human being, is not a citizen. We recommend ? The author of " Evidences against the views of the Abolitionists, con sisting of physical and moral proofs of the natural inferiority of the ne groes." New York, 1833. 46 FREE BLACKS CITIZENS. the following reasoning, to the future judicial apologists of the Black Act. " His (the negro's) lips are thick — his zygomatic mus cles large and full — his jaws large and projecting — his chin retreating — his forehead low, flat and slanting, and as a con sequence of this latter character, his eye balls are very pro minent, apparently larger than those of while men. All of these peculiarities at the same time contributing to reduce his facial angle almost to a level with the brute. If then it is consistent with science to believe, that the mind will be great in proportion to the size and figure of the brain, it is equally reasonable to suppose that the acknowledged meanness of the negro's intellect only coincides with the shape of his head ; or in other words, that his want of ca pability to receive a complicated education, renders it im proper and impolitic that he should be allowed the privileges of CITIZENSHIP in an enlightened country." P. 25, 26. The author is an ultra Colonizationist, and the conclusion to which he arrives is, " let the blacks be removed, nolens volens, from among us." We have dwelt the longer on the Connecticut decision, on account of its immense importance to a numerous class of our fellow countrymen. The victims of a cruel preju dice, and of wicked laws, they especially claimed the aid and sympathy of the humane, when striving to elevate them selves by the acquisition of useful knowledge. But Judge Daggett's doctrine crushes them to the earth. Denounced by a powerful Society, extending its influence over every part of our country, as "Nuisances," and judicially declared not to be citizens, they are delivered over to the tormentors, bound hand and foot. If not citizens, they may be dispos sessed of their dwellings, for they cannot legally hold real estate— ^they may be denied the means of a livelihood, and forbidden to buy and sell, or to practise any trade, for they are no longer protected by the Constitution of the United States. Nay, they may be ev elled from town to town, and from State to State, till finding no resting place for the soles of their feet, they " consent" to embark for Africa. However inconclusive we are disposed to regard Judge Daggett's arguments, they were satisfactory to the jury, and a verdict was given against Miss Crandall. The cause was NEW-HAVEN PETITION. 47 removed to the Connecticut Court of Errors, where all the proceedings were set aside on technical grounds. Certain of the " quiet, peaceable, humane, and inoffensive people of Canterbury," tired with the law's delay, determined on ejecting the school by a summary process, and accordingly mobbed the house by night, and smashed in the windows. It was now discovered, that it was the " persons" of inoffen sive females, and not of Mr. Judson and his associates, that were endangered, and the school was abandoned, — thus were the efforts of the admirers of " the benevolent system of Colonization" crowned with entire success. Soon after Judge Daggett's decision, a most inflamma tory petition to the Connecticut legislature, was circulated in New-Haven. We quote from a printed copy. " If they (the negroes) have rights, we humbly hope it is not yet too late to presume that the white man also, the only legal native American citizen, whom we shall ever consent to acknowledge, ma}- be permitted to suggest that he has some rights. — If he (the white man) purchases a piece of land, the flrst negro, who locates near him, deteriorates its value from 20 to 50 per cent. ; for who will have a negro neighborhood, or live in unceasing fear of theft and tres passes. The white man cannot labor upon equal terms with the negro — he is compelled to yield the market to the Afri can, and with his family ultimately becomes the tenant of an Alms-house, or is driven from the State to seek a better lot in the western ^vilds. This have thousands of our most valuable citizens been banished from home and kin dred, for the accommodation of the most debased race that the civilized world has ever seen." The petitioners, as might be supposed, are Colonizationists. " If the negro cannot consistently with our interest or our feelings he ad mitted to the same rights that we enjoy, let him seek a country where he will find those who are his equals ; let us unite in aiding him to reach that country." ' It has never been denied, that good men belong to the Colonization Society ; and it ought not to be denied, that even good men are fallible, and subject to erroneous opinions and unwarrantable prejudices. To us it appears unques tionable, that the facts developed in the preceding pages. 48 COMPULSORY EMIGRATION. prove a tendency in the Society to excite in the community, a persecuting spirit towards the free blacks. That the pious, and respfectable members of the Society, detest the horrible outrages, recently committed upon these people in New-York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, it would be both foolish and wicked to doubt ; and yet no one who candidly and patiently investigates the whole subject, can fail to be convinced that these outrages never would have happened, had the Society never existed. The assertion is not hazardous, that of the multitudes composing the negro mobs, there was not an individual, less disposed than the Canterbury town meeting, to laud the " benevolent Colo nization system." Every wretch who participated in beat ing, and plundering free negroes, would rejoice in their ex pulsion from their country, and in the Society he beholds an instrument for the accomplishment of his wishes. But how is it possible that the best and the woirst of men, can unite in supporting the same institution ? In the first place, these good men, as is abundantly evident from their own confessions, are actuated by motives of supposed pub lic policy, as well as bene^^olence, in promoting the coloni zation of people whom they regard as nuisances ; and in the second place, there are in the constitution, three talis- manic words, which through (he influence of existing preju dices have blinded the eyes of these good men to the prac tical operation of the Society on the colored people. The words are "with their consent." It is speciously ar gued, if the free blacks consent to go to Africa, why not send them ? if they do not wish to go, they are at liberty to remain. This argument seems for the most part, to have benumbed the consciences and understandings of Coloniza tionists, as -to the cruel persecution which their" Society ne cessarily encourages. They would be horrified at the idea of their agents scouring the country, and seizing men, wo men, and children, placing them on the rack, till as joint after joint was dislocated, the suffering wretches consented to go to Africa ; and yet the Society feels no compunctfon in countenancing legal oppression having the same ulti mate object in view, and in transporting negroes whose con sent they well know, has been extorted by the most abomi- COMPULSORY EMIGRATION. ^ nable persecution. Many will feel disposed to deny the truth of these assertions ; but not, we trust, after seeing the proof of them, which we will now proceed to offer.. We have already adverted to the cruel laws by which these people are oppressed, and kept, purposely kept, in ignorance and degradation. Now let it be recoliteetedv that with but few exceptions, these laws have been either enacted, or are kept in force by legislatures, which have formally and in their legislative capacity, passed resolutions in favor of the Society. Fourteen States have thus avowed their attachment to Colonization. Now had these States,, including Connecticut, Ohio, and several of the slave States, repealed their laws against the free blacks, and forborne to enact iiew ones ; their sincerity in appro viag a pfan for the removal of these peopletoifA, their consent would have been less questionable, than it is now, when they persist in a course of policy well calculated to coerce that consent. The Society appears to be a particular favorite with the slave States, with the exception of South Carolina, where its true character seems to have been misunderstood.. Now hear the acknowledgment of a Southern writen We have before us the fourth edition, 1834, of " A Trea-. tise on the Patriarchal System of Society :" by a Florida slave holder. It is a treatise, in sober earnestness, on the- means of perpetuating slavery, and increasing its profits. The author says, p. 12-^" Colonization in Africa has been proposed to the free colored people: to forward which, a general system of persecution against them, upheld from the pulpit, has been legalized throughout the Southern States." The writer does not explain his allusion to the Southern pulpit ; but we may judge of its influence on the condition of the free blacks, from the avowal already quoted from the Southern Religious Telegraph, of its repugnance to these people being taught to read, because: such an acquirement would be an inducement with them ta remain in this country ; or, in other words, that the better they were treated here, the less likely would they be to con^ sent to go to Africa. The Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, it is well known, have made large appropriations for Colonization, and yet these Legislatures are among the most raalignanit 5 60' COMPULSORY EMIGRATION. persecutors of the free blacks. The original bill, making the' Virginia apprbpriatiouy contained a clause for the compul sory transportation of free blacks^ Let it be recollected, that the Colonization Society has ever been the peculiar favorite of Virginia,- and that her most distinguished citi zens haye been enrolled among^its officers;, and let us now see how Colonization has been promoted in that State. On a motion to strike out the compulsory clause, Mr. Brodnax thus expressed himself against the motion : "It is idle to talk about not resorting to force. Every body must look to the introduction of force of some kind or other.- If the free negroes are willing to go, they will go ; if not willing, they must be compelled to go. Some gentlemen think it politic not now to insert this feature in the bill, though they proclaim their readiness to resort to it when it becomes necessary ; they think, that for a year or two, a sufficient number will consent to go, and then the rest can be compelled. For my part, I deem it better to approach the question and settle it at once, and avow it openly. The intelligent portion of the free negroes know very well what is going on. Will they not see your debates? Will they not see that coercion is Ultimately to be resorted to. I have already expressed it as my opinion, that few, very few,- wiW voluntarily con- Sent to emigrate, if no compulsory measures be adopted. Without it, you will still, no doubt, have applicants for removal equal to your means. Yes, sir, people who will not only consent, but beg you to deport them. But what sort of cofisent-^a. consent extorted by a species of oppres sion, calculated to render their situation among us insup portable ! Many of those who have been already sent off,- ¦went with their avowed consent, hot under the influence pf a more decided compulsion, than any which this bill holds out. 1 will not express in its fullest extent, the idea I entertain of what has been done, or what enormities will be perpetrated to induce this class of persons to leave the Statei Who do6S not know that when a free negro, by crime or otherwise, has rendered himself obnoxious to a neighborhood,- how eaSy it is for a party to visit him one night, take him from his bed and fa'uily, and apply to Jiim the gentle admonition of a severe flagellation, to inducj" -COMPULSORY'EMIGRATION. '53 him to go away. In a few nights the dose can be repeated perhaps increased, until, in the language of the physician.?, -quantum- suffi. has been administered, to produce the de sired operation, and the fellow becomes perfectly .willing to move away. I have certainly heard, (if incorrectly, the gentleman from Southampton will put me rigbt) that all the large cargo of emigrants, lately transported from that country to Liberia, all of whom prafessed to be aailling to go, were rendered so by some such ministration as I have described.- Indeed, sir, all of us look to force of some kind or other, direct or indirect, moral or physical, legal or illegal." Another member, Mr. Fisher, in opposing the motion, said, " If we wait till the free negroes consent to leave the State, we shall wait until time is no more. They never will give their consent. He believed if the compulsory -principle were stricken out, this class would be forced to leave by the harsh treatment of the whites." The compulsory clause was stricken out, but we have iihe assurance of Mr. Brodnax, that they who objected to it at present, were ready to resort to force, whenever it should become necessary; and he tells us, that all look to force of some kind or other ; and he might have added, " all of us look to the Colonization Society as the instrument by which the forcible expulsion of the free negroes is to be effected." Nor do they look in vain. At the very time that the negroes of Southampton were suffering the barba rities he describes, the managers of the Society addressed their auxiliaries, urging them to increased efforts in. raising funds, and alluding to the excitement occasioned by the insurrection at Southampton, remarked, " the free people of color have awakened from their slumber, to a keen sen^e of their situation, and are ready in large numbers, to emi grate to the Colony of Liberia." Address, 17th Nov. 1831. A large number of these miserable people did indeed consent to go to Africa, and the managers well knew how their consent was obtained. " I warned the managers against this Virginia business," said Mr. Breckenridge jn his speech before the Society, " and yet they sent out two ..shiploads of- vagabonds, not fit to go to such a place, and i&i COMPULSORY EMiGRATIO-ff. that were coerced away as truly as if it had been done with a cartwhip." Hear the confession of Mr. Gurley, the Secretary of the ¦Society, on this stfl^ct"-" Our friends at Norfolk appealed ¦to us, and said the people were persecuted, and that it ¦was a matter of humanity to take them. Our agent said they were driven from the county, and had appealed to him, and begged to go to Liberia." Speech before the Society. Hear the testimony otf Thomas C. Brown from Liberia, given in May, 1834. " I am acquainted with several from Southampton County, Virginia, who informed me thatthey received several hundred lashes from the patroles to make them willing to go. In one instance, a man was several times compelled to witness the lashes inflicted on his wife, and then to be severely flogged himself. In another instance, a family receivfed information from their white neighbors, that unless they went to Liberia, they should be whipped. Having no means of redress, they, were obliged to go." Hear the New York Colonization" Society, when address ing the public — " We say to them (the free blacks) we think you may improve your condition by going thither, but if you prefer remaining here, you vvill be protected and treated ivith kindness." Proceedings of New-York Col. Soc. 1831. Hear the same Society, when addressing the Legisla ture — " We do not ask that the provisions of our constitu tion and statute book should be so modified as to relieve and exalt the condition of the colored people while they re main with us. Let these provisions stand in all their RIGOR, to work out the ultimate and unbounded good of this people." In plain English, to coerce their consent to go to Africa. Memorial to New York Legislature, 1832. We have seen what are^ the Connecticut and Virginia plans for promoting Colonization — -now for the Pennsyl vania plan. At a public meeting held in the borough of Columbia, (Penn.) at the Town Hall, 23d August, 1834, the following, among other resolutions, were unanimously " Resolved, that we will not purchase any articles that can be. procured elsewhere, or give our vote for any office COMPULSORY EMIGRATION. ''hatever, to any one who employs negroes to do that spe- ies of labor white men have been accustomed- to perform. " Re.iolved, that the Colonization Society ought to be upported by all the citizens favorable to the removal of the lacks from this country." Here we find the support of the Society avowedly cou- led with a most detestable plan of persecution. And now 3r the practical operation of this meeting of the friends of le " benevolent»Colonization system." Jt appears from a !olumbia paper,- that one or two nights after the ineeting, a lob colleclefd, and partly tore down the dwelling of a black lan ; they- then proceeded to the office of another black lan, -who had had the presumption to deal in lumber, " a pecies of labor white men had been accustomed to per- jrm," broke open the windows and door, rifled the desk, eattered the papers in the -street, and-attempted to overturn le building. Surclythe Society may reasonably antici- ate the consent of the blacks-to emigrate, when in Con- ecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, such cogentarguments re used to obtain it. Were the Society governed, as it ughtto be, -by--Christian principles, -it wouW shrink frorn ncouraging persecution by accomplishing -its object, the xportOrtion of its victims. It would say explicitly to tlie uthors of these atrocities, " you shall gain nothing by your ruelty, through our instrumentality. We will not en- ourage your farther persecutions, by removing those 'hose consent you 'have obtained by such unjustifiable leans ; we will not, to please you. - " Keep the word of promise t0;th^ea5, Arid b/eak,it to the hppe." lut alas, it has virtually given official notice .that it will ¦ansport all whose consent can be obtained, no matter by ¦hat barbarity. Hear the declaration of Mr. Gurley, the ecretary of the Society. " Should they (free blacks) be 'Uhged by any stress F circumstances to seek an asylum- beyond the limits of le United States, humanity and religion will alike dictate lat they should be assisted to remove and establish them sjves in freedom and prosperity in the land of thfjj- poicE." — Letter to gentlemen in New York. J>* 'Si COMPULSORY EMIGRATION. True it is, the free blacks have been rendered by preju dice and persecution, an ignorant and degraded class ; but they are still competent to appreciate the practical character of Colonization, philanthropy. The following resolutions, passed by a meeting of free blacks in New Bedford^p in 1832, express the unanimous opinion of all their brethren who have intelligence to form, or courage to express an opinion on the suljject. "Resolved, that in whatever light we view the Coloniza tion Society, we discover nothing in it but terror, prejudice, and oppression. The warm and beneficent hand of philan thropy lis not apparent in the system, but the influence of the Society on public opinion is more prejudicial to the in terests and welfare of the.pepple of color in the United States, than slavery itself. " Ilesolved, that the'Soeiety, to effect its purpose, the re moval of free: people of color(not the slaves) through its agents, teaches the public to believe that it is patriotic and 'benevolent'to withhold from us knowledge, and the means of acquiring subsistence ; andto'look upon us as unnatural and illegal residents in this country, and thus by the force of prejudice, if not by law,'endeavor to compel us to em bark for Africa, and that too apparently by our own. free will and consent." And now let us ask what purpose is to ^be -answered by persecuting this people, and keeping them ignorant arad degraded ? Does any one believe that they will ever be removed from^'the country ? They now amo-unt to 362,000. 'In 16 years, 2,162have been sent away, some at first volun tarily, but many of them through coercion. But can cru elty, be it ever so extreme, furnish the Society with funds and ships sufficient to transport such a multitude ? They must, in spite of Connecticut and Virginia persecution, re main with us. , And if they are to remain with us, what con duct towards them, do policy and religion prescribe ? Con duct precisely opposite to that pursued by the Society. We must instruct and elevate them, ifwe-would not be incum bered by an ignorant and depraved population ; we must treat them with justice and kindness if we would avoid the displeasure 6f him who has declared, "Ye shall not op- , press one another." CHAPTER IIL INFLUENCE OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY ON AFRICA SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. Very many, who now despair of extirpating slavery by means of the Society, continue to support it,; from a belief that it will confer rich blessings on Africa. .These antici pated blessings are the suppression of the Slave trade, and the diffusion of religion and civilization. Let us afc-present inquire, how far the first may reasonably be expected. in the declarations of- the Society, and- its members on this subject, we shall find an astonishing medley of igno rance, rash assertion, and honest confession. " Sierra Leone has repaid Africa with still-greater bless ings ; her example, her influence -arid efforts, have given peace and.security to the neighboring coast ; and who can estimate the extent of misery prevented, and of' happiness conferred, to a population delivered from all the horrors of the slave trade." Fifth Rep. p. 18. "The line of coast from Sierra Leone to Cape Mount, ¦ is now under British protection ; and from Cape Mount to Tradetown, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, the slave trade cannot 6e. prosecuted with the least hope of ¦success.'" Af.Rep.Jl.-j).'125^Editofial. "Every colony of civilized' inhabitants, 'established on that coast, and resolved to stop this trade to the extent of its means, will, at 411 events, put an end to it for a consi derable distance. The colonies of Sierra Leone, and of Liberia, both produce this effect within their respective vi cinities." Judge Blackford's Address to Indiana Coloni zation Society. Af. Rep. , VI. p. 66. Of these compliments to Sierra Leone," it must be ob served, one is paid ^officially by the Board of Managers, and the other by the' Editor of the Repository. We beg the reader to keep them in mind, as'\ve shall hereafter in quire into their truth. We will. now proceed to notice some assertions relative to the agency of the Liberia co- .lony in suppressing the slave trade. .'56 SLAVE TRADE. "In fact, the Colonization Society proposes the only means by which this accursed trade can ever be. effectually stopped; and, indeed, .the .'Colony of Xiberia, .which this Society has planted,' Aas already freed about two hundred and fifty miles of that coast' from the ravage»>cf--these ene mies of the human. race." Address of J. A. McKinney, .4th July, 1830. Af Rep. VI. p. 231. ¦"The flag that waves on Cape'Montsera'do, proclaims t« the slave trader that there is one spot, even in Africa, con-^ secrated to freedom, one spot which his polluted foot shall not tread." Speebh of G. -Smith, 'V. Prest. 13th Jan. 1831. 14th Rep. " Did we desire to-put an cifd to these outrages upon hu manity, '(the ^lave trade,) the Colonization Society offers it self as- the only efficient means. The slaver has dared to show herself Jwi (Mice -\vithin the limits of Liberia, and then she received«lhe rewards of her temerity." Proceedings of N. Y. Col. Soc. 1832. "No slaver now dares come within one "hundred miles of the settlement." Rev. Dr. Hawkes'' Speech at Col. Meeting in New York, Oct. 1833. " In less than 13 years since, its foun'dation, Liberia con tains about 3000 free and ha.ppy citizens, who have re moved from oppression and bondage to the enjoyment of liberal institutions. The slave trade has -heen utterly DESTROYED aloug its ENTIRE COAST, formerly the most frequented mart of human fleSh;" Report of Philadelphia Young Men's Col.- Soc. made liAth Feb. 1835, U. S. Ga zette, 4th March, 1835. The above, are specimens of the assertions which have been rashly made,, and credulously received. Let us now attend to the'honest confessions on this, subject, and let the reader compare them with the foregoing assertions. That these confessions may be better understood, it may be well to mention, that in the remarks accompanying a map of Liberia, published in the 6th vol. of the African Reposi tory, it is stated, "the colony of Liberia extends from the Gailinas River to the territory of Kroo Settra, a-distance of about 280 miles along the coast. The territory at pre sent,' (1830,) under the actual jurisdiction of the colony, ex- .itendsfrom Grand Cape Mount, to Trade Town, .a distance 'SLATE TRADE. '57 ¦of about 150 miles." It appears, from the map, that the last limits embrace Cape Mount, Cape Montserado, on which is built the town of Monrovia, Bushrod Island, Bassa Cove, and Trade Town. " The records of the colony afford abundant and unequi vocal testimony of the undiminished extent and atrocity of the slave trade. From eight to ten, and even fifteen vessels have engaged at the same time in this odious -traffic, almost within reach of the guns of Liberia, and as late as July 1825, there were existing contracts for eight hundred slaves to be furnished in the short space of four months, WITHIN EIGHT MILES OF MONROVIA." Rep. ,'K. D. 44, 1827. " From all I can learn, I am induced to believe,, that tlte slave trade is now carried on at the Gailinas, between Cape Mount and Sierra Leone, and to the leeward of this place, to a greater extent than it has been for many years." Let ter from R. Randall, Agent at Liberia, 28th Dec. 1828. Af. Rep. V. p. 4. " Frequently within sight of the colonial factories, the slave traders carry on their operations. 'The slave trade never has been carried on with more activity, than it is at this time. There is established at Gailinas, a regular slave agent, who furnishes slaves to the slave vessels. He receives his goods from trading vessels, and it is said prin cipally from an American vessel. He purchases large numbers of slaves, and furnishes the slave vessels, who principally Tiring out specie. These vessels run up and down the coast until a convenient opportunity offers, when they run in and get their cargoes of slaves. S<5ine of them are captured, and I have been informed, they have been bought afterwards by their original owners, and that the same vessel has frequently been bought and sold seve ral times." Letter frorti R. Randall, Agent at Liberia, Feb. 1829. Af. Rep. V. p. 148. The same letter states the astounding fact, that -"Mamma, the proprietress of Bushrod Island, just in front of Monrovia, whose town is not more than a quarter of a mile from our settlements on that island," was engaged in the slave trade, and had sold several hundred — .p. 150. "It is painful to state, that the managers !have reason '58 SLAVE TRADE. to believe that the slave trade is still prosecuted to a great extent, and with circumstances of undiminished atrocity. The fact that much was done by Mr. Ashmun to banish it from the territory, under the colonial jurisdiction, is un questionably true, but it now exists even on the territory; and a little to the north and south of Liberia, :it is seen in its true characters of fraud, and rapine, and blood." Rep. XIII. p. 13.— 1830. Now, be it recollected, that it was after this official an nunciation by the Board of Managers, that the slave trade existed even on the territory of Liberia, that the African Repository published without contradiction the vaunt of Mr. M'Kirtney already quoted, that the Colony had freed about two hundred and fifty miles of the coast from the slave trade ! "I hope the Board will adopt some more effectual measures for suppressing the slave trade within the territory •of Liberia. Since the death of Don Miguel of Bassa, Peter Blanco, a Spanish slave trader, for some years a •resident in the Gal'linas, has opened a^ slave factory at Grand Cape Mount. Such a thing ought not to be, as it is only forty-five miles from here. I am sorry to remark, that this abominable traffic is carried on with the utmost activity, all along the coast. Capt. Parker, during his trading at the Gailinas of about three weeks, saw no less than nine hundred shipped." Letter from A. D. Williams, Agent of the Society at Liberia,^— lOth Sept. 1830. Af. •Rep. VI. p. 275. " With undiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now carried on all along the African coast; slave fac tories are established in the immediate vicinity of the co lony," &c. " Rep. XIV. p. 11—1931. " The cursed practice of slave trading, I regret to say, is still carried on between this and Sierra Leone." Letter of Rev. Mr. Cox ; Monrovia, 8th of April,.l833. Af. Rep. .IX. p. 252. "Bassa Cove was purchased* by Governor Pinney from _* Bassa Cove is situated 6« :> J r Here we find a Vice President of the Parent Society advocating perpetual slavery in preference to even gradual emanciption. " They (Colonizationists) entertain the opinion gene rally, that if universal emancipation were practicable, nei ther the interest of the master, the happiness of the slave. emancipation condemned. 109 nor the welfare of the colony which they have at heart, would make it desirable." Mr. Barton's Address to a Col. Soc. in Virginia. Af.Rep. VI. 291. "Resolved, That we superadd our decided opinion that Colonization ought to keep equal pace with manu mission of people of color throughout the United States." Proceedings of Col. meeting at Plattsburgh, N. York, 4th .July, 1833. "¦Any scheme of emancipation, without Colonization, they know to be productive of nothing but evil." Speech of Mr. Key, a Vice President. Af. Rep. IV. 300. "We would say, liberate them only on condition of their going to Africa or Hayti." Af. Rep. III. 26. " I am strongly opposed to emancipation in every SHAPE and degree, unless accompanied by Colonization." Letter from R. G. Harper, V. President, to Secretary of the Society, 20th August, 1817. " It is a well established point, that the public safety forbids either the emancipation or the general instruction of the slaves." 7th Report, p. 94. " So long as we can hold a pen, we will employ it heart and hand, against the advocates of immediate. emancipa tion, or ANY emancipation that does'not contemplate expa triation." N. Y. Courier and Enquirer, a Col. paper, 10th July, 1834. " Emancipation, with liberty to remain on this side of the Atlantic, is but an act of dreamy madness." Speech of Mr. Custiss, 13th Report, p. 8. " What right, I demand, have the children of Africa to a homestead in the white man's country ?" Speech of Mr. Custiss, 14th Report, p. 21. It is a pity Mr. Custiss does not ask his conscience what right he has to confine a child of Africa to a homestead on his own plantation ; and why money vi^as raised by public subscription to purchase permission for Philip Lee to leave a homestead to which he had no right? What abundant cause for gratitude to Almighty God, have the Northern States, that the Colonization scheme was not devised some forty years sooner. Had the doc trines taught by the society been then held by our statesmen 10 f 10 THE SOCIETY PREVENTS MANUMISSION.- dnd divines, the dark cloud of slavery would now be brood'- ing over our -vvhole land. We have seen that the whole influence of the society and of the colonizing Legislatures, is to vindicate and preserve and enforce the laws against manumission." And now, after defending and strengthening this barrier against hu man freedom, the society glorifies itself for its benevolence in having opened a little crevice through which, in sixteen years, a few hundred captives, out of millions, have escaped ! Had the society and its friends opposed these laws, they would long since have been swept away, and thousands and tens of thousands would have been free, who are now pin ing in bondage. In 1782, Virginia i-epealed her restraining law, and in nine years, 10,000 slaves were manumitted. The slaveholders became alarmed, — their vocation was in danger of becoming disreputablCf and the law was re-" enacted. We have all heard much of the evils resulting from the traffic in ardent spirits, and we know that multitudes are endeavoring to suppress it, by insisting that it is sinful, and that Christian duty requires its immediate abolition. Now let us suppose a: society for abolishing it, to be formed on the model of the Colonization Society, and ask ourselves how it would proceed, and what would be the prospect of Its success. Such a society Would begin by informing the venders, that it held their property in rum sacred, and re spected their right to sell it,^that as yet, it addressed argu-* ments to no vender to induce him to abandon the traffic. That it was, indeed, a political evil, but it was one they had unfortunately engaged in, and which the necessities of themselves and families compelled them to continue for the present, — that the society condemned no man for being a rum-seller,-^ — that it had no connexion with the fanatics and incendiaries who denounced the business as sinful, and de manded its immediate abolition. But, inasmuch as the so ciety knew that the Venders Were anxious to get rid of the rum they unfortunately possessed, it had appointed agents tvho would gratuitously afford their aid in removing and emptying rutti-casks, and it trusted the moral influence of this proffered aid would in a century or more, effect the to tal abolition of the traffic^ ANTI-ABOLITION ASSOCIATION. jlj The absurdity of the conclusion, in the supposed case, is obvious ; and did not prejudice impair our vision, we should see an equal absurdity in the professed expectations of Colonizationists. But is our illustration a parallel case ? No : for our ideal society does not profess to regard any other evil as greater than the indefinite continuance of the traffic, while the real one boldly and unequivocally declares for perpetual slavery in preference to emancipation, either immediate or gradual, without expatriation. Now if the .expatriation of the whole body of slaves be both physicaj- ly and morally impossible ; if the slaves could not be trans ported and maintained in Africa, were the masters willing to surrender them; and if the masters would not sur- rendei- them, even if they could instantly be transported and mainta:ined, then it follows irresistibly, that the moral influence of the American Colonization Society is to per- jietuate slavery in the United States. We can scarcely persuade ourselves, that any honest Co lonizationist can, in view of all the facts which have been de veloped, seriously believe that slavery will ever be removed by colonization. Still there may be some who are indulging the hope, that this scheme is promoting emancipation. We entreat the attention of such to the proofs we will now offer, that the society is in fact AN ANTI-ABOLITION ASSOCIATION.. On the 9th January, 1828, Mr. Harrison, of Virginia, in addressing the Society at its annual meeting, used the fol lowing language : "'The Society having declared that it is in no wise allied to any Abolition Society in America or elsewhere, is ready when there is need, to pass a- censure upon such Societies in America." 11th Report, p. 14. The pledge thus given in behalf, and in the presence of the society, was published and circulated by the Board of Managers. It was a gross violation of the Constitution, and an unblushing outrage on the multiplied professions of the society,^ that its only object was the Colonization of free blacks. But we cannot understand the full meaning and unholy nature of this pledge, without adverting tp thlB 112 censures abolition societies. Abolition Societies to which it related. This pledge, be it remembered, had no reference to the associations now known as Anti-slavery Societies, and which are accused of a design to destroy the Union — to drench the land in human gore, and to produce by marriage an amalgamation of color. Such societies were unknown, such charges un heard of, when this pledge was given. The Abolition So cieties which were to be censured, were societies founded by Jay aad Franklin, and which advocated gradual emancipation. The first society ever formed, it is believed, for the abo lition of slavery, was organized in the city of New-York, January, 1785, under the presidency of John Jay. ^ The principles maintained by this society, may be gathered from the preamble to its Constitution. " The benevolent Creator and Father of all men, having given them all an equal right to life, liberty, and property, no sovereign power on earth can justly deprive them of either, but in conformity to impartial government, and laws, to which they have expressly or tacitly consented. It is our duty, therefore, as free citizens and Christians, not only to regard with compassion the injustice done to those among us, who are held as slaves, but to endeavor, by lawful means, lo enable them to share equally with us in the civil and religious liberty with which an indulgent Providence has blessed these states, and to which these our brethren are by nature as much entitled as ourselves." The next Abolition Society was that of Pennsylvania, founded in 1787, under the presidency of Franklin. Slaveholders were expressly excluded. The constitution declares, that it has pleased " the Creator of the world to make of one flesh all the children of men," and that it is the especial duty of those who acknowledge the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power to extend the blessings of freedom " to every part of our race." Abolition Societies gradually multiplied, and exercised a salutary influence in promoting emancipation at the North. But they were not confined to the North; they soon sprang up in the slave states, and scattered and feeble lays of light began to pierce the dense cloud which brooded FORMER abolition SOCIETIES. 113 over the southern country. Unity of action and of pur pose, was secured by triennial conventions of delegates from the several societies. No organized opposition had ever been offered -to these associations. The moral sense of the community, unperverted by Colonization, wo,uld not then have tolerated the scenes we haye since witnessed. The respect in which Abolition Societies Were held, is evinced by the following extract from the journals of Cqp.- gress : -f' House of Representatives, 18th Feb. 1809. " Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to acknow ledge, the receipt and acceptance of Clarkson'^ History oi Slavery, presented by the American Convention, for pro moting the abolition of slavery, and improving the condi tion of the Africans, and that the said work be deposited in the library." The Speaker accordingly returned an official letter of thanks to the Convention. Only three months before, Mr. Harrison, as herald of the dplonization Society, .proclaimed war against Abolition Societies, .thcr Convention met at Baltimore, the capital o{ .a slave state. To this Convention delegates or communica- ttions were sent from thefollowing Abolition Societies, viz. : New-York, Andover, Mass. Rhode-Island, Williams College, Mass. Pennsylvania, Loudon Co., Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, N. Carolina, with 40 branches, Maryland, with 5 branches, Delaware, ^ Tennessee, Centreville, Penn. West Tennessee, .Brownsville, do. Munro Co., Ohio, This Convention, among other measures, petitioned Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Co lumbia, and exhorted the friends of Abolition to use their efforts to procure " the removal of all existing legal impe- diments.in the way of educating the people of color.-" Such was the promising state of public feeling, at the very mo ment when the Colonization Society announced its cru sade against Abolition. The vigor, and constancy with which it has been carried on to the present time, aro -J^Tipwn to all who have watched its progress. Tho 114 CHARGES AGAINST ABOLITIONISTS. Abolition Societies, and their conventions, have withered under the " censure" of their powerful enemy, and have shrunk from public notice. Within the last two years, they have been partially succeeded by more sturdy associations, named Anti-slavery Societies, which, instead of quailing beneath the frowns of their foe, have dared to grapple with him in mortal conflict, and to stake the hopes of freedom on the issue. If, iu this struggle. Abolitionists have not always distinguished themselves liy their courte ous bearing, let it be recollected, that they believe the happiness of millions depends on their efforts ; and, also, that by their haughty -adversary, they have been treated as wretches who deserve punisTiment ; not as the .generous and disinterested champions of the oppressed and friend less. Let us observe the manner in which they are assailed by members of a religious society. " It (the society) is nowise mingled or confounded with the broad sweeping views of a few fanatics in America, who would urge us on to the sudden and total abolition of slavery." Af Rep. III. 197. " Come, ye Abolitionists, away with your wild enthusi- oaOTa ;your misguided philanthropy." Af. Rep. Nil. 100. "'Resolved, that we view all attempts to prejudice the public mind, or-excite'the popular feeling, on the subject of slavery, as unwise and injurious, and adapted to perpetu ate the evil which -it is ^proposed to eradicate." Col. Meet ing at Northampton, Mass. Af. Rep. VIII. 283. After a public discussion of the Colonization scheme in Utica, the Common Council came to the rescue of the so ciety, by discharging resolutions against the Abolitionists. For example : " Whereas, certain individuals now in our city, are dis turbing 'fhe peace of the good citizens thereof, by incul cating sentiments wbich we deem demoralizing in them selves, and little short of treason towards the govern- -ment of our country," &c. " Resolved, that, in the opinion of this meeting, it is fhe solemn duty of every patriot and philanthropist, to discountenance and oppose the efforts of Anti-slavery So cieties." Col. Soc. of Middletown, Conn. 6th MarcAj 18^ CHARGES AGAINST ABOLITIONIST,,. US It would have been, of course, unconstitutional to aid these efforts ; but it seems the society had full authority to oppose them. In short, with Colonization SocietieSj every thing is constitutional that is expedient, and nothing that is not. "The emancipation, to which this resolution directs your attention, is not that unconstitutional and dangerous emancipation, contemplated by a few visionary enthusiasts, and a still fewer number of reckless incendiaries among us." Speech of Chancellor Walworth, at Col. Meeting in N. York, 9th Oct. 1833. " I avail myself of this opportunity, to enter my solemn protest against the attempts which are making by a few fanatics. Let us talk no more of nullification ; the doc trine of immediate .emancipation is a direct and .palpable nullification of that Constitution which we have sworn to support."- Speech of D. B. Ogden at New-York Col. Meeting. '" We o-we it to ourselves not to remain silent spectators while this wild eire is running its course. We owe it to those misguided men, (the abolitionists,) to interpose and save them and their country .from the fatal effects of their mffltZ- speculations." Speech of Hon. T. Frelinghuysen, V. President, before Am. Col. Society, 21st Jan. 1834. We are not informed which article of the constitution of the -society, imposes on its members the onerous duty men tioned by the Hon. Gentleman. The Abolitionists in New- York, gave notice of a meet ing for forming a City Anti-slavery Society. In reference to this notice, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the New-York Colonization Society, Mr. Stone, published in his paper, 2d Oct. 1833, the following from a corres pondent. "lis it possible, that our citizens can look quietly on, while the flames of discord are rising ? while even om* pulpits are sought to be used for the base purpose of en couraging scenes of bloodshed in our land. If we do, can we look our Southern brethren in the face and say, we are opposed to interfering with their rights ? No, we cannot."* * This communication ¦was accompanied by an editorial admission of Uhe civil rights .of Abolitionists. .It is to he regretted, that.the editor, jbb 116 RIGHTS OF ABOLITIONISTS INVADED. The hint thus kindly given, was readily taken, and a mob of five thousand scattered the Abolitionists. After another mob, in July, had assaulted the dwellings and temples of Abolitionists, this officer of a Christian benevolent society, thus stated the condition on which Abolitionists might be permitted to enjoy the common rights of American citizens, security of person and freedom of speech, the press, and •religious worship. li While then our Civil authorities should receive the aid »of every good citizen, in their efforts to put down the mobs •now nightly engaged in deeds of violence, yet there should be a distinct understanding, that the protection of law, and the aid ofthe military, can only be enjoyed or expected, ON condition, that the causes of these >mischiefs shall be ^bate'J, and the outrages upon public feeling, from the fo- p.UM, the PtLPiT, and the press, shall no more be repeated 'by these reckless incendiaries." Commercial Advertiser, lltli July, 1834. Another Colonization Editor* published the same day, .and while the mob were cpronytting their grossest outrages, ;the following article: " Now we tell them, (the Abolitionists,) that when they openly and publicly promitlgate doctrines, which outrage public feeling, they have no right , to demand protection of the people they insult. Ought- not, we ask, our city authori ties to make them understand this — to, tell them, that they prosecute their treasonable and beastly plans at their own peril ?" N Y. Courier and.Enquirer, 11th July, 1834. On conditions- similar to those proposed by these gentle men, the Roman emperors were ever ready to afford pro tection to the'Christian martyrs ; nor did the Spanish Inqui sition require more, than that none should "promulgate doctrines" it disapproved. Far be it from us to insinuate, that the conduct of these two editors was in conformity with the advice or wishes of any respectable Colonizationists; and candor requires the acknowledgment, that we:have never heard it justified; but .will be seen by the next quotation, afterwards proposed a condition on .;which alone, in his opinion, those rights should.be protected. -.» Mr.. James Watson Webb. INTIMIDATION INTENDED. 117 it is unfortimately true, that the insults they have poured upon Abolitionists, have been countenanced by the example of gentlemen from whom better things were expected. All this violence and obloquy are not witliout an object; and that object is intimidation. Utterly vain is the hope of maintaining the cause of Colonization, or of suppressing that of Abolition, by discussion. In every instance in which Colonizatio.nists have ventured to meet their oppo nents in public disputation, they have invariably retired with diminished strength. Hence great efforts have been made by Colonizationists, and by the advocates of slavery, to prevent the public from ever listening to the facts and argu ments adduced by the Abolitionists. After a mob of five thousand had assembled, to prevent the formation ofthe New York Anti-slavery Society — after the most unfounded calumnies had been spread through the community against its members, the society published an address, explaining their real sentiments and objects. One would have thought it an act of common justice, to give this address a candid perusal ; but such an act would not have been expedient, and accordingly the zealous editor of the Commercial Ad vertiser, thus endeavored to prevent it. " We are quite sure, that a discerning public will consign it to oblivion, by abstaining from a purchase of the pestilent document. Their curiosity, we hope, will not overstep their discretion, jn furthering the purposes of the authors, by its dissemination. Let this flagitious address descend to the tomb of the Capulets. The address in extenso, we have not read." The Abolitionists, on the contrary, are so far from fear ing the effects of discussion, that they are ever anxious to promote it ; and when an acrimonious Colonization pam phlet * appeared against them, they provokingly advertised it for sale, and urged the public to read itf In the war now waging between the Abolitionists and Colonizationists, a third party has come to the aid of the latter. Those who maintain the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety and duty of immediate emancipation, plant thera- ? Reese's Review. * .See the New York Emancdpa'tor. 118 INFIDEL SUPPORT. selves on scriptural ground, and urge the promises, and threats, and commands of the word of God. They pro fessedly act as Christians, and only as Christians ; and it cannot be supposed that the infidel portion of the commu nity view with indifference an opportunity of wounding Christianity through its zealous disciples. At the same time, the absence of Christian motive as a principle of the Colonization scheme, and the countenance given by that scheme to most unchristian prejudices, naturally invite an- tichristian support. Certain it is, that many infidel news papers are zealous advocates of Colonization, and that the mobs of our cities are always ready to espouse its cause. There is no evidence, that with the exception of certain editors, the mobs which disgraced the city of New-York the last summer, were instigated by members of the so ciety ; yet these mobs were its avowal champions. The first mob assembled on the 9lh July, at the Chatham-street Chapel, the place in which some anti-slavery meetings had recently been held ; and breaking open the doors, took possession of the building. They then organized, and ap pointing a chairman, passed resolutions approving of the Colonization Society ; and by a formal vote, adjourned till the next meeting of the Anti-slavery Society, — a very sig nificant hint. The following guarded notice of this trans action, appeared the next day in one of the journals. " From the non-assemblage of the persons who had de signed to occupy the Chapel, it was evident that the ob jects of the meeting had been abandoned, and the friends of Colonization thereupon entered, organized a meeting, passed resolutions in favor of their own opinions, and peaceably dispersed." N. Y. Daily Advertiser. The^mob did indeed adjourn as a Colonization Meeting, but they had too much business on their hands to disperse. They immediately proqeeded to vindicate the honor of the American name, by mobbing the Bowery Theatre, in re venge for some insulting expressions said to have been used by an Enghsh actor. " After finishing their work at the Bowery Theatre, the mob, (says the New- York Journal of Commerce,) in a very .excited state, repaired to the residence of Lewis Tappan, INFIDEL SUPPORT. lISP (a prominent Abolitionist,) and attacked it with bricks and stones. The door, window-blinds, shutters, &c., were soon demolished, after which, the mob entered, broke up the furniture, and made a bonfire of it in the street." Such was the commencement of four days of riot and outrage, by the admirers of "the benevolent Colonization system." The managers of the city Colonization Society, mortified at the character and conduct of their new allies, published a card declaring that the " tumultuous meetings" at which certain resolutions had been passed approving the objects of the New-York Colonization Society, " had been held without any previous knowledge of the Board," and re commending to every friend of the cause of Colonization to abstain "from all participation in proceedings subver sive of the rights of individuals, or in violation of the public peace." When before have, the friends of a "•rw- gious and benevolent cause needed such a recommenJu- tion ? The Journal of Commerce, a Colonization paper, as signs infidelity as one of the causes of the riots. " It was noticed, (it observes,) as a fact full of instruc tion, that last Sunday night, when many of the churches and lecture rooms were closed for fear of the mob, Tam many Hall was brilliantly lighted up for the meeting of in fidels, who carried on their mummery without the slightest apprehension of danger. The buildings which have been attacked, are six churches, (belonging to four different de nominations,) one school-house, occupied as a church, three houses of clergymen, a house and store, occupied hy elders of churches, and a number of houses occupied by colored families. Thus, with the exception of some colored persons, the vengeance of the mob has been exclusively directed against churches, ministers and elders. At the sacking of Mr. Tappan's house, a fellow was heard to say, that every rascal of a church member ought to be thrown off the dock, or to that effect. We think, therefore, we see inscribed on the banner of this guilty throng, enmity To THE CROSS OF ChRIST." Yet this guilty throng commenced its operations with lauding the Colonization Society. In Utica, after a public discussion on Colonization, a 120 NOT A RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. mob assembled and burned in effigy a clergyman who had taken part against the Society; and also a layman who had become distinguished for his zeal in the temperance cause ; and a bundle of Temperance Recorders was com mitted to the flames. The following is from the New York Courier and En quirer, 12th May, 1834, and is part of an article in defence of the Colonization Society, and in vituperation of the Abolitionists. f Colleges and institutions are every year founded, not for the purposes of general education, but to initiate a new race of monks and fanatics in the arts and mysteries of clerical ambition, to teach them how best to subjugate the human mind, and render female weakness subservient to well disciplined Jesuitism. One half of our colleges are nothing more than seminaiies for educating uncompromi sing bigots," (Sic. &c. In this very same arti'ile, we are assured that " the Colonization Society holds out the only rational and practicable mode of bringing about the eman cipation of the blacks ;" and we are warned against the " accursed, and disorganizing, and incendiary devices," of the Abolitionists. Soon after the mobs, a poem was published, entitled, " Fanaticism unveiled." The author, in his advertisement, declaims against the " crusade which is now waged by a fSw wretched fanatics against the Colonization Society." Of the religious character of this poetical champion of the Society, some estimate may be made from the following lines : — " And do not dunces spend their cash on Such things as we have brought in fashion? Fictitious tales in aid of piety. Invented for the Tract Society. Sectarian Seminaries made To teach the true fanatic trade; And schools where infancy is told. That while one world is paved with gold, Another lying somewhat lower. With children's skulls is sprinkled o'er." The Society unquestionably comprises a vast num'ber of as pure and devoted Christians as can be found in this or any other country ; and we are fully persuaded, they verily believe, that in supporting Colonization, they are doing God service. The zealous co-operation they are now NOT A RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. 121 receiving from persons of very opposite character from themselves, should lead them to inquire whether they may not be mistaken. It certainly does not follow, that a system must be bad, because bad men support it; but it doe's follow, that when mobs and infidels espouse a particular object, it is because that object is recommended to them by other than religious considerations. Yet Colonizationists are fond of represent ing their Society as a religious institution ; and the minis ters of the Gospel are earnestly urged to preach annual sermons in its behalf. That multitudes of religious men belong to the society, is not denied, but the participation of such men in an object, does not necessarily render it a religious object : otherwise the slave trade was a Christian Commerce, be cause John Newton was a slave trader ; and Free Masonry must be a holy fraternity, since it can boast the names of more good men, than were ever enrolled in the ranks of Colonization. But in what sense can the Society be term ed a religious one ? It is not professedly founded on any one principle of the Gospel of Christ. It exercises no one act of benevolence towards the free blacks in this country; and in transporting them to Africa, it is by its own confes sion removing nuisances. It takes no measures to Christ ianize Africa, but landing on its shores an ignorant and vicious population. It employs no missionary, it sends no Bible, and it cannot point to a single native, converted to the faith of Jesus, through its instrumentality. On the contrary, may we not, in reference to the facts disclosed in the preceding pages, affirm, without the imputation of bi gotry or prejudice, that the general influence of the Society, is decidedly anti-christian. We have seen that it practically tends to the debasement and persecution of the free blacks ; to the hardening of the consciences ofthe slaveholders, and to the indefinite continuance of slavery. . The objects of the society, as stated, in the declarations of its orators, are of such vast importance, and such godlike benevolence, that it is no wonder good men have been so dazzled by the gorgeous visions presented to their imagina tions, as to haye omitted to scrutinize the machinery by which these visions are to be realized. 11 122 REPUTATION OF THE SOCIETY ABROAD. No one surely needs an apology for having believed in Colonization, when Wilberforce could thus express himself: " You have gladdened my heart by convincing me, that sanguine as had been my hopes of the happy effects to be produced by your institution, all my anticipations are scan ty and cold compared with the reality." Letter to Mr. Cresson. 15th Rep. p. 15. No one surely needs to blush at acknowledging that he has been deceived in the society, since Wilberforce placed his name at the head of a protest against it. The following extract from this protest will show how truly the Society is now estimated by British philanthropists. " Our objections to it, are briefly these: while we be lieve its pretexts to be delusive, we are convinced that its real effects are of the most dangerous nature. It takes its root from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the whites of America, against the colored people, slave or free. This being its source, the effects are what might be expected — that it fosters and increases the spirit of caste, already so unhappily predominant — that it widens the breach between the two races' — exposes the colored people to great practical persecution, in order to force them to emigrate ; and final ly is calculated to swallow up and divert that feeling which America, as a Christian and a free country, cannot but en tertain, that slavery is alike incompatible with the law of God, and the well being of man, whether of the enslaver, or the enslaved. We must be understood utterly to repu diate the principles of the American Colonization So ciety." The opponents of slavery in England, as well as here, at first hailed the society as an auxiliary, and the anti- slavery societies there, in the warmth of their zeal, began to remit contributions to its funds : by these same people, the society is now regarded with detestation. Probably no religious periodical, possesses in an equal degree, the con fidence of the religious community here, as the London Christian Observer. The Observer formerly commended the society. Hear the present sentiments of its late Edi tor, the distinguished Z. Macauley, Esq., M. P. " The unchristian prejudice of color, which alone has REPUTATION OF THE SOCIETY ABROAD. 123 given birth to the Colonization Society, though varnished over with other more plausible pretences, and veiled under a profession*of Christian regard, for the temporal and spi ritual interests of the negro, which is belied by the whole course of its reasonings, and the spirit of its measures, is so detestable in itself, that I think it ought not to be tole rated ; but on the contrary, ought to be denounced and op posed by all humane, and especially all pious persons in this country." Letter 14th July, 1833, to Mr. Garrison. For a quarter of a century, William Allen, a London quaker, has been prominent^n every good work, and his name is familiar to all acquainted with the great Catholic institutions of England. This eminent and zealous philan thropist thus writes : " Having heard thy exposition of the origin and main object of the American Colonization Society, at the meet ing ou the ISth instant, at Exeter Hall, and having read their own printed documents, I scarcely know how ade quately to express my surprise and indignation, that my correspondents in North America should not have informed me of the real principles of the said Society ; and also, that Elliott Cresson, knowing as he must have known the abominable sentiments it has printed and published, should have condescended to become its agent." Letter Ihth of 7th Month, 1833. Mr. Buxton, the successor of Mr. Wilberforce as the parliamentary leader in the cause of Abolition, thus expres ses himself: "My views of the Colonization Society you are aware of. They do not fall far short of those expressed by my friend Mr. Cropper, when he termed its objects diabolical.''' Letter of July 12th, 1833. But is it only in Britain, that good men have found them selves disappointed in the society ? Who compose our pre sent Anti-slavery Societies ? Pious conscientious men, who, with scarcely an exception, were formerly advocates of Colonization. A Clergyman of Massachusetts, in the following passage, expresses the sentiments of a numerous and increasing body. " I have been constrained to ¦withdraw my confidence and co-operation from this scheme. It is a scheme in 134 COKcLttDING ABDRESa. which I was once deeply interested. I have spoken and preached, and written and taken contributions in its behalf. I did not then understand the real nature and tendency of the scheme. I meant well in espousing it, but I now sec my error and my sin ; and though it was a sin of igno rance, 1 desire to repent of it." Almost daily do we hear of Colonizationists awaking as from a dream, and expressing their astonishment and re gret al the delusion into which they had fallen. To the Christian members of the society, we would now address ourselves, and ask, have we not proved enough to induce 3-ou to pause, to examine, and to pray, before you longer lend your names, and contribute your funds to the purposes of Colonization ? Do no secret misgivings of con science now trouble you; and are you perfectly sure that in supporting the society, you are influenced by the precepts of the Gospel, and not by prejudice against an unhappy portion of the human family ? If on a full investigation of the subject, you discover that Colonization is not what you believed and hoped it was, remember that it is your duly to obviate, as far as possible, by a frank and open de claration of )-our opinion, the evil your example has done. Be not ashamed, be not slow to follow Wilberforce in en tering your protest against the society. If that society leads to the degradation and oppression of the poor color ed man — if it resists every effort to free the slave — if it misleads the conscience of the slaveholder, you are bound, your God requires you to oppose it, not in secret, but be fore the world. Soon will you stand at the judgment seat of Christ ; there will yo.u meet the free negro, the slave, and the master — take care lest they all appear as witnesses against you. PART II. AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, PART II. AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. Principles of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Charaoter of American Slavery. The principles professed by the American Anti-Slavery Society, are set forth in the following articles of its Consti tution, viz : — Article 2. The objects of this. Society are the entire abolition of slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in -svhich slavery exists, has, by the Consti* tution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in that State, it shall aim to convince all our fellow citizens by arguments addressed to their under standings and consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous crime in the sight of. God ; and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require Its immediate abandon ment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor in a Constitutional way to influence Congress to put an end lo the domestic slave trade ; and to abolish slavery in all those ijortions of our common country, which come under its con trol, especially m tne District ot (Joiumbia, and likewise to prevent the extension of it to any State that may hereafter be admitted to the Union. Art. 3. This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral and religious Improvement, and by re moving public prejudice ; that thus they may according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges ; but the Society will never in any way, countenance the oppressed In vindi cating their rights, by resorting to physical force. Art. 4. Any person who consents to the principles of this 128 AMERICAN 8LAVERV. Constitation, who contributes to the fiinds of this Society, and is not a slave-holder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be entitled to vote at its meetings. Here we have great moral principles frankly and unequi vocally avowed ; the objects to be pursued are distinctly stated ; and none are permitted to join in the pursuit of these objects without assenting to the principles which avowedly render their attainment desirable. The whole structure of the Society, therefore, is totally different from the Coloniza tion Society. This being founded on principle, that on expediency. This availing itself, only of certain professed motives, that inviting the co-operation of motives of all sorts, however contradictory. In order to judge of the fitness of the objects contemplated by the Society, we must first inqiiire into the soundness of the principles by which they are recommended. The first great principle of the Society, and indeed the one from which all the others are deduced, is the sinfulness of slavery. To determine whether slavery as it exists in the United States is sinful, we must know what it is. Where an institution is unavoidably liable to great abuses, those abuses may fairly be taken in account, in estimating its true character ; but in order to avoid all captious objections, we will now inquire, what are the lawful, or rather legal features of American slavery, and we will leave wholly out of view, all acts of oppression and cruelty not expressly sanctioned by law. The following definitions of American slavery, are, it will be perceived, from high authority : " A slave is one who Is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing but which must belong to his master," Louisiana Code, Art. 3. " Slaves shall be deemed, taken, reputed and adjudged to be chattels personal in the hands of their masters and possessors, to all intents and purposes whatsoever." Laws of South Carolina — Brevard's Digest, 229. It will be observed that these definitions apply to slaves without distinction of sex or age. But not only are those now in servitude, bu neir coildron after them, the subjects of these definitions. AMERICAN SLAVERY. 129 The law of South Carolina says of slaves, " all their issue and ofl^spring born or to be born, shall be, and they are here> by declared to be and remain forever hereafter ab solute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother." Slfuvery is not confined to color. Mr. Paxton, a Virginia writer, declares that, " the best blood In Virginia, flows in the veins of the slaves." In the description lately given of a fugitive Silave, In the public papers, it was stated, " He has sometimes been mistaken for a white man." The following from a ^Missouri paper, proves that a white man, may, without a mistake be adjudged a slave. " A case of a slave suing for his freedom, was tried a few days since in Lincoln county, of which the following is a brief Statement of the particulars. A youth' of about ten years of age sued for his freedom on the ground that he was a freo white person. The court granted his petition to sue as a pauper upon Inspecilon of his person. Upon his trial before the jury he was examined hy the jury and Jiy two learned physicians, all of whom concurred in the opinion that very little if any trace of negro blood could be discovered by any of the external appearances. All the physiological marks of distinctions which characterize the African descent had disap peared. " His skin was fair, his hair soft, straight, fine and white, his eyes blue, but rather disposed to the hazle-nut color ; nose prominent, the lips small and completely covering the teeth, Lis head round and well formed, forehead high and prominent, the ears large, the tibia of the' leg straight, the feet hollow. Notwithstanding these evidences of his claims, he was proven to be a descendant of a mulatto woman, and that his progeni tors on his luother's side had teen and sllll were slaves ; con sequently he was found to be a slave." The laws of South Carolina and Virginia expressly recog nize Lidiaii slaves. Not only do the laws ackno^n'ledge and protect existing slavery, but- they provide for reducing free persons to here ditary bondage. In South CaroVind, fines are imposed on free negroes for certain offences, and in default of payment, they are made slaves. If a colored citizen of any other state enters Geor gia, he is fined, and if he cannot raise the money, he is sen tenced to perpetual slavery, and his children after him. In 130 AMERICAN SLAVERY. Maryland, if a free negro marries a white, the negro becomes a slave. In almost every slave stale, if a free negro cannot prove that he is free, he is by law sold al public auction as a slave for life. This is both law and practice in the district of Columbia, and with the sanction of the Congress of the Uni ted States. In no civilized country but the slave states, are children punished for the crimes of their parents; but in these, the children of free blacks, to the latest posterity are condem ned to servitude for the trivial offences, and often for the most innocent acts of their ancestors. It necessarily follows from the legal definitions w^e have given of a slave, that he is subjected to an absolute and irre sponsible despotism. The master has In point of fact the same power over his slave that he has over his horse. Some few laws there may be, forbidding the master to treat his slave with cruelty, and so the common law every where forbids cruelty to beasts ; but it is far easier to enforce the latter than the former. Any spectator of cruelty to a beast, may ordinarily be a witness against the offender ; but a slave may be mutilated or mur dered with impunity in the presence of hundreds, provided their complexions are colored ; and even should the crime be proved by competent testimony, the master is to be tried by a court and jury who are all interested in maintaining the su preme authority of slave-holders. But although no laws can in fact restrain the power of the master, yet laws to a certain degree, indicate whnt kind of treatment is tolerated by public opinion. Thus when we find the laws of South Carolina li miting the time which slaves may be compelled to labor, to fif teen hours a day, we may form some opinion of the amount of toil which southern masters think it right lo inflict upon the slaves ; and when we recollect, that the laws of Maryland, Virginia and Georgia, forbid that the criminals in their peni tentiaries shall be made to labor more than ten hours a day; we discover the relative place which white felons, and unoffending slaves, occupy in the sympathies of slave holders. The slave is, at all times, liable to be punished at the plea sure of his master ; and although the law does not warrant him in murdering the slave, it expressly justifies him in kill ing him, if he dares to resist. That is, if the slave does not AMERICAN SLAVERY. 131 submit to any chastisement, which a brutal master may of his sovereign pleasure choose to inflict, he may legally be shot through the head. In South- Carolina, if a slave be killed " on a sudden heat or passion, or by undue correction," the murderer is to pay a fine and be imprisoned six months. What would be thought of such a punishment for the murder of a white ap prentice 1 In Missouri, a master is by law expressly authorized to im prison his slave during pleasure, and thus may a human being be legally incarcerated for life without trial, or even the allega tion of a crime. The despotism of the slave-holder, be It remembered, is a negotiable despotism ; it is daily and hom-ly bought and sold, and may at any moment be delegated to the most brutal of the species. The slave, being himself property, can own no property. He may labor fifteen hours a day, but he acquires nothing by his labor. In South Carolina, a slave is not permitted to keep a boat, or to raise and breed for his own benefit, any horses, cattle, sheep, or hogs, under pain of forfeiture, and any person may take such articles from him. In Georgia, the master is fined thirty dollars for suffering his slave to hire himself to another for his own benefit. In Alaryland the master forfeits thirteen dollars for each month that his slave is permitted to receive wages on his own account. In Virginia, every master is finable who permits a slave to work for himself at wages. In North Carolina, " all horses, cattle, hogs, or sheep, that shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave's mark in this state, shall be seized and sold by the County Wardens." In Mississippi, the master is forbidden, under the penalty of fifty dollars, to let a slave raise cotton for himself, " or to keep stock of any description." Such is the anxiety of the slave laws to repress every bene volent desire of the master to promote in the slightest degree the independence of the slave. ' Slaves, being property, are like cattle liable to be leased and mortgaged by their owners, or sold on execution for debt. 132 AMERICAN SLAVERY. A slave having no rights,, cannot appear in a court of justice to ask for redress of injuries. So far as he is the subject of injury, the law regards him only as a brute, and redress can only be demanded and received by the owner. The slave may be beaten, (robbed he cannot he,) his wife and children may be insulted and abused in his presence, and he can no more insti tute an action for damages, than his master's horse. But cannot he be protected by hjs master's right of action ? No : The master must prove special injury to his property, to reco ver damages. Any man may -vvilh perfect impunity, whip another's slave, unless he so Injure him as to occasion- " a loss of service, or at least a diminution of the faculty of the slave for bodily labor." Such is the decision of the Supreme Coun of Maryland. In Louisiana, if a third person maim a slave, so that he is " forever rendered unable to -work," the offender pays to the owner the value of the slave, and is also to be at the expense of his maintenance ; but the unfortunate slave mutilated or crippled for life, receives not the slightest com pensation. The master's right of action Is a protection to his property, not to the comfort or secui'ity of the slave ; indeed it lends to degrade the latter lo the level of the. other live stock on his master's farm. A necessary consequence of slavery, is the absence of the marriage relation. No slave can commit bigamy, because the law knows no more of the marriage of slaves, than it does of the marriage of brutes. A slave may, indeed, be formally married, but so far as legal rights and obligations are concern ed, it is an,idle ceremony. His wife may, at any moment, be legally taken from him, and sold in the market. The slave lavi's utterly nullify the injunction of the Supreme Lawgiver — " What God hath joined, let not man put asun der." Of course, these laws do not recognize the parental relation as belonging to slaves. A slave has no more legal authority over his child, than a cow over her calf. The Legislatures of the slave States, when legislating respecting slaves, seem regardless alike of the claims and the affections of our common nature. No right is more sacred, or more universally admitted, than that of self-preservation ; but the wretched slave, whether male or female, is denied tho right of self-defence against the brutality of any person, AMERICAN SLAVERY. 13.3> ¦whomsoever having a white skin. Thus the law of Georgia, declares, " if any slave shall presume to strike any white per son, upon trial or conviction before the Justice or Justices^ according to the directions of this act, shall, for the first offence, suffer such punishment as the said Justice or Justices shall in their discretion think fit, not extending to life or limb ; and for the second offence, suffer death." The same law prevails in South Carolina, except that death is the penalty for the third ofl!ence. In Maryland, the Justice may order the offender's ears to be cropped- In Kentucky, " any negro, mulatto, or Indian,. bond or free," who "shall at any time lift his hand in oppo sition to any white person, shall receive thirty lashes on his or her bare back, well laid on, by order ofthe Justice." In South Carolina, " if any slave, 'who shall be out of the house or plantation where such slaves shall live, a^ shall be usually employed, or without some white person in company with such slaves, shall refuse to submit to undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for any while person to pursue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slave ; and if such slave shall assault and strike such white person,, such slave may be lawfully killed." We have seen that the slave laws, regard the slave, so far as human rights and enjoyments, and social relations are con cerned, as a mere brute ; we are now to see, that so far as he can be made to suffer for his acts, he is regarded as an intel ligent and responsible being. Divine equity has established the rule, that the servant which knew not his master's will, and did commit things worthy, of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. If there was ever a case to which this rule vfas, applicable, it is to the unlettered, ignorant, brutalized slave, Intentionally deprlvoti of the ability to read the laws of God or mark A code of laws prepared for the government of such beings, one would suppose would be distinguished for its lenity ; and in the mildness of its penalties, would form a striking contrast to a code for the government of the enlightened and instructed part of the community, whose offences would, of course, be aggravated by the opportunities they had enjoyed of learning their duty. Alas, the slave code punishes acts not mala in $e with a rigor which public opinion would no' tolerate foi 12 f34 AMERICAN SLAVERY. Smbmtent, if exercised towards- white felons, Bnd it visits crimes with penalties far heavier, when committed by the poor ignorant slave, than it does when they are perpetrated by the enlightened citizen. Thus in Georgia, any person may inflict twenty lashes onthe bare back of a slave found without license off the plantation, or without the limits of the town to which he belongs. So also in Mississippi, Virginia-, and Kentucky, at the discretion of a Justice. In South Carolina' and Georgia, any person finding more than seven slaves together In the highway without a white person,- may give each one twenty lashes. In Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri, a slave for keeping a gun, powder, shot, a club, or other weapon whatsoever, offen sive or defensive, may be whipped thirty-nine lashes by order of a Justice. In North Carolina and Tennessee, a slave travelling without a pass, or being found in another person's negro quarters, or kitchen, ¦ may be whipped forty lashes, and; every slave, in whose company the visitor is found, twenty lashes'.- In Louisiana, a slave for being on horseback, without the ¦frritten permission of his master, incurs twenty-five lashes ; for keeping a dog, the like punishment. By the" law of Maryland, for " rambling, riding, or going abroad in the night, or riding horses in the daytime, without leave," a slave may be whipt, cropt, or branded on the cheek with the letter R, or otherwise punished, not extending to life, Or " so as to render him unfit for labor." Such are a few specimens only ofthe punishments inflicted on slaves,, for acts not criminal, and which it is utterly im possible they should generally know,, are forbidden by law. Let us now view the laws of the slave states in relation to crimes, and we shall find that their severity towards blacks and whites, is in inverse ratio to the moral guilt of the offend ers. In Virginia, the laws have recently been revised, and by the fevised code, there are seventy-one offences for which the pe- ftalty is death, when committed by slaves, and imprisonment ¦When by whites.* * An eoumeration of these ofTances, together with references ti the sti» AMERICAN S-LaVeRY. 1^5 In Mississippi, the number of these offences are thirty- eight, or rather many of them are not punishable at all, when committed by whites.: as, for instance, attempting to burn out-buildings, to commit forgery, to steal a ho];se, &c., &c. Imprisonment of a slave as a punishment for crime, fCXcept in Louisiana, is utterly unknown in the slave states. To shut him up in prison, would be depriving his master of his labor, and burthening the public with his maintenance ; it is, therefore, more economical to flog him for trifles, and to hang him for serious oflences. Where human life is held so cheap, and human suffering so Little regarded ; it is not to be expected that the dispensers of slave justice will submit to be troubled with all those forms and ceremonies which the common law has devised for the pro tection of innocence. We have seen that, in many Instances, any white person may instanter discharge the functions of judge, jury, and executioner. In innumerable instances, all these functions are united in a single justice of the peace; and in South Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana, life may be taken, according to law, without intervention of grand or pe tit jurors. In other states, a trial by jury is granted in capital cases ; but in no one state, it is believed, is it thought worth -while to trouble a ^rarec^^wry with presenting.a slave. In most of the slave stateSj^ the ordinary tribunal for the trial of slaves charged with offences not capital, is composed of justices and freeholders, or of justices only. A white man cannot be convicted of misdemeanor, except by the unanimous verdict of twelve of his peers. In Louisiana, if the court is equally divided as to the guilt of a slave, judgment is rendered against him. In 1832, thirty-five slaves were executed at Charleston, in pursuance of the sentence of a court, consisting of two justices and five freeholders, on a charge of intended insurrection. No indictments, no summoning of jurors, no challenges for cause or favor, no seclusion ofthe triers from inteECOurse,with those who might bias their judgment, preceded this unparalleled legal de- sti-uction of human life. However much we may pride oufselyes, as a nation on the general difiiision of the blessings of education, it ought to tutea alluded to in this work, ma^ bef^und in " Sttoud's ^betch of tbeslavo law" " 136 ijCERICAN SlAVERY. be recollected, that these blessuigs are forcibly withheld from two millions of our inhabitants ; or that one-sixth of our whole population is doomed by law to the grossest igno rance. A law of South Carolina passed in 1800, authorizes the in fliction of twenty lashes on every slave found in an assembly convened for the purpose of "-mentd instruction," held in a confined or secret place, although in the presence of a white. Another law imposes a fine of £100 on any person who may teach a slave to write. An act of Virginia, of 1S29, declares every meeting of slaves at any school by day or night, for Instruction in reading or writing, an unlawful assembly, and any justice may Inflict twenty lashes on each slave found in such school. In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write ; or to sell or give him any hook (Bible not excepted) or pamphlet, is punished with thiriy-nine lashes, or imprisonment, if the of fender ~be a fi'ee negro, but if a white, then with a fine of $200. , The reason for this law, assigned in its preamble is, that " teaching slaves to read and wiite, tends to excite dissa tisfaction in their minds, and to .produce instu-rection and re bellion." In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or slave to read or write, he is fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court ; if the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he is to be fined or whipped at the discretion of the court. Of ¦course , a father may be flogged for teaching his own child. This barbarous law was enacted in 1829^ In Louisiana, the penalty for teaching slaves to read or write, is one year's .imprisonment. These are specimens of the efforts made by slave legis latures, to enslave the .minds of their victims ; and we have surely no reason to hope that their souls are regarded with more compassion. In vain has tho Redeemer of the world given ihe-command to preach the gospel to every creature ; his professed disciples in the slave States have issued a. counter order ; and as we have already seen, have by their laws, incapacitated 2,000;000 of their fellow-men from complying with the injunction, "search iihe Scriptures." Not only are the slaves debarred from read- AMERICAN SLAVERY. 137 'ing the wonderful things of Grod — they are practically prevent ed ¦with a few exceptions from even hearing of them. In Georgia, any justice ofthe peace may, at his discretion, break up any rehgious assembly ofslaves,),and may order eacA slave present to be "corrected without trii}.!,; by receiving on the bare back, twenty-five stripes with a whip, . switch ,qr cow-skin." In South Carolina, slaves may not meet together fowthe pur pose of " rehgious worship" before sunrise or after sunset, unless the majority of the meeting be composed of white pei> sons, under the penalty of twenty lashes well laid on." As it •will be rather difficult for the slave to divuie before he goes to the meeting, how many blacks, and how many whites will be present, and of course which color will have the "majority," a due regard for his back, will keep hini from the meeting. In Virginia, all evening meetings of slaves at any meeting house, are nnequivocally forbidden. In Mississippi, the law permits the master to suffer his slave to attend the preaching of a white minister. It is very evident that when public opinion tolerates such laws, it will not tolerate the general religious instruction of the slaves. True it is, a master may carry or send his slaves to the parish church, and trUe it is that some do attend, and re ceive benefit from their j.ttendanipe. On this, as well as on every other subject relating toslaveiy, .^i^fe .would rather fall short of than exceed the truth. We will not assert there are no Christians among the slaves, for \ye trust there are some. When, however, we recollect, that. they are denied the Scriptures, and all the usual advantage^ pf^the Sunday School, and'are forbidden to unite ^impng -.themselves in acts of social worslnp -and instruction, and that almost all the sermons they hear, are such as are addressed to educated whites, and of course above their own comprehension, we may form some idea of the obstacles opposed to. their spiritual im provement. ;--Letit be also recollected, that every master pos sesses '.the tremendous power of '.keeping his slaves in utter ignprance of their Maker's wijl, and ., of their pwn Immortal des- jtrriies. And now with ail these "facts, and their consequences and tendencies in remembrance, we ask, if ,we do npt m^ke ,a most abundant and charitable allowance when we suppose-that ^46,000 slaves possess a saving knowledge of the religion,^' 12* " ' ' T38 AMERICAN SLAVERY. Christ? And yet after this admission, one which, probably no candid. person will think too limited, there will remain in ^the bosom of our country two millions of human beings, who, in consequence of our laws, are in a state of heathenism ! But probably many will refuse their assent to this conclusion with out further and more satisfactory evidence of its correctness. To such. persons we submit the following testimony, furnished by slave holders themselves. In 1831, the Jlev. -Charles C. Jones, preached a.sermon -before two associations of planters in Georgia, one of Liberty Uounty, and the other- of Mcintosh County. This sermon is before us, and we quote from it. "Generally speaking ^tbey^ (the -slaves) appear tous.tobe without God and without hope, in the vworld, a nation of hea then in our vei'y midst. — ^We cannot cry out against the .Papists for withholding the -Scriptures from the common people, and keeping them in ignorance ofthe >way of life; for we withhold. the Bible from our servants, and ke^p them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them. The cry of our perishirig .servante comes up to us from 'the-siiltry .plains as they bend at their, toil — it comes up to us front their humble cottages when they return at ev,ening to rest their weary- limbs — iit.comes vp to us from the midst of their ignorance and superstition, and adultery and lewdness. We have manifested no- embtions of horror at abandoning the soiils of our servants to the adversary, -the roaring, lion that- walketh about seeking whom he may devour." Onthe 5th 'Deceniber, 1833, a cemmittee oT the -Synod of South Carohna and Geqrgia, to whom was referred the subject of the religious instruction of the colored population, madea report which has been published, and in which this language is used. " Who would credit it, that in these years of revival and bene- vcdent effort, in -this Christian republic, there are over two MILLIONS of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects, in a worse condition. Fromlong continued and close observation, we, believe that .their moral and religious condition is such that they may justly be-considered. the hea then of this Christian.country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world. The negroes are desti tute of the Gospel, and ever will be under the present state of I things. In the vast field extendii;ig from an entire State bey ond AMERICAN SLA-TERY. 139 the Potomac, to the Sabine river, and from the Atlantic to the -Ohio, there are to the best of our knowledge not twelve men exclusively devoted to the religions instruction of the negroes. In the present state of feeling in- the South, a ministry of their • own color could neither be obtained nor tolerated. But do not the negroes have access to the' Gospel through the stated ministry ofthe whites? We tmswer no ; the negroes have no regular and eflncient ministry ; as a matter of course, no chu^hes; neither is there sufficient room in white churches. fortheir accommodation. ^Weknow of but j?re churches in the slave holding States built expressly fortheir use ; 'these are all in the State of Georgia. We-may now inquire if they enjoy the privileges ofthe Gospel in "their own houses, and on our plemtations? Again we. return a negative answer. 'They have no Bibles to read by their own firesides— ^they have no family altars ; and when in aflhction, sickness, or death,' they have no minister to address to them the consolations of'the Gospel, nor ;to bury them with solemn and appropriate services." In a late number ofthe Charleston (S. C.) Observer, a cor- . respondent remarked : "Let us establish missionaries among our own negroes, who, in view of religious knowledge, are as debasiagly ignorant as any one on the coast of Africa; fori hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds of our synod, there are at leetst one hundred thousand Maves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never heard of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer." The editor, instead of contradicting this broad assertion, adds : " We fully concur with what our correspondent has said respect- ; ing the benighted heathen among ourselves.'' Such is American Slavery — a system which classes with the ' beasts of the field, over whom dominion has been given to man an intelligent and accountable being, the instant his Creator has ' breathed into his nostrils the breath of fife. Over this infant heir of Immortahty, no mother has a right to watch — ^no father may guide his feeble steps, -Check his wayward appetites and trabhim for future usefiilness; happiness and glory. Tom from his parents, and sold in the market, he soon'firids himself labor ing among strangers under the whip of a driver, and his task augmenting with his ripening strength. Day after day and year ; after year, is he driven to the cotton or sugar-field, as the ox to Vthe-fiirrow. No hope of reward lightens his toil-^the sutg^eot 140 AMERICAN SLAVERY. of insult, the victim of brutality, the laws»of his country afford him no redress — his wife, such only in name, may at any • moment be dragged from his side — his children, heirs only of i.his misery and degradation, are but articles of merchandise — • his mind, stupified by his oppressors, is wrapped in darkness — his sotil, no man careth for it — his body, worn with stripes and ' toil, is at length committed to the earth, like the brute that ;perisheth. This is the system which the American Anti-slavery Society declares to be sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately i^bolished ; and this is the system which the Aaierican Coloni- ..zation Society excuses, and which, it contends, ought to be per- ipetual, rather than its victims should enjoy their rights in " the • white man's land." To one whose moral sense has not been perverted, it would - seem a temerity bordering on blasphemy, to contend that such a system can be approved by a just and holy God, or sanc tioned by the precepts of his blessed Gospel Slavery, we are told, is not forbidden, in the Bible ; .but who will dareto say that cruelty and injustice, and :Conipulsory heathenism are not? We are often reminded,: that St. .Paul exhorts slaves to be obedient to their masters; ..hutso he does subjects-to their ru lers. If in the one instance, he justified-slavery, so did he despot- ishi in the other. The founder of Christianity and his apostles, interfered not with political institutions, but laid down rules for the conduct of individuals ; and St. Paul in requiring masters .to give, their servants that which is just and equal, virtually condemned the Whole~systemidf-sla;very,. since he who receives what is just and equa;l cannot be a slave. If it was right^in the time of St.; Paul to hold white men as slaves, would it 4)e wrong to do:so now ? If slavery is lawful now, it must have been lawful in its commencement, since perseverance in wrong, can never -constitute rigbt. Let it be explained how free men with their posterity, to the latest generation, can now be lawfully re duced to slavery, and forever kept in ignorance of the duties and consolations of Christianity, and we wiU .unite with thoge •iwho, justify American slayexy- AMERICAN SLAVERY. 141 CHAPTER IL PROPOSED OBJECTS .AND MEASURES OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-eLAVERY SOCIETY — CENSDRE OP ABOLITIONISTS. The next great principle maintained by the Society is, that slavery being sinful; it ought Immediately to cease. Admitting the premises, the conclusion seems Irresistible. Sin ?is opposi tion to the will of our Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. His wisdom and goodness are alike infinite, and if slavery be incon sistent with his will, it must necessarily be inconsistent with the welfare of his creatures. Heason and revelation, moreover, assure us that God will punish sin ; and therefore ,to contend that It is necessary or expedient to continue in sin, is to im peach every attribute of the Deity, and to brave the vengeance of omnipotence. These prmciples lead the Society to aun at effecting the fol lowing objects, viz : 1st. The immediate aboHtion of slavery throughout the Uni ted States. 2d. As a necessary conse.quence, the suppression of the American slave trade. 3d. The ultimate elevation of the black population to an equality with the white, in civil and rehgious privileges. But principles may be sound and objects may be good, and yet the measures adopted to enforce those principles, and to attain those objects, may be unlawful. Let us then inquire what are the measures contemplated by the Society. Slavery exists under _the authority of the Stette Legida- tures, in the several states ; and under the authority of Con gress in the District of Columbia, and in the United States' ter ritories. The merribers of the.Society are all represented in Congress, and the Constitution guaranties to them the right of petition. They will therefore petition Congress to exercise the power it possesses, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the Territories. But the Society is not represented in the State Legislatures, and therefore petitions to them might be deemed oflScious, and would not prpbably lead to any advatageous r.e- ,142 charges against abolitionists. -suit. The Society will therefore use the right possessed my every member of the community, the right of speech and of the press. They will address arguments to the understandings and the consciences of their fellow citizens,' and endeavor to convince them of the duty and poHcy of immediate emancipa tion. Legislatures are with us, but the mere creatures of the people, and when the people of the slave States demand the abo lition of slavery, their Legislatures wUl give effect to their will, ¦by passing the necessary laws. The means by which the Society will endeavor to secure to the blacks an equality of civpil and religious privileges, are frankly avowed to be the encouragement of their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and the removal of existing prejudices against them. To prevent any misapprehensions of the real design of the Society, The Constitution expressly declares that the Society will never " in any wa^ countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights, hy resorting to phy sical force." Such are the principles and designs of those who are now designated as Abolitionists, and never since the settlement of the country, has any body of citizens been subjected in an equal degree, to unmerited, and unmeasured reproach. We have seen with what kind of temper Colonizationists speak of free negroes, and we may well question, when we call to mind the obloquy they haye heaped upon Abolitionists, whether the latter are not in their opinion the greater nuisances. Much as the free negroes have suffered from the charges ofthe Society, still there have been limits to the invectives hurled against them. No chancellor has adjudged them to be " reck less incendiaries."* No counsellor, learned in the law, heis charged them with being guilty of " a palpable nullifica tion of that Constitution which they had sworn to support."! N'O honorable Senator has denounced them as " fanatics, in creasing injury and sealing oppression." J The chairman of the Executive Committee of the New- York Colonization Soci ety never asserted that their design was " beyond a doubt to foment a servile war in the South." ^ Nor did even the New * Speech of Chaiicellor 'Wal-worth of New- York. -f Speech of D. B. qgd-en,'Esq. ofJMew-York. t Hon. Mr. Frelinghuysen, of the Senate of the United .States. .8 Commftcial Advertiser, 9th June, 1834. wilberforce and ais associates. h^ York Courier and Enquirer ever propose, that the city authori ties should inform them, that they must prosecute " their trea sonable and beastly plans at their own peril ;" in other words, that they should not be protected from mobs.* Nor, finally, has any city corporation accused them of holding sentiments, " demoralizuig m themselves, and Ettle short of treason towards fhe government of our country. "f But Abolitionists are neither astonished nor dismayed at the torrent Pf insult and calumny that has been poured upon them^ as though some strange thing had happened unto them. They remember that Wilberforce and his companions experienced si milar treatinent, while laboring for the abolition of the slave trade; and they remember also the glorious triumphs they achieved, and the full though tardy justice that has been done to their motives. A few brief remiiiiscenees may be both in teresting and useful. In 1776, the British House of Commons rejected a resolu tion, that the slave trade " was contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man." Yet that trade is now piracy by act of Parhament. In 1788, on a bill bemg introduced into the House of Lords, fo mitigate the horrors of the trade. Lord Chancellor Thurlow ridiculed "the sudden fit of philanthropy that had given it birth," and Lord Chandos predicted "the insurrection of the slaves, and the massacre of their masters, from the agitation ofthe subject." In 1789, on a motion of Mr. Wilberforce, that fhe house would take the trade into consideration, a member pronounced fhe attempt to abolish it " hypocritical, fanatic, and mefhodisti- cal," and contended that Abolition must lead to " insurrections, massacre and ruin." In 1791, Col. Tarleton, in fhe House of Commpns, speaking ? Courier and Enquirer, 11th Julj^ 1834. The same paper of the 27tb Oec. 1834, contains thefollowing. — "We do say, and say m all the earnest ness cf conviction, that no meeting of Abolitionists shmdd ever be suffered fc go on imth Us proceedings in the United States: 'Whenever these wretched disturbers of the public peace, and plotters of mvrdeh:, rapinb, ajid a disso lution OF'THE csiON, have the impudence to hold a meeting, it is the duty of the rational citizens — always a vast majority in every place — to go to that meeting, and there, by exercising the right of every American citizen, make the expressioo of their dis^probation and disgust, loud enough, a'nd emphai- tic enough, tarender it impossible for treason to go on with its machina tions. Let sedftion be driven from its den, as irflen as its minions consr»- gate." t Resolutwnsof the Corporation of the City rf Utica. 144 wiLBERFORefi ANn his associates. of the proposed abolition of the slave trade, declared that "the measure was fit only for the bigotry and superstition ofthe twelfth century." Lord John Russell asserted that Abolition was " visionary and delusive, a feeble attempt without fhe power to serve the cause of humanity." Lord Sheffield could "trace in the arguments for Aboli tion nothing like reason, but on the contrary, downright. phrensy." In 1792, the Abolitionists were denounced in Parliament,. as "a junto of sectaries, sophists, enthusiasts, and fanatics." In 1793, the Duke of Clarence, now William the IV., in his place in fhe House of Lords, declared fhe Abolitionists to be " fanatics, and hypocrites," and so far violated parhamentary decorum, as to apply these epithets to Mr. Wilberforce by name. Yet has. he» lived fo crown fhe labors and fulfil the hopes of Wilberforce, by giving his assent to fhe bill abolishing slavery throughout the British dominions. In 1 804, Lord Temple declared in Parliament, that to abolish the slave trade, would be " the death-warrant of every white inhabitant in the islands." ' Ten times did Mr. Wilberforce bring fhe subject of the abolition of the traffick before Parliament, and fen times was he doomed fo witness the failure of his efforts ; nor was this detestable commerce suppressed, till thirty years after fhe first motion against if had been made in fhe House of Commons. Now, if is prohibited by the whole Chrisfian world. When fhe Abolitionists of the present day, think of these facts, and recollect fhe reproaches heaped on Wilberforce and his colleagues, by a Chancellor and dignified Senators, well may they thank God and take courage. And who are these men, we would ask, whom colonizationists are honoring with epi thets similar to those which the advocates of the slave ti'ade so libei-ally applied to the philanthropists who opposed it ? We will suffer an authority justly respected by the religious com-, munity fo answer the question. Abbott's Religious Magazine, in an article on the mobs against fhe New- York Abolitionists, says, " The men against whom their fury was directed, were in general ministers of fhe Gospel, and other distinguished mem bers of Christian churches. The more prominent ones, were the very persons who have been most honored in times past. sinfulness of slavery. 146 account of their personal exei-tions and pecuniary contribu- ns for every benevolent purpose. Let fhe ¦whole land bC' irched, and we believe that no men will be found to hav& nc so much for the promotion of temperance, purity, and ery benevolent and religkms object." CHAPTER III. fanaticism of abolitionists. One of the most usual terms by which Abolitionists are de- ;nafed by their opponents is, "the fanatic^." If seems they e fanatics, because they believe slavery to be sinful. The ounds for this beliel^ have been already stated. But is the ifulness of slavery a 7iew doctrine ; or has it been held only ¦ weak and misguided men ? Is Wilberforce to be denounced a "wretched fanatic," because he declared, "slavery is the 11 measure of pure unsophisticated wickedness, and scorning I competition or comparison, it stands alone without a rival, the secure, undisputed possession of its detestable pre-emi.. nee." Was Jonathan Edwards a poor "misguided" man, for thus dressing slaveholders. " While you hold your negroes in Lvery, you do wrong, exceedingly wrong — you do not, as you )uld men should do fo you ; you commit sin in fhe sight of God ; lu daily violate the plain rights of mankind, and that in a ^her degree than if you committed theft or robbery." Were )rteus, Horseley, Fox, Johnson, Burke, Jefferson, and Bolivar, niserable enthusiasts ?" Yet hear their testimonies. " The Chrisfian religion is opposed to slavery, in its spirit d in its principles ; it classes men-sfealers among murderers fathers and of mothers, and the most profane criminals upon rth." — Parleus. " Slaveiy is injustice, which no consideretion of policy can fenuafe." — Horseley. " Personal freedom is fhe right of every human being. If a right of which he who deprives a fellow creature, was: isolutely criminal in so depriving him ; and which he wha thheld, was no less criminal in withholding." — Fox, 13 f46' SINFULNESS OF SLAVERY. " Nonlan is' by nature the property of another. The right* 6f nature must be some way forfeited, before they can be justly tiaken away." — Johnson. " Slavery is a stiatc so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous ft) the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist." — Burke. " The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with •As, in such a contest." (A contest with insurgent slaves.) — Jefferson. " Slavery ir the infringement of all laws-^a law having a tendency to preserve slavery, would be fhe grossest sacrilege." ^Bolivar. We would take the liberty' of recommending fo the con sideration of certain Methodist Colonizationists, fhe following- language of John Wesley. " Men-buyers, are exactly on a level with men-sfealers. In deed, you say, 1 pay honestly for my goods, and am not con cerned fo know how they are come by. Nay, but you are — you are deeply concerned fo know that they are honestly come by. Otherwise, you are a partak-er with a thiefi and are not a jot honester than him: But you know they are not honestly eome by ; you know they are procured by means nothing so ftinocenf as picking of pockets, or robbery on the highway. Perhaps you will say, I do not buy my negroes, 1 only use those left me by nly father. So far is well, but is> it enough to satisfy your conscience'? Had your father, have you, has any man Uving a right to use another as a slave'? If cannot be, even setting Revelation aside." But Abolitionists are fanatics; not merely bec&ruse they be fieve slavery sinful, but also because they contend it ought imme diately to be abolished. In their fanaticism on this point, sis well es on the other, they are kept in countenance by a host of divines tod statesmen, and by the unanimous opinion of thousands, and tens of thousands of Christians. Men of all ranks said charac ters, from John Wesley to Daniel O'Connel, have exhibited this fanaticism — it has been borne by the republicans of France, fhe Catholics of South America, the people of Engkwid, Scot- .tand and Ireland. So long ago as 1774, John Wesley declared : "If cannot be ihaf either war or contract can give any man such a property in another, as he has in his ^eep and oxen. Much less is H -IMME-DIATE ABOLITION. 1^ fposslble that any child of man should ever be born a slave. If, rtherefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing qf jnercy, nor the revealed will pf God) render unto all their due. -Give hberty fo whom liberty is due, that is, to every child c^ man, to every partaker of human nature." JonathjEui Edwards was fanatic enough to assert : — " Every man, who cannot show that his negro hath, by his voluntary conduct, forfeited his liberty, is Qhh.gatedimmedia/tely-U),m&n\x- mif him." One million five hundredfhousand persons petitioned the Bri tish Parhament for the total and unmediafe abolition of slavery. Indeed, Mr. O'Connel expressed fhe nearly unanimous sentimeijt of the whole nation, when he exclaimed : " I am for speedy, immediate aboUtion. I care not what creed or color slavery may assume,.! am for its tpt^l, its instaf^i abolition." We have not yet exhausted the proofs of fhe alleged fanati cism of Abohtlonists. If seems they are fanatics, for wishing to elevate the blacks to a civil and rehgious equality with the whites. Certain Colonization editors deny fo Abolitionists, as we have seei), fhe constitutional right of freedom of speech, fhe press, and pulpit, and even of peaceably assembling together ; .and multitudes seem to think, that they have forfeited fhe pro tection of the ninth commandment. Men of all ranks have united in charging upon them designs which they indignantly disclaim, and in support of which, not a particle of evidence has been, or can be adduced. One of fhe designs falsely imputed to them, is that of bringing about an amalgamation of colors by Interma.rriages. In vain have they again and again denied any such design ; in vain have their writings been searched for any recommendation of such amalgamation. No Abo litionist is known fo have married a negro, or, to haye givep his child to a negro ; yet has fhe charge of amalgannaf ion been repeated, and repeated, fill many have, no doubt, honestiy be- , Ueved if. During the very height of the New- York riots, and as if to excite the mob to still greater atrocities, the editor of the Com- iinferclal Advertiser asserted, that the Abolitionists had "sought to degrade" the identity of their fellow citizens, as a " nation qi > white men, by reducing it to the condition of mongrels." — Cojif. Adv. .nth Jjil^, 1834. ' 148 RIGHTS OF PEOPLE OF COLOK. No one, in the ppssession of his reasoning faculties, can be lieve it fo be fhe duty of white men to select black wives ; and Abolitionists have given, every proof the nature of the ceise will admit, that they countenance no such absurdity. But most'true it is, that fhe Anti-Slavery Society avows its intention to labor for fhe civil and religious equality ofthe blacks. It has been found expedient to accuse if of aiming also at their social equality. He must be deeply imbued with fanaticism, or rather with insanity, who contends, that because a man has a dark skin, he is, therefore, entitled to a reception in our fami lies, and a place at bur fables. We all know white men whose characters and habits render them repulsive fo us, and whom no consideration would induce us f o admit into our social circles ; and can if be believed, that Abolifionisfs are willing fo extend to negroes, merely on account of their color, courtesies and indulgences, which, in innumera ble instances, they withhold, and properly withhold, from their white fellow citizens. But who pretends that, because a man is so disagreeable in his mannei's and person that we refuse to associate with him, that therefore he ought to be denied the right ef suffrage, the privilege of choosing his trade and pro fession, the opportunities of acquiruig knowledge, and the liberty of pursuing his own happiness 1 Yet such is pur conduct to wards the free blacks, and if is this conduct which the Society aims af reforming. The Society does contend, that no man ought to be punished for fhe complexion God has given him. And are not black men punished for the color of their skin 1 Read the laws of the slave States relative to free negroes; alas ! read fhe laws of Ohio, and Connecticut ; read the -decision of Judge Daggett ; behold them deprived of the means of educa tion, and excluded from almost every trade and profession ,; see them compelled to wander in poverty and in ignorance. Now, all this, Abolitionists contend is wrong, and their opposition to this system of persecution and oppression is fanaticism ! Be if so, but it is only modern fanaticism, and if was not so regarded when fti 1 785, John J AY declared : " I wish to see all unjust and unnecessa ry discriminations every where abolished, and that the time may soon come, when all our inhabitants, of every color and de nomination, shall be free and equal partakers of our poli tical LIBERTY. iCHAROES -AOAI-NST ABOLITIONISTS. 148 ~It requires no great exercise of candor, to admit, that the prejudices existing against, the blocks are sinful, whenever they lead us to treat those jmhappy people with injustice and inhu manity. They have their rights as well as ourselves. [.Th^ have no right- to associate ,, with us against our will, biit thej have a right to acquire property by lawful industry ; they have a right to participate in fhe blessings pf education and p^litiqsd hberty. When, therefore, our prejudices lead us fo keep the blacks in poverty, by restrictuig their industry,* fo keep thens in ignorance,, by excluding them from our semuiaiies, and pre venting them from having seminaries of their own ; fo keef -them in a..stftte of ..vassalage by denyingithem any choice in their ruleis ; our prejudices are. so far -sinful, and_.so,|ar, only does the Anti-Slavery Society aim at removing thein. CHAPTER LV. INCENDIARISM. AND TREASON OP ABOL-lTaGNISTS. -h is not eno.ugh.thaf Abolitionists should be represented as fanatics ; it has been deemed expedient, to hold fhem up to the community as incendiaries and traitors. The chairman of the Executive Committee of the New- York Colonization Society, thus speaks of the Anti-slavery Society, in his paperpf the 9th June, 1834. " The design of this Society is, beyond a, doubt, to foment a servile war in fhe South — they have been he^i-d -to say, blood must be shed, and -the sooner the befterrr— this Society owes its existence not tp the love ,of liberty, pr any par ticular affection for the slaves, b,ut to ci;u?l and bkter hatred, and malignity." In an earlier paper, he inserted an article .accusing Abolitionists of seeking to use *he pulpits, " for the Joase purpose of encouraging scenes of bloodshed." Here we find the most atrocious designs, imputed 'to mep •well known in- the. cpmmunity for active benevolence and pri vate worth ; and yet not a.scintilla of evidence is offered in sup port of the extro-oidingay . fact, that ^such men .should harbpi * As one instance among the innumerable restrictions on the industry oi these people, we may mention, that no free black, however iinoral and intjl- ligent, can obtain a license in the city of New-York to drive a caj:t ! 13* 150 CHARGES AGAINST ABOLITIONISTS. such designs. Intthis case the accused can of course offer only negative proof of their innocence. That proof is to be found first in their individual characters. Secondly, in the fact that many of :the Abohtlonists are emphatically peace men, that is, they hold the quaker doctrine of the unlawfulness of war, and maintain that if would besLnful in fhe slaves fo attempt effecting their freedom by force of arms.* Thirdly, in the fundamental principle of the ¦ Society that they will -"never in any way countenance' the oppressed in vindicating their- rights by resort- ing to physical force;" and, fourthly, in the fact 'that Abohtion- ists as>such, have in no instance recommended, or Bommitted an act of unlawful 'violence. But by 'declaiming against slavery, AboUtiomsts are exciting odium against; slave holders. If he who labors to render any particular sin, and those who are guilty of it odious, is of course a " reckless incendiary, few are more justly and honorably en titled to this epithet, than fhe excellent Chancellor of New- York. Few have shoWn more intrepidity in denouncing the '¦vendera of ardent spirits than this gentleman ; and Abolitionists intheir warfare against slavery, may well- take a lesson from the example he has set fhem of an honest and fearless discharge of duty. Had the President -of ^the 'New-York Temperance Society and his associates exercised' the same tenderness and gentleness towards drunkards and-venders, that he now shows towards slave holders. Temperance Societies would have check ed fhe prpgress of drunkenness, as little as Colonization promises to do that of slavery. Thomas Jefferson was not' denounced as a reckless in cendiary, when in the midst of a slave population, he declared that the Almighty had no attribute that could take side with the masters in a contest with their slaves; nor did John Jay forfeit the confidence pf his countrymen, when during the revolution ary war, he asserted " till America comes info this measure, (abolition of slavery) her prayers to heaven for liberty will be impious;" nor> when addressing the Legislature of New-Ycrk, then a slave State, he told them that persons '' fi'ee. by fhe .a\vs of God, are held in slavery by the laws of man." Nor were Franklin and has associates regarded as incen- -¦ diaries for uniting in 1787, " to extend the blessmgs of freedom * This sentiment;is heU and avowed by the much- calumniated .Mr. tGarrison. charges AGAINST ABOLITIONISTS. 151 to every part of our race;" or for refusing to permit jslave- holders to participate with them in this glcripus effort. It was not suflieient to, ridicule Abolitionists as fanatics, or to stigmatize them tbs incendiaries ; they must be branded as trai tors and nullifiers. On:the 9th October, 1833, a few days after a mob had assembled . to deprive American citizens of one of their dearest constitutional rights, -that of peaceably expressing their opinions, a numerous Colonization meeting was convened in New-York for the purpose of taking advantage of the recent excitement, to raise the sum of $20,000. ' . Gentiemen of high rank and influence addressed the meeting. Not a word of disapprobation of the late outrage escaped them ; on the con trary, the violence offered to the Abolitionists seemed to be extenuated if notijustified,by the.grievous charges now brought against fhem. The Hon. Mr. Frehnghuysen, of New-Jersey, justly distin guished for his piety, his talents, and his station as a Senator of the United States, addressed the meeting. " In thecourse of his address," -says the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, 10th October, "he dwelt with emphasis and just discrimination upon -the proceedings of both cis and /-^aras- Atlantic Abolitionists, who are seeking to destroy our happy Union." Chancellor Walworth, one of: the most estimable citizens, and the highest judicial officer of the State of New- York, allu ding to the emancipation to be effected by Colonization, remark ed, " the ememcipafion, however, -to -which this resolution directs your attention, is not that ii/nconsiitutional eind dangerous •emancipation contemplated by a few visionary enthusiasts, and a still fewer reckless incendiaries among us, which cannot be effected without violating the rights of property secured by that constitution which we have sworn to support — that emancipa tion which would arm-one part of the Union against another, and light up the: flame of civil war in this now happy land." N. Y. Journal of Commerce. David B.= Ogden, --Esq., a gentleman whose legal eminence, and whose jpurity of character justly give to his opinions pe culiar weight, msed, the following language : "I avail myself *of this opportunity, toenterfmy solemn , protest against the ^attempts which are making hy a few..FAS.ATics, who, without looking to the fearful consequences involved in such an issue, tare advocating the immediate emancipation of slaves, in the viSouthern District. As citizens ofthe United States, we.ha-os 352 'OBARyears before, not an ounce of that article was manufectured on the island, p. 926. The imports into France, in 1831, from Hayti, exceeded in •value the imports from Sweden — Denmark, the Hanseatic Towns — Holland-^Portugal — Austria — the French East In- ¦ dies — or China,.-p. 637. In the same year, 'the injportadun'ef 'French wines into Hayti amounted to 108,495 gallons,! p. 1250.* Cotton manufactures, to the amount of 6,828,576 yards, !-were exported from Great Britainto Hayti in 1831, being about one-teath the number-of yards exported the. same year .to the United- States, p. 446. Our readers are now comp^ent to judge for themselves how tfer the assertions of Mr. Stoneaadithe Rev. Dr. Clough, are ¦ consistent with truth; and also, what is "the practical com mentary" ofifered hy the history and present slate of St. Do- ¦mingo, on ''the mad-schemes of-our well meaning but de- 'luded philanthropists." CHAPTER IX. EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH .WEST INMES. The British Government, in part'to conciliate fhe West Jlndia proprietors, and in part tlwough apprehension ofthe tfdanger of Immediate emancipation, > determined to abolish ^slavery in such a manner as to fit the felave fer freedom. In- - stead of breaking his yoke, it was- to be reduced in weight ; -and. six yeajs wereto be occupied in filing off his manacles. On the first of last August, the slave was .twld and believed, 'that slavery wasvabolished ; but onthe morrow.,..he was sum- * The quantity of French wine imported the same year into Great Britain iiorJiome CQOsviQptioii, w.a3.254,366.^11an8. p-. ises. J88 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST JNDIES. moned to his usual task, and required to work as before, with out reward. Astonished and disappointed, he-doubted the le gality of the mandate, and hesitated lo obey it. He was then informed, that, although no longer a slave, he was never theless an apprentice, and must toil on for six years longer, be fore he could enjoy the fruit of his labor. Had emancipation been nominally, as well as really, prospective, the slave would have regarded it as a boon ; but he did not readily comprehend the distinction between slavery and.apprenticeship. There was, 'however, a very iniportant'dlstinetien, which he soon discovered, and which did not promote his acquiescence in protracted>wrong. The lash was, by act of Parliament, wrested from the master's hand ; and while he was authorizec" to command his apprentices to labor, he was forbidden to pu nish them for idleness or insubordination. On this subject a Ja maica paper remarks : " It is clear, and there is no use in disguis ing the fact, that the apprentices can no longer be coerced in the way they formerly were ; for in the first place, no magistrate can legally inflict more than twenty-nine stripes, and, is the next, it is not possible to furnish magistrates enough for the purpose. The hope, therefore, of coercing, is absurd, and must, be abandoned." The conduct of the West India negroes, .under these ci* cumstances, proves how utterly groundless are the apprehen sions entertained of emancipation. Disappointed and irritated, and at the same lime almost wholly released from the control of their masters, they have exhibited a meekness, patience, and forbearance, utterly without a parallel. The great mass of the apprentices continue tolabor, but some haye, eitljer refused to work, or accomplish less fhan their appointed tasks. None sf .the insurrections, murders and conflagrations, which were 50 confidently predicted by the enemies of abolition, h^ve Bccurred. Not one life has yet been taken, not one dwelL ing fired,* throughout the British West Indies, by the emaur eipated slaves. This forbearance is the more remarkable, when we consider the numerical superiority of the negroes, in the West Indies, *nd particularly in Jamaica, where 'theiie .are 3,31,000 slaves, tmd only 37,000 vvhites. » TvTO sheds, called trash hoTises, were lately burned in Jamaica, pra- Mblv, but not certainLy,-by an apprentice. "ETttANCIPATIOTJ IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 189 Whatever may be the result of the apprenticeship experi ment. Abolitionists. are not responsible for it. It was adopted contrary to their advice, and is iiKJonsistent with the doctrines they profess. The emancipation which they believe to be most consonant with the will of God, most conducive to the safety and happiness of the whites, is immediate and uncon ditional. They rejoice thai their doctrines are at this moment subjected 'to a-severe^and practical test,. and they await the issue with un^aken -confidence. The Legislatures of Bermuda and Antigua, have adopted the very course which the American Anti-Slavery Society recommends to the slave States. With the permission ofthe British government, these 'Legislatures dispensed with fhe ap prenticeship altogether, and onthe first of last August, granted immediate and unqualified emancipation. That we may judge of the fanaticism, the madness, the wreckless incendiarism of these Legislatures we must take intoconsideration the number of slaves they " let loose upon the community," and their rela tive proportion lo the white population. In Bermuda there are 5,500 whites, 4,650 slaves, and 500 free blacks. In Antigua, 2,000 whites, 30,000 slaves, and 4,500 free blacks.* The Bermuda Gazette, of the 4fh August, thus speaks ctf the great change effected on the 1st : "The day was as remarkable for quietude, exemption from labor, and solemnity, as that which marks the Sabbath in a Christian land. The only bustle perceptible, was In prepara tion for attending public worship, which his Excellencj^ the Governor, most wisely ordered to be performed : thereby dedi- caring.it wholly to God, fhe wilier and doer of this great work. The churches and other places of public worship on the island, were crowded to excess, every possible accommodation being afforded to the colored people. From every quarter we hear of their orderly, nay more, exemplary behavior. Four days of universal freedom have now passed, and four days of more perfect regularity and quiet have these famed peaceful isiands never witnessed." Such was the immediate result of turning loose 4,000 slaves. Let us now attend to the subsequent testimony. The Hon --* American Almanac. too EMANCIPATION IN BERMUDA. Mr. Butterfield, Chief Justice of Bermuda, in his charge to the grand jury on the 6th November, referring to the abolition of slaves in the Island, observed : " This measure,, which was necessarily one of fearful experi ment, has not, I am happy to Say, disappointed the hopes ofthe public, whose feelings in its fevor wcEe expressed with a unanimity as unexampled as, I am proud to say, altogetiier honorable to the character of the country. On the contrary, it is a subject of congratulation, and certainly of commendation to the emancipated, that in three months during which we have been able to mark its working the general character andcom^ fort of society has improved, and the evils which some of its best friends apprehended, were in all cases overrated, and in some have hitherto had no existence." But in Bermuda the whiles were equal to the blacks, and the manumitted slaves were perhaps restrained from outrage, by the consciousness of their own weakness. It seems as if Pro vidence had provided facts to refute every argument that can be urged against abolition. Let us now turn to Antigua, where the slaves were to the whites as 15 to i, and the free blacks as 3 to 2, and see how far in this overwhelming preponderance of the colored over the "white population, immediate emancipation confivmed Dr. Hawkes's theory ? Let the Antigua newspaper of 7th August, answer. , " The great doubt is solved — the alarming prognostications of the advocates of slavery falsified — the highest hopes of the negroes' friends fulfilled, and their pledge honorably redeemed. A whole people, comprising thirty ihousapd souls, have passed from slavery into freedom, not only without the slightest ir regularity, but with the solemn and decorous tranquillity of a Sabbath. A week has nearly elapsed, and although all eyes arid ears are open, and reports spread rapidly, we have not heard of a single act of insolence, insubordination or violence committed by any one of thein, under i^lse and licentious no tions of freedom." From the same paper, of the 14lh August : " It is 'with the highest satisfaction we announce, that we know of and believe tha,t there is no gang of laborers in ihe island, which has not fettf.rned io its accustomed employment." 'So that two weeks after the slaves were " let loose," instead of begging and stealing, they were al' :iuietly at work, EMANCIPATION IN ANTIGITA, 191 We quote from the same paper of the 21st August : "The third week of freedom will close with this day, and again we are bound to express our gratitude and praise to the Divine goodo,ess, for the perfect peace and tranquillity, which the island enjoys. Not the least symptom of insubordination has manifested itself any where ; and fhe d,aily accounts from all quarters testify to the excellent disposition and conduct ofthe new freemen. In a letter from Antigrua, dated 30th August, and pu,blished in a Norfolk paper, we find the following : '" The operations of commerce have experienced no infer ruption ; public confidence remains unshaken. Two sugat plantations have recently leased for as much as they were worth with the negroes included, prior to emancipation." While the -Jamaica papers are filled with complaints ofthe conduct of the apprentices, and predictions of the ruin of the island, one of them (10th September) says : '" In Antigua, all appears to be peaceable and quiet. Its rulers evinced more wis dom, and proved themselves to be better tacticians, than those of any other colonies, Bermuda excepted. In gelting'rid of fhe apprenticeship they got rid of the source, and only source of heart-burning between them and their laborers ; and we main tain, as a /ree colony, will soon experience advantages not to be enjoyed by others, so long af least as the humbug continues." About eight months have now elapsed since the thirty thou sand slaves of Aritigna were suddenly " let loose," and, as yet,, we have not heard of a single outrage committed by them. It had been customary In tiiis island, as an additional security against insurrection, to proclaim martial law at the Christmas holy-days, during which times the slaves had peculiar oppor tunities for forming conspiracies. The great act of justice ac complished on the first of August, relieved the planters of all apprehension of Insurrection ; and not only was the usual proclamation withheld at the last Christmas, but ihe militia was exempted from duty. In a late speech, by the Speaker of fhe Antigua House of Assemlily, he advertedto fhe " universal tranquillity" that prevailed, and to the " respectful demeanor of the lower classes ;" and declared, that " the agricultural and commercial prosperity of the colony was absolutely on the 192 GHADUAL EKrANCrPATrOW.^ CBEAPTER X. GRADUAL, AND IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. If we have been successful in our endeavors to prove, that the removal of slavery by colonization is both morally and physically impossible, then it necessarily follows, that fhe slaves must be emancipated here, or that slavery must be indefinitely continued. Should the former alternative be adopted, the important question occurs : ought the emancipation to be gradual or immediate ? If this question is to be determined with reference to moral obligation, it is certainly difficult for those who regard slavery as sinful to justify its continmanee even for a limited time. If, however,, the question is to be decided on the ground of mere political expediency, there are many and powerful objections to gradual emancipation ; and what may at first view appear paradoxical, the strength of these objections is proportioned ta the number of slaves to be emancipated. In New-York, slavery wasfor the most part gradually abo lished ; that is, the children, born after a certain day, became free, as they respectively reached the age of twenty-eight years ; and when the whole number of slaves were reduced to ten thousand, they were liberated in a single day. In New- York, the white population so greatly exceeded the black, that no jealousy was entertained of the free negroes, and no incon venience experienced in uniting free and slave labor. But in those Slates, in which nearly all the laborers are slaves, where every free black is regarded as a nuisance and an incendiary and where the planter would, on no consideration, permit him to labor in company with his slaves, much difficulty would necessarily attend a gradual relinquishment of slave labor. Suppose, in South Carolina for instance, fen thousand slaves should be annually manumitted by law. This would certainly be gradual emancipation, as if would require about forty years to free the whole number. Now, what would become of these ten thousand yearly discharged from fhe plantations? Would their late masters be willing to hire tiiem, and turn them back into their cotton fields ? The supposition is extravagant. GSADtTAt EMANCIPAtlOKi 193 The planter would dread their influence on his f eniitining slaves, and these would certainly, and with great reason, be dissatisfied at seeing their late companions working for wages, while they themselves were denied any compensation for their toil. But if the ten thousand liberated slaves were not employed, how could they obtmn a livehhood, and how could the planters sup. ply their place on the plantations ? The idea, that by gradual emancipation, the slaves will become^< for freedom, is visiona ry in the extreme. How is it possible that the liberation of a portion of the slaves, can qualify those who remain in chains, to become useful citizens ? The house of bondage is not the school in which men are to be trained for liberty. As then gradual emancipation, however desirable, if no other can be obtained, is so flill of difficulty, and, in the opinion ol slave holders, so dangerous that they have almost universally passed laws to prevent it, the only alternative is immediate emancipation or continued slavery. It seems scarcely possible, that any conscientious man, after considering the r^ults of immediate emancipation in St. Do mingo, and Guadaloupe, in New- York, in Mexico, in South America, and in the West Indies, should join in the popular clamor agamsf if, as necessarily leading to massacre and ra pine. No reason can be assigned, why the whites would noJ possess fhe same physical power fo prevent or suppress outrage after, as before emancipation ; but abundant reason may be given, why the blacks, when restored to their rights, and enjoy ing the protection and privileges of civil society, should be less disposed to destroy their benefactors and deliverers, than they are when smarting under cruelty and injustice, to destroy those whom they regard as their tyrants and op pressors. Who, with the knowledge, that no white man has ever been murdered in consequence of immediate emancipationi dares to declare in the presence of his Maker, that self-preservation for bids the aboHtion of slavery ? But we are met with the inquiry, how are the owners to be compensated for the loss of their property 1 This same objec tion was made to the suppression of the African slave trade. British merchants had invested large capitals in the trafiic, and it was contended, that fo prohibit the trade, was to violate the rights of property. All governments possess the right 17 194 COMFENSATIOir. suppress practices injurious to Society, and to abate nuisan ces,* If a particular manufactory is found to be deleterious to the health of a city, it is not only the right, but the duty of the civil authority, to suppress it. If the national interests require an embargo, the measure is adopted, although.it virtually wrests from the merchant his property, by depriving him of the use of his own ships. The State of New-York abolished slavery, without compen sating the slave holders. The same has been done in Mexico, and in various instances in South America, and the compensa tion given by Parliament to fhe West India proprietors, proba bly arose from the consideration, that the legislators who enact ed the Abolition law, were not themselves personally aflTected by it; and in order, therefore, fo avoid the reproach of in dulging their benevolence at the expense of others, granted a pecuniary compensation to the owners of the emancipated slaves. To contend that the slaves in the Southern States, ought not to be emancipated by law, except on the payment to their masters, of their market value, is to contend that slavery ought to be perpetual. Such a payment is morally impossible. By whom can it be made 1 The Federal Government have nei ther the will nor the constitutional power to make it. But ad mitting it possessed both, the appropriation of the national funds to this purpose, would not be such a payment, because a very large proportion of those funds would be drawn from the slave holders themselves ; and it would be an insulting mock ery, to offer to pay them with their own money. To suppose that the free States, would be willing from motives of disin terested benevolence, to make a present to their neighbors of a THOUSAND millions OF DOLLARs-t Is obviously absuid : nor is it less absurd to insist that this sum ought to be paid to the masters, by the Legislatures of the slave states ; since the pockets of the masters, are the only sources whence those Le gislatures could obtain the money. * "How little to be respected," exclaimed Lord Mulgrave, late aovemoi of Jamaica, " is that rigid regard for the rights of property, which says a man shall do what he likes with his own, when his oien is his fellow- man." 1 Estinlating the slaves at an average value of $400, the amount would now nearly equal this sum, and in a few years, far exceed it. COMPENSATION. 195 So far as the whole amount of wealth in the community is concerned, it would be enhanced, not diminished by eman cipation. This may seem a strange assertion to follow the estimate we have just made of the market value of the slave population. But what is the price paid for a slave? Nothing more than the amount of his wages for Ufe, paid in advance-, paid it is true to another, but still paid as an equivalent for la bor to be performed, and to be refunded with interest out of tha' labor. Now it is obvious that it is the product of this labor, which can alone add any thing to the aggregate wealth ; and thst no diminution of that wealth can be caused, by paying for the labor as it is performed, monthly, or yearly, instead of pay ing for the whole of it in advance. This argument, it may be said, applies only to the purchase and sale of slaves ; but that where a planter is already in pos session of them, he would certainly lose a part of his profits, by being compelled to pay him wages, and this loss would be so much deducted by emancipation from the general stock. The fallacy of this opinion may be perceived by recollecting that it can in no degree affect the national wealth, whether the horse with which a farmer tills his corn-field, was reared by himself, or purchased from his neighbor. It is the corn pro duced, and not the money paid for the animal by one man and received by another, th.at augments the riches of the cnuntry. If the slaves are worth a thousand millions of dollars, it is evidence that their labor must be worth much more ; because, to their price is to be added the cost of their maintenance, and the whole is to be reimbursed with profit out of their labor. Now Colonijation, would utterly annihilate all this labor ; it calls upon the South to surrender a commodity worth more than a thousand millions; and upon this surrender, which would convert the whole slave region info a wilderness, it rests all its hopes of the ultimate abolition of slavery ! ! Emancipation on the contrary, instead of removing millions of laborers, would stimulate their industry, improve their mo rals, quicken their intelligence, and convert a dangerous, idle, and vicious population into wholesome citizens. Were all the slaves in South Carolina emancipated to-morrow, everybranch of industry would derive new energy, and every species of property, an increased value from the additional security 196 consequences op emancipation. which such a measure would give to society. All dread of insurrection would vanish, and one half of the population, who are now regarded as implacable foes, would be converted into useful friends. But it is objected, that the emancipated blacks will form a bad population. One would think, from this objection, that the slaves now form a good population, and that they are to be rendered ignorant and immoral by freedom. Unquestionably, the liberated slaves, like all other vicious and degraded people, will, while such, form a bad population ; but if they are such while in bondage, and must ever remain such until liberated, then emancipation is the only process by which a bad, can be converted into a good population. As soon as they are free, they will be accessible to education and religious instruction, and all those various motives which operate as a wholesome restraint on the evil passions of our nature. It would be most unjust to estimate the future character of the emancipated slaves, supposing slavery to be immediately abolished, by the present character of the free negroes. These last, in the slave States, are a hated and persecuted race. They are kept not only in ignoranccj but in idleness. The planters will not em ploy them, for fear they will contaminate the slaves ; and the whole legislation of the Southern States, towards this peo ple, is to degrade and brutify them. But these wicked efforts are the results of slavery, and would cease with it. Were slave ry abolished, then it would be the obvious interest ofthe South to improve the black population, and the causes which neces sarily render the free blacks vicious, would no longer operate. The same remark applies, although with les§ force, to the free blacks of the North. Colonization and slavery have both had their influence in keeping alive, and aggravating the pre judices against color, and these prejudices have led to that system of persecution and oppression to which the free blacks here are subjected. And now what injury or loss would the planter sustain, by the emancipation of his slaves ? As a trader in human flesh, nis vocation would, indeed, be gone, but as the cultivator of the soil, his profits would be undiminished. The number of laborers would be as great as before ; and they would still be depend ent on labor for their support. They now cost their owner Iheir food and clothing, and their mabtenance in sickness, in MODES OF EMANCIPATION. 197 youth, and in old age ; the expense also of the idle and worth less, is as great as that ofthe good. Their cost as free laborers woultl be but little more tlian at present, while their characters would be improved, and the employer coidd select such laborers as his occasions required. The laborers, finding their wages, and of course tlieir comforts depending on their good con duct, would be prompted to industry and sobriety ; and having nothing to gain by insurrection, and feeling no injuries to avenge, all malignant designs agauist their employers would be laid aside, and they would soon make such advances in intelligence and morality, as would contribute no less to the good order and peace of society, than -to their own hap- Abolitionists are constantly called on for a plan of emanci pation. They have little encouragement to I'espond to fhe call. If they propose the simple plan of pi'oclaiming by act of the State Legislatures, the immediate and tlnqualified abolition of slavery, they are denounced as reckless incendiaries. If they intimate, that abolition does not necessarily inhibit all compulso ry labor, and point to the rui^l code of St. Domingo and'the apprentice system of fhe West Indies, they are reproached with wishing to substitute one kind of slavery for another. But, in truth, they are under no obligation of duty or policy to propose any specific plan. No Temperance Society iias felf itself bound because it pronounced the traffic in ardent spirits to be sinful, to furnish vendei-s with plans for employing their capi tals in other occupations. The details of emancipation, and the various legal provisions proper to render jt safe and convenient, are not prescribed by the great principles of justice and religion, but by considera tions of local policy. It is not probable, that if all the Southern Legislatures were sincerely anxious to abolish slavery, any two of them would do it in precisely the same manner, and under the same regulations. We have seen one plan pursued in St. Domingo, another in Bermuda and Antigua, a third in the other British West-Indies, and still different plans in South America. Of all these plans, that adopted in Mexico, Bermuda and Antigua, of immediate, total and unqualified emancipation, will, there is reason to believe, be found in all cases the most safe and expedient. 17* 198 MODES OF EMANCIPATION. Thi!> plan' removes from the slave all cause for discontent. He is ftee, and his own master, and he can ask for no more. Yet he is, in fact, for, a time, absolutely dependent on hi^late owner. He can look to no other person for food to eat, clothes to put on, or house to sheUer him. His first wish therefore is, to remain where he is, and he receives as a favor, permission to labor in the service of him whom the day before he regard ed as his oppressor. But labor is no longer the badge of his servitude, and the consummation of his misery: it is fhe evi dence of his liberty, for it is voluntary. For the first time in his life, he is a party to a contract. He negotiates with his late master, and returns to the scene of his former toil, and the scene of his stripes and his tears, with a joyful heart, to labor for HIMSELF. The wages he has agreed to accept, will, in fact, be little^ more than the value of his maintenance ; for it is not lo be expected, that in a treaty with his employer, his diplomacy will gain for him any signal advantages ; but still there will beacharm in the very nameofwa^e^ which will make the pittance he receives, appear a treasure in his eyes. Thus will the transition from slave to free labor be effected instan taneously, and with scarcely any perceptible interruption of the ordinary pursuits of life. In the course of time, the value of negro labor, like all other vendible commodities, will be regulated by the supply and demand : and justice be done both to the planter and his laborers. The very consciousness, more over, that justice is done to both parties, will remove their mutual suspicions and animosities, and substitute in their place feelings of kindness and confidence. No white man in Anti gua, surrounded as he is by blacks, now dreams of insurrec tion, or fears the midnight assassin. Can as much be said of our Southern planters 1 In concluding this chapter, we beg leave to address the fol lowing questions to the reader, and we beseech him seriously to inquire, what duties are prompted by the answers which his conscience and understanding may compel him to return. Do you believe it to be agreeable to the will of God, and the welfare of our country, that slavery should be perpetual? Is it either possible or probable, that slavery can or will be removed by colonization ? bANOER OF SLAVERY. 199 If slavery be not abolfehed by law, is it not probable, that it will, in time, be terminated by violence ? Do the precepts of Christianity, and the lessons of history, recommend gradual in preference to immediate emancipatioa? CHAPTER XI. DANGER OP CONTINUED SLAVERY. While slave holders and Colonizationists delight to expatiate on the danger of immediate emancipation, and to represent its advocates as reckless incendiaries, ready to deluge the country in blood, they seem scarcely conscious that any danger is to be apprehended from slavery itself. Yet the whole history of slavery is a history ofthe struggles ofthe oppressed fo recover their liberty. The Romans had their servile wars, in one of which forty thousand slaves were embodied in arms — Italy ra vaged, and Rome herself menanced. A European writer remarks : " The. formidable rebellion of the Jamaica slaves, in 1762, is well known; and in almost every island in the Archip^ago, have repeated insurrections broken out ; sometimes the result of plans laid with the utmost secrecy, and very widely extended, always accompanied by the horrors of African warfare." The destruction of property in Jamaica, in fhe insurrection of 1832, was estimated by the Legislature at £1,154,583. Any commotion of the emancipated slaves, that should cost fhe island one-hundredth part of this sum, would be hailed both there and here, as demonstrative of the folly and hazard of emancipation. And have we not in our own country, had melancholy, heart rending proofs of fhe danger of slavery ? In 1712, and 1741, negro insurrections occurred in New- York, and we may judge of fhe alarm they excited, by the shocking means used to prevent their recurrence. Ofthe lead ers of the last insurrection, thirteen were burned alive, eighteen hung, and eighty transported. ' In the single State of South- Carolina, there have been no less than seven insurrections designed or executed. In 1711, fhe House of Assembly com plained of certain fugitive slaves, who " keep out armed, and 200 DANGER OF SLAVERT. robbing and plundering houses and plantations, and puttmg the inhabitants of this province in great fear and terror." In 1730, an open rebellion occurred, in which the negroes were actually armed and embodied. In 1739, there were no less than three rebellions, as appears from a petition from the Council and As sembly to the king, in which they complain of an "insurrection of our slaves, in which many of the inhabitants were murder ed in a barbarous and cruel manner ; and that was no sooner quelled, fhan another projected in Charleston, and a third lately in the very heart of the settiements, but happily discovered time enough to be prevented." In 1816, there was a conspiracy of the slaves in Camden and its vicinity, " the professed design of which was to murder all the whites and free themsdves." The conspiracy in Charleston in 1822, and fhe sacrifice of human life to which it led, are 'well known. But in no instance, has the danger of slavery been so vividly illustrated, as in the tra gedy of Southampton. A fanatic slave conceived, from some supposed signs in the heavens, or peculiarity in the weather, that he was called by God fo destroy the whites. He communicated his commission 'to five other slaves, who engaged to aid him in execufuig it The conspirators agreed fo meet af a certain place, on fhe night of fhe 21st August, 1831. They, assembled at the ap pointed hour, and the leader, Nat Turner, beheld with surprise a sixth man, who had not been invited by him to join fhe enter prise, but who had learned from another source, the cause of the meeting; and on Inquiring for what purpose hehad come, receiv ed fhe remarkable answer : " My life is worth no more than that of others, and my liberty as dear fo me." With these six associ ates. Turner commenced the work of destruction. By sunrise, the number of murderers was swelled to fourteen, and by ten o'clock the same morning, to forty ! From fhe testimony given on the trial of Turner, and which has been published, it appears, that there was no previous con cert, except between Turner and liis six original associates, and that no white or free colored man was privy fofhelr design The dates we have given of fhe various insurrections, prove conclusively, that they were in no degree connected with dis cussions respecting Abolition ; and at the time ofthe Southamp ton massacre, there was no Anti-Slavery Society in the United States advocating immediate emancipation. DANGER OF SLAVERY. 201 Abolitionists have been often charged with a desire to foment msurrections ; but the charge is wholly gratuitous, and no proof whatever of such sublimated wickedness has ever been addu ced against them. On the contrary, their characters, profes sions and conduct repel the calumny. The whole history of Abolition shows, that its only tendency is to ifisure peace and safety. We have brought facts to establish the danger of slavery ; let us now attend to the confessions of slave holders to the same point. A South Carolina writer, while urging the necessity of a stricter police over the slaves, thus describes them : " Let it never be forgotten, that our negroes are truly the Jacobins of the country ; that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy ; the common enemy of civilized society, AND the barbarians 'WHO WOULD IF THEY COULD, BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF OUR RACE."* The Southern Rehgious Telegraph says : " Hatred to the whites, with the exception in some cases of attachment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among the black population. We have then a foe cherished in our very bosoms — a foe ¦willing to draw our LIFE-BLOOD, whenever the opportunity is offered, and, in the mean time, intent on doing us all the mischief in his power." Now, be it recollected, that these " destroyers of our race," these foes, willing " to draw the fife-blood" of the whites, are rapidly advancing to an immense numerical majority. And on what grounds do fhe whites rest their hope of security from these Jacobins, and anarchists— on equal laws, the diffu sion of education, and the influence of religion ? Let Governor ilaynes of South Carolina, answer the question. " A STATE OF military PREPARATION, must always be with us a state of perfect domestic security. A profound peace, and consequent apathy, may expose us fo the danger of domestic insurrection." — Message to the Legislature, 1833. Thus, profound peace, which is a blessing to all other people, will be a curse to the slave holders, and they are fo hold all -Jiat is dear to them by the tenure of military preparation ! Is it, we ask, possible, for any nation fo have a worse popu lation than that described in the preceding eittracts, or to be " A j-efutation of the calumnies inculcated against the Southern and WcBtern States.— Charleston, 182-2. 202 DANGER OP SLAVERY. doomed to a more deplorable &te, than that of perpetual nUii tary preparation ? We have now seen, what are the religious and political prin ciples, and what are the historical facts which lead the Ameri can Anti-Slavery Society to recommend immediate emancipa tion to their Southern brethren. But if is demanded, with an air of supercilious triumph, what have Northern men to do. with slavery, and what right have they to interfere with the domestic institutions of tho South? And is this question addressed to the followers of him who commanded his disciples to " go into all the world, and to preach the Gospel to every creature ?" As well might it be asked of the Cliristians of America, what they have to do with the religion of Brahma, — what right they have to interfere to rescue the widow from the burning pile, or the devotee from the wheels of Juggernaut ? Christians are no less bound by the injunction to " do good unto all men," to endeavor, by lawfiil means, to break the fetters ofthe slave, than to deliver the vic tim of Pagan superstition. The obligation is imperative, and they who duly respect its authority, will not be deterred by vio lence or denunciation from obeying its monitions. The same moral sense which has led Abolitionists to oppose slavery, will, we trust, forever lead fhem to repudiate in their practice the detestable doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. The means they employ, except in relation to slavery under the au thority of Congn^ss, are wholly confined to arguments address ed to the conscience and understanding ; and intended only to excite the voluntary action of the masters. With them, and with them alone, rests the power of deciding on the course they will pursue. But let them ponder well the consequences to themselves and their posterity, of their momentous decision. By rejecting Abolition, they reject all the rich and varied blessings in morals, in security, in political power and wealth, which it offers to their acceptance. And what do they retain — ^the licentiousness, cruelty, and injustice ; the depression of enterprise, the wasting of strength, the fearful forebodings, the hourly jeopardy, fhe frowns of public opinion, and the re proaches of conscience, which are and must be the inseparable attendants on slavery. Before they refuse to retreat from the volcano on which they are standing, let them look info the ter rific crater which yawns beneath them. tONSEQUENCES OF CONTINVED SLAVERY. 903 If slavery is to be perpetual, it will be well to estimate, not only the number of slaves with which our Southern country is to be peopled, but also the ratio tliey are to bear to their mas ters. It must be recollected, that all those moral checks on po pulation which arise from religion, the refinements of civiUzed life, and the difficulty of sustaining a family are wanting to the slave. Hence there is always a tendency to a far more rapid multiplication in a slave than a free population. Certain cir' cumstances may mdeed check this tendency, but experience proves, that in this country, they exist to a very slight extent, if at all. Our slaves are increasing in a constantly accelerated ratio. In the ten years, from 1840 to 1850, judging from the result of the last census, the increase will be 1,049,275, a num ber greater than all the slaves just Uberated in the West Indies ! The next ten years, a still greater number will be added, and so on indefinitely. In the mean time, new and powerful checks will be operating to retard the progress of the white population. The evils attendant on slavery, will ofier strong inducements to the young and indigent fo forsake the land of their fathers, and to seek a safer home, and a wider field for enterprise. Virginia aflfbrds a striking illustration of this remark. The domestic slave trade annually relieves that State of more than six thou sand slaves, and yet, notwithstanding this drain, they continue to increase. In 1830, the colored population in the counties east of the Blue-ridge, exceeded the white by 81,078, whereas, forty years before, in the same counties, the whites had a majority of 25,098! The number of slaves must at length reach the point of profitable emplojrment, after which, each additional one becomes an incumbrance. Soon after this point is reached, the traffic in slaves must cease, and the owners will be unable to dispose of their superfluous hands. The consequence will be, the gradual im poverishment of the proprietors. As the slaves increase iii num ber, and diminish in value, their masters will gradually become less interested in their welfare, and more apprehensive of their physical strength. Fear is a cruel passion, and especially as it silences the remonstrances of conscience, by the plea of self^ preservation. As fhe danger becomes more pressing, the pre cautions of the master will become more and more rigorous : every slave being regarded and treated as an enemy, will, in fact, S04 public OPINION. become one ; and every increase of cruelty, 'will but heisten the final catastrophe. In the mean time, slavery will have ceased in every other part of the civilized world. In Brazil, it will probably receive its death-blow, in the first popular revolution. In the Danish Islands, it will expire in two years ; and in the French and Spanish colonies, it cannot long survive.* And when this loathsome leprosy shall alone cling to the republicans of our Southern and Western States, in what light will they, must they, be regarded by the rest of the human race ? This is an age, in which public opinion has snatched the. sceptre from.kings and senates, and reigns an imperious and absolute despot. She may, indeed, be influenced, but not resisted. She called for the abolition ofthe African slave trade, and the trafiickers in human flesh, for centuries encouraged a;nd protected by law,, became a proscribed race. She is now calling for the freedom ofthe slave, and his shackles are falling from him. Emancipation will soon become the common cause of Christendom, as the aboHtion of the slave trade was a few years since. In 1822, the House of Representatives requested the President to enter into negotiations with the several maritime powers, for the effectual suppression of the slave trade, and its ul timate denunciation as piracy; and negotiations were ac cordingly opened on this subject with Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Russia, France, Netherlands, Buenos Ayres, and Colombia. In 1821, Portugal persisting in fhe traffic, the British House of Commons called upon the king, to endeavor, by negotiation, to prevail on the powers of Europe to exclude from their ports the produce of the Portugese Colonies. Portugal yielded, and the trade has been renounced by every Chrisfian nation in Europe and America. And may not the same, or similar means, be adopted by other nations to put an end to American slavery ? It is by no meaps improbable, that before many years elapse, t ? The voluntary manumissions in the French Colonies from 1st Janua ry,. 1831, to 1st June, 1833, were 21,962. Since the late Abolition Act of Great Britain, an Anti-Slavery Spciety has been organized in Paris, with the Due de Broglie at its head. It is said to have " derived its existence in the very Dosom of the Chamber of Deputies. t A statement has recently been laid before the British Parliament, of the amount of such produce of American slave labor imported into Great Britain is enters into competiuon with the productions of the West-Indies. PUBLIC OPINION. 205 ws will be passed, and treaties made, for excluding fhe pro- icfs of slave labor from Europe. So long ago as 18t)6, Mr. Windham, in the House of Com- ons, " did not hesitate to say, that when fhe proper time arri- id, and the consent of other powers could be obtained for its lolltion, slavery ought not to be suffered to exist among the sfif utions of any civilized State." The emperor of Austria has issued a decree, declaring — Every man, by the right of nature, sanctioned by reason, ust be considered a free person. Every slave becomes free 3m the moment he touches the Austrian soU, or an Austrian ip." The Edinburgh Review insists, that "the existence of ivery in America, is an atrocious crime, witli whicli no eans can be kept." Mr. Buckingham, member of Parliament, lately asserted at public meeting : " The greater proportion of the people of England, demand It merely emancipation, but the immediate emancipation, of e slaves, in whatever quarter of ihe world they may be •Mid," Daniel O'Connel!, shortly before the abolition of slavery in e British dominions, declared in public : " The West- Indies will be obliged to grant emancipation, id then we will turn to America, and to every part of Europe, id require emancipation" A Soeiety has just been formed in England, entitled, " the ritish and Foreign Society for the universal abolition of negTO ivery and the slave trade." Our pride may revolt at the idea of foreign Interference, but will be the interference not of force, but of public opinion, ainst which our fleets and armies will be of no avail. We cannot compel other countries to buy our cotton and gar; or to admit our citizens from the South, when they ill Europe, to the usual courtesies of social intercourse. Vhenan American comes info society," said Daniel O'Con- II, in a numerous assembly, " he will be asked, ' Are you one the thieves, or are you an honest man ? If you are an honest ui, then you have given liberty fo your slaves ; if you are long the thieves, the sooner you take the outside of the use the better.' " 206 CONCLUSION. The very coarseness of this invective in the mouth of tho great Agitator, indicates the temper of the British population on this subject ; a temper which, fostered as if is by the progress of liberal principles, will, in time, become the temper of all Europe ; and, mdeed, of all the world. While the slave holders are suffering, without sympathy and without redress, from tho harassing influence of this temper, their slaves will be multi plying , with a fearful rapidity, and becoming each day more conscious of their own strength; and unless their fetters are loosened, they will inevitably be burst. Our Southern brethren are the masters of their own destiny , may a gracious God lead them fo know the things which belong .o their peace, before they be forever hidden from their eyes. THE END. 3 9002 00518 6649