William Lloyd Garrison

SECTION IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY DENIES THE POSSIBILITY OF ELEVATING THE BLACKS IN THIS COUNTRY.

The detestation of feeling, the fire of moral indignation, and the agony of soul which I have felt kindling and swelling within me, in the progress of this review, under this section reach the acme of intensity. It is impossible for the mind to conceive, or the tongue to utter, or the pen to record, sentiments more derogatory to the character of a republican and Christian people than the following:

'Introduced as this class has been, in a way which cannot be justified, injurious in its influence to the community, degraded in character and miserable in condition, forever excluded, by public sentiment, by law and by a physical distinction, from the most powerful motives to exertion,' &c.**'In addition to all the causes which tend to pollute, to degrade and render them miserable, there are principles of repulsion between them and us, which can never be overcome.'**'Their bodies are free, their minds enslaved. They can neither bless their brethren in servitude, nor rise from their own obscurity, nor add to the purity of our morals, nor to our wealth, nor to our political strength.'**'Let us recollect that our fathers have placed them here; and that our prejudices, prejudices too deep to be eradicated while they remain among us, have produced the standard of their morals.'**'Nor will it be questioned that their establishment on the African coast ... will confer on them invaluable blessings which in this country they can never enjoy.'**'They must be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Do what they will, there is but this one prospect before them.'—[African Repository, vol. 1, pp. 34, 144, 162, 176, 226, 317.]

'Shut out from the privileges of citizens, separated from us by the insurmountable barrier of color, they can never amalgamate with us, but must remain for ever a distinct and inferior race, repugnant to our republican feelings, and dangerous to our republican institutions.'***'It is not that there are some, but that there are so many among us of a different physical, if not moral, constitution, who never can amalgamate with the great body of our population.'—[African Repository, vol. ii. pp. 188, 189, 338.]

'In consequence of his own inveterate habits, and the no less inveterate prejudices of the whites, it is a sadly demonstrated truth, that the negro cannot, in this country, become an enlightened and useful citizen. Driven to the lowest stratum of society, and enthralled there for melancholy ages, his mind becomes proportionably grovelling, and to gratify his animal desires is his most exalted aspiration.'**'The negro, while in this country, will be treated as an inferior being.'** 'Our slavery is such, as that no device of our philanthropy for elevating the wretched subjects of its debasement to the ordinary privileges of men, can descry one cheering glimpse of hope that our object can ever be accomplished. The very commencing act of freedom to the slave, is to place him in a condition still worse, if possible, both for his moral habits, his outward provision, and for the community that embosoms him, than even that, deplorable as it was, from which he has been removed. He is now a freeman; but his complexion, his features, every peculiarity of his person, pronounce to him another doom,—that every wish he may conceive, every effort he can make, shall be little better than vain. Even to every talent and virtuous impulse which he may feel working in his bosom, obstacles stand in impracticable array; not from a defect of essential title to success, but from a positive external law, unreasoning and irreversible.'**'The elevation of a degraded class of beings to the privileges of freemen, which, though free, they can never enjoy, and to the prospects of a happy immortality.'**'They again most solemnly repeat to the free colored people of Virginia their belief, that in Africa alone can they enjoy that complete emancipation from a degrading inequality, which in a greater or less degree pervades the United States, if not in the laws, in the whole frame and structure of society, and which in its effects on their moral and social state is scarcely less degrading than slavery itself.'—[African Repository, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26, 66, 68, 345.]

'But there is one large class among the inhabitants of this country—degraded and miserable—whom none of the efforts in which you are accustomed to engage, can materially benefit. Among the twelve millions who make up our census, two millions are Africans—separated from the possessors of the soil by birth, by the brand of indelible ignominy, by prejudices, mutual, deep, incurable, by an irreconcileable diversity of interests. They are aliens and outcasts;—they are, as a body, degraded beneath the influence of nearly all the motives which prompt other men to enterprise, and almost below the sphere of virtuous affections. Whatever may be attempted for the general improvement of society, their wants are untouched.—Whatever may be effected for elevating the mass of the nation in the scale of happiness or of intellectual and moral character, their degradation is the same—dark, and deep, and hopeless. Benevolence seems to overlook them, or struggles for their benefit in vain. Patriotism forgets them, or remembers them only with shame for what has been, and with dire forebodings, of what is yet to come.'**'It is taken for granted that in present circumstances, any effort to produce a general and thorough amelioration in the character and condition of the free people of color must be to a great extent fruitless. In every part of the United States there is a broad and impassible line of demarcation between every man who has one drop of African blood in his veins and every other class in the community. The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society—prejudices which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religion itself can subdue—mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable. The African in this country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society; and from that station he can never rise, BE HIS TALENTS, HIS ENTERPRISE, HIS VIRTUES WHAT THEY MAY.... They constitute a class by themselves—a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which, none can be depressed. And this is the difficulty, the invariable and insuperable difficulty in the way of every scheme for their benefit. Much can be done for them—much has been done; but still they are, and, in this country, ALWAYS MUST BE a depressed and abject race.'—[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, 119.]

'The distinctive complexion by which it is marked, necessarily debars it from all familiar intercourse with the more favored society that surrounds it, and of course denies to it all hope of either social or political elevation, by means of individual merit, however great, or individual exertions, however unremitted.'**'It is deemed unnecessary to repeat what has already been said, of the character of the population in question, of its hopeless degradation, and its baneful influence, in the situation in which it is now placed.'*** 'The colored population of this country can never rise to respectability and happiness here.'**'It was at an early period seen and acknowledged, that neither the objects of benevolence nor the interests of the nation could be materially benefitted by any plan or measures that permitted them to remain within the United States.'**'They leave a country in which though born and reared, they are strangers and aliens; where severe necessity places them in a class of degraded beings.'** 'With us they have been degraded by slavery, and STILL FURTHER DEGRADED by the mockery of nominal freedom. We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect, or to the respect of others. It is not our fault that we have failed; it is not theirs. It has resulted from a cause over which neither they, nor we, can ever have control. Here, therefore, they must be for ever debased: more than this, they must be for ever useless; more even than this, they must be FOR EVER A NUISANCE, from which it were a blessing for society to be rid. And yet they, and they only, are qualified for colonizing Africa.'***'Whether bond or free, their presence will be for ever a calamity. Why then, in the name of God, should we hesitate to encourage their departure? The existence of this race among us; a race that can neither share our blessings nor incorporate in our Society, is already felt to be a curse.'—[African Repository, vol. v. pp. 51, 53, 179, 234, 238, 276, 278.]

'Is our posterity doomed to endure for ever not only all the ills flowing from the state of slavery, but all which arise from incongruous elements of population, separated from each other by invincible prejudices, and by natural causes?'**'Here invincible prejudices exclude them from the enjoyment of the society of the whites, and deny them all the advantages of freemen. The bar, the pulpit, and our legislative halls are shut to them by the irresistible force of public sentiment. No talents however great, no piety however pure and devoted, no patriotism however ardent, can secure their admission. They constantly hear the accents, and behold the triumphs, of a liberty which here they can never enjoy.'**'It is against this increase of colored persons, who take but a nominal freedom here, and cannot rise from their degraded condition, that this Society attempts to provide.'**'They may be emancipated; but emancipation cannot elevate their condition or augment their capacity for self-preservation.—Want and suffering will gradually diminish their numbers, and they will disappear, as the inferior has always disappeared, before the superior race.' **'Our great and good men purposed it primarily as a system of relief for two millions of fellow men in our own county—a population dangerous to ourselves and necessarily degraded here.'**'The free blacks, by the moral necessity of their civil disabilities, are and must for ever be a nuisance—equally, and more to the owner of slaves, than to other members of the community.'—[African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 12, 17, 82, 168, 295, 368.]

'Incorporated into our country as freemen, yet separated from it by odious and degrading distinctions, they feel themselves condemned to a hopeless and debasing inferiority. They know that their very complexion will for ever exclude them from the rank, the privileges, the honors, of freemen. No matter how great their industry, or how abundant their wealth—no matter what their attainments in literature, science or the arts—no matter how correct their deportment or what respect their characters may inspire, they can never, NO, NEVER be raised to a footing of equality, not even to a familiar intercourse with the surrounding society.'**'To us it seems evident that the man of color may as soon change his complexion, as rise above all sense of past inferiority and debasement in a community, from the social intercourse of which, he must expect to be in a great measure excluded, not only until prejudice shall have no existence therein, but until the freedom of man in regulating his social relations is proved to be abridged by some law of morality or the gospel.... Is it not wise, then, for the free people of color and their friends to admit, what cannot reasonably be doubted, that the people of color must, in this country, remain for ages, probably for ever, a separate and inferior caste, weighed down by causes, powerful, universal, inevitable; which neither legislation nor christianity can remove?'

'Let the free black in this country toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and "unspotted from the world"—it is all nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because, in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent. Whether these feelings are founded in reason or not, we will not now inquire—perhaps they are not. But education and habit and prejudice have so firmly riveted them upon us, that they have become as strong as nature itself—and to expect their removal, or even their slightest modification, would be as idle and preposterous as to expect that we could reach forth our hands, and remove the mountains from their foundations into the vallies, which are beneath them.'—[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 100, 195, 196, 231.]

'And can we not find some spot on this large globe which will receive them kindly, and where they may escape those prejudices which, in this country, must ever keep them inferior and degraded members of society?'—[Third Annual Report.]

'A population which, even if it were not literally enslaved, must for ever remain in a state of degradation no better than bondage.'**'Here the thing is impossible; a slave cannot be really emancipated. You may call him free, you may enact a statute book of laws to make him free, but you cannot bleach him into the enjoyment of freedom.'**'The Soodra is not farther separated from the Brahmin in regard to all his privileges, civil, intellectual, and moral, than the negro is from the white man by the prejudices which result from the difference made between them by the God of nature. A barrier more difficult to be surmounted than the institution of the caste, cuts off, and while the present state of society continues must always cut off, the negro from all that is valuable in citizenship.'—[Seventh Annual Report.]

'Let the arm of our government be stretched out for the defence of our African colony, and this objection will no longer exist. There, and there alone, the colored man can enjoy the motives for honorable exertion.'—[Ninth Annual Report.]

'In the distinctive and indelible marks of their color, and the prejudices of the people, an insuperable obstacle has been placed to the execution of any plan for elevating their character, and placing them on a footing with their brethren of the same common family.'—[Tenth Annual Report.]

'Far from shuddering at the thought of leaving the comfortable fireside among us, for a distant and unknown shore yet covered by the wilderness, they have preferred real liberty there, to a mockery of freedom here, and have turned their eyes to Africa, as the only resting place and refuge of the colored man, in the deluge of oppression that surrounds him.'—[Eleventh Annual Report.]

'The race in question were known, as a class, to be destitute, depraved—the victims of all forms of social misery. The peculiarity of their fate was, that this was not their condition by accident or transiently, but inevitably and immutably, whilst they remained in their present place, by a law as infallible in its operation, as any of physical nature.'** 'Their residence amongst us is attended by evil consequences to society—causes beyond the control of the human will must prevent their ever rising to equality with the whites.'** 'The Managers consider it clear that causes exist, and are operating to prevent their improvement and elevation to any considerable extent as a class, in this country, which are fixed, not only beyond the control of the friends of humanity, BUT OF ANY HUMAN POWER. Christianity cannot do for them here, what it will do for them in Africa. This is not the fault of the colored man, nor of the white man, nor of Christianity; but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws of nature. Yet, were it otherwise, did no cause exist but prejudice, to prevent the elevation, in this country, of our free colored population, still, were this prejudice so strong (which is indeed the fact) as to forbid the hope of any great favorable change in their condition, what folly for them to reject blessings in another land, because it is prejudice which debars them from such blessings in this! But in truth no legislation, no humanity, no benevolence can make them insensible to their past condition, can unfetter their minds, can relieve them from the disadvantages resulting from inferior means and attainments, can abridge the right of freemen to regulate their social intercourse and relations, which will leave them for ever a separate and depressed class in the community; in fine, nothing can in any way do much here to raise them from their miseries to respectability, honor and usefulness.'—[Fifteenth Annual Report.]

'That no adequate means of attaining this great end existed, short of the segregation of the black population from the white—that an IMPASSIBLE BARRIER existed in the state of society in this country, between these classes—that whatever might be the liberal sentiments of some good men among us, the blacks were marked with an indelible note of inferiority—they saw placed high before them a station which here they could never reach, and by a natural reaction they fell back into a position where self-respect lent them no stimulus, and virtuous principles and actions lost more than half their motive—that in fact they were a branded and degraded caste—the Pariahs of the United States, and destined as long as they remained with us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water—that the increase of this population in a greater ratio than the whites, was calculated to excite just apprehension—that no one could say that when a few more millions should be added to their numbers, the example of Hayti might not rouse them to an effort to break their chains; and he would ask what man could contemplate, without shuddering, all the complicated atrocity and bloody revenge of such a revolt?'**'Those persons of color who have been emancipated, are only nominally free, and the whole race, so long as they remain among us, and whether they be slaves or free, must necessarily be kept in a condition full of wretchedness to them and full of danger to the whites.'—[Second Annual Report of New-York State Colonization Society.]

'My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me.' Are we pagans, are we savages, are we devils? Can pagans, or savages, or devils, exhibit a more implacable spirit, than is seen in the foregoing extracts? It is enough to cause the very stones to cry out, and the beasts of the field to rebuke us.

Of this I am sure: no man, who is truly willing to admit the people of color to an equality with himself, can see any insuperable difficulty in effecting their elevation. When, therefore, I hear an individual—especially a professor of Christianity—strenuously contending that there can be no fellowship with them, I cannot help suspecting the sincerity of his own republicanism or piety, or thinking that the beam is in his own eye. My bible assures me that the day is coming when even the 'wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the wolf and the young lion and the fatling together;' and, if this be possible, I see no cause why those of the same species—God's rational creatures—fellow countrymen, in truth, cannot dwell in harmony together.

How abominably hypocritical, how consummately despicable, how incorrigibly tyrannical must this whole nation appear in the eyes of the people of Europe!—professing to be the friends of the free blacks, actuated by the purest motives of benevolence toward them, desirous to make atonement for past wrongs, challenging the admiration of the world for their patriotism, philanthropy and piety—and yet (hear, O heaven! and be astonished, O earth!) shamelessly proclaiming, with a voice louder than thunder, and an aspect malignant as sin, that while their colored countrymen remain among them, they must be trampled beneath their feet, treated as inferior beings, deprived of all the invaluable privileges of freemen, separated by the brand of indelible ignominy, and debased to a level with the beasts that perish! Yea, that they may as soon change their complexion as rise from their degradation! that no device of philanthropy can benefit them here! that they constitute a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which, none can be depressed! that no talents however great, no piety however pure and devoted, no patriotism however ardent, no industry however great, no wealth however abundant, can raise them to a footing of equality with the whites! that 'let them toil from youth to old age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let them store their minds with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let them add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and unspotted from the world, it is all nothing—they would not be received into the very lowest walks of society—admiration of such uncommon beings would mingle with disgust!' Yea, that 'there is a broad and impassible line of demarcation between every man who has one drop of African blood in his veins and every other class in the community'! Yea, that 'the habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society—prejudices which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor RELIGION itself can subdue—mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable'! Yea, that 'Christianity cannot do for them here, what it will do for them in Africa'! Yea, that 'this is not the fault of the colored man, NOR OF THE WHITE MAN, nor of Christianity; but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the LAWS OF NATURE'!!!

Again I ask, are we pagans, are we savages, are we devils? Search the records of heathenism, and sentiments more hostile to the spirit of the gospel, or of a more black and blasphemous complexion than these, cannot be found. I believe that they are libels upon the character of my countrymen, which time will wipe off. I call upon the spirits of the just made perfect in heaven, upon all who have experienced the love of God in their souls here below, upon the christian converts in India and the islands of the sea, to sustain me in the assertion that there is power enough in the religion of Jesus Christ to melt down the most stubborn prejudices, to overthrow the highest walls of partition, to break the strongest caste, to improve and elevate the most degraded, to unite in fellowship the most hostile, and to equalize and bless all its recipients. Make me sure that there is not, and I will give it up, now and for ever. 'In Christ Jesus, all are one: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female.'

These sentiments were not uttered by infidels, nor by worthless wretches, but in many instances by professors of religion and ministers of the gospel! and in almost every instance by reputedly the most enlightened, patriotic and benevolent men in the land! Tell it not abroad! publish it not in the streets of Calcutta! Even the eminent President of Union College, (Rev. Dr. Nott,) could so far depart, unguardedly I hope, from christian love and integrity, as to utter this language in an address in behalf of the Colonization Society:—'With us they [the free people of color] have been degraded by slavery, and still further degraded by the mockery of nominal freedom.' Were this true, it would imply that we of the free States are more barbarous and neglectful than even the traffickers in souls and men-stealers at the south. We have not, it is certain, treated our colored brethren as the law of kindness and the ties of brotherhood demand; but have we outdone slaveholders in cruelty? Were it true, to forge new fetters for the limbs of these degraded beings would be an act of benevolence. But their condition is as much superior to that of the slaves, as happiness is to misery. The second portion of this work, containing their proceedings in a collective capacity, shows whether they have made any progress in intelligence, in virtue, in piety, and in happiness, since their liberation. Again he says: 'We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect, or to the respect of others.' It is painful to contradict so worthy an individual; but nothing is more certain than that this statement is altogether erroneous. We have derided, we have shunned, we have neglected them, in every possible manner. They have had to rise not only under the mountainous weight of their own ignorance and vice, but with the additional and constant pressure of our contempt and injustice. In despite of us, they have done well. Again: 'It is not our fault that we have failed; it is not theirs.' We are wholly and exclusively in fault. What have we done to raise them up from the earth? What have we not done to keep them down? Once more: 'It has resulted from a cause over which neither they, nor we, can ever have control.' In other words, they have been made with skins not colored like our own,' and therefore we cannot recognise them as fellow-countrymen, or treat them like rational beings! One sixth of our whole population must, FOR EVER, in this land, remain a wretched, ignorant and degraded race,—and yet nobody be culpable—none but the Creator who has made us incapable of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us! Horrible—horrible! If this be not an impeachment of Infinite Goodness,—I do not say intentionally but really,—I cannot define it. The same sentiment is reiterated by a writer in the Southern Religious Telegraph, who says—'The exclusion of the free black from the civil and literary privileges of our country, depends on another circumstance than that of character—a circumstance, which, as it was entirely beyond his control, so it is unchangeable, and will for ever operate. This circumstance is—he is a black man'!! And the Board of Managers of the Parent Society, in their Fifteenth Annual Report, declare that 'an ordination of Providence' prevents the general improvement of the people of color in this land! How are God and our country dishonored, and the requirements of the gospel contemned, by this ungodly plea! Having satisfied himself that the Creator is alone blameable for the past and present degradation of the free blacks, Dr. Nott draws the natural and unavoidable inference that 'here, therefore, they must be for ever debased, for ever useless, for ever a nuisance, for ever a calamity,' and then gravely declares (mark the climax!) 'and yet THEY, [these ignorant, helpless, miserable creatures!] AND THEY ONLY, are qualified for colonizing Africa'!! 'Why then,' he asks, 'in the name of God,'—(the abrupt appeal, in this connexion, seems almost profane,)—'should we hesitate to encourage their departure?'

Nature, we are positively assured, has raised up impassable barriers between the races. I understand by this expression, that the blacks are of a different species from ourselves, so that all attempts to generate offspring between us and them must prove as abortive, as between a man and a beast. It is a law of Nature that the lion shall not beget the lamb, or the leopard the bear. Now the planters at the south have clearly demonstrated, that an amalgamation with their slaves is not only possible, but a matter of course, and eminently productive. It neither ends in abortion nor produces monsters. In truth, it is often so difficult in the slave States to distinguish between the fruits of this intercourse and the children of white parents, that witnesses are summoned at court to solve the problem! Talk of the barriers of Nature, when the land swarms with living refutations of the statement! Happy indeed would it be for many a female slave, if such a barrier could exist during the period of her servitude to protect her from the lust of her master!

In France,[W] England,[X] Spain, and other countries, persons of color maintain as high a rank and are treated as honorably as any other class of the inhabitants, in despite of the 'impassable barriers of Nature.' Yet it is proclaimed to the world by the Colonization Society, that the American people can never be as republican in their feelings and practices as Frenchmen, Spaniards or Englishmen! Nay, that religion itself cannot subdue their malignant prejudices, or induce them to treat their dark-skinned brethren in accordance with their professions of republicanism! My countrymen! is it so? Are you willing thus to be held up as tyrants and hypocrites for ever? as less magnanimous and just than the populace of Europe? No—no! I cannot give you up as incorrigibly wicked, nor my country as sealed over to destruction. My confidence remains, like the oak—like the Alps—unshaken, storm-proof. I am not discouraged—I am not distrustful. I still place an unwavering reliance upon the omnipotence of truth. I still believe that the demands of justice will be satisfied; that the voice of bleeding humanity will melt the most obdurate hearts; and that the land will be redeemed and regenerated by an enlightened and energetic public opinion. As long as there remains among us a single copy of the Declaration of Independence, or of the New Testament, I will not despair of the social and political elevation of my sable countrymen. Already a rallying-cry is heard from the East and the West, from the North and the South; towns and cities and states are in commotion; volunteers are trooping to the field; the spirit of freedom and the fiend of oppression are in mortal conflict, and all neutrality is at an end. Already the line of division is drawn: on one side are the friends of truth and liberty, with their banner floating high in the air, on which are inscribed in letters of light, 'Immediate Abolition'—'No compromise with Oppressors'—'Equal Rights'—'No Expatriation'—'Duty, and not Consequences'—'Let Justice be done, though the heavens should fall!'—On the opposite side stand the supporters and apologists of slavery in mighty array, with a black flag on which are seen in bloody characters, 'African Colonization'—'Gradual Abolition'—'Rights of Property'—'Political Expediency'—'No Equality'—'No Repentance'—'Expulsion of the Blacks'—'Protection to Tyrants!'—Who can doubt the issue of this controversy, or which side has the approbation of the Lord of Hosts?

In the African Repository for September, 1831, there is an elaborate defence of the Colonization Society, in which occurs the following passage:—'It has been said that the Society is unfriendly to the improvement of the free people of color while they remain in the United States. The charge is not true.' I reiterate the charge; and the evidence of its correctness is before the reader. The Society prevents the education of this class in the most insidious and effectual manner, by constantly asserting that they must always be a degraded people in this country, and that the cultivation of their minds will avail them nothing. Who does not readily perceive that the prevalence of this opinion must at once paralyze every effort for their improvement? For it would be a waste of time and means, and unpardonable folly, for us to attempt the accomplishment of an impossible work—of that which we know will result in disappointment. Every discriminating and candid mind must see and acknowledge, that, to perpetuate their ignorance, it is only necessary to make the belief prevalent that they 'must be for ever debased, for ever useless, for ever an inferior race,' and their thraldom is sure.

I am aware that a school has been established for the education of colored youth, under the auspices of the Society; but it is sufficient to state that none but those who consent to emigrate to Liberia are embraced in its provisions.

In the Appendix to the Seventh Annual Report, p. 94, the position is assumed that 'it is a well established point, that the public safety forbids either the emancipation or general instruction of the slaves.' The recent enactment of laws in some of the slave States, prohibiting the instruction of free colored persons as well as slaves, has received something more than a tacit approval from the organ of the Society. A prominent advocate of the Society, (G. P. Disosway, Esq.,) in an oration on the fourth of July, 1831, alluding to these laws, says,—'The public safety of our brethren at the South requires them [the slaves] to be kept ignorant and uninstructed.' The Editor of the Southern Religious Telegraph, who is a clergyman and a warm friend of the colonization scheme, remarking upon the instruction of the colored population of Virginia, says:

Jesuitism was never more subtle—Papal domination never more exclusive. The gospel of peace and mercy preached by him who holds that ignorance is the mother of devotion! who would sequestrate the bible from the eyes of his fellow men! who contends that knowledge is the enemy of religion! who denies the efficacy of education in elevating a degraded population! who would make men brutes in order to make them better christians! who desires to make the clergy infallible guides to heaven! Now what folly and impiety is all this! Besides, is it not mockery to preach repentance, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to the benighted blacks, and at the same time deny them the right and ability to 'search the scriptures' for themselves?

The proposition which was made last year to erect a College for the education of colored youth in New-Haven, it is well known, created an extraordinary and most disgraceful tumult in that place, (the hot-bed of African colonization,) and was generally scouted by the friends of the Society in other places. The American Spectator at Washington, (next to the African Repository, the mouth-piece of the Society,) used the following language, in relation to the violent proceedings of the citizens of New-Haven: 'We not only approve the course, which they have pursued, but we admire the moral courage, which induced them, for the love of right, (!) to incur the censure of both sections of the country.'

As a farther illustration of the complacency with which colonizationists regard the laws prohibiting the instruction of the blacks, I extract the following paragraph from the 'Proceedings of the New-York State Colonization Society, on its second anniversary:'

Elias B. Caldwell, one of the founders, and the first Secretary of the Parent Society, in a speech delivered at its formation, advanced the following monstrous sentiments:

So, then, the American Colonization Society advocates, and to a great extent perpetuates the ignorance and degradation of the colored population of the United States!

In a critical examination of the pages of the African Repository, and of the reports and addresses of the Parent Society and its auxiliaries, I cannot find in a single instance any impeachment of the conduct and feelings of society toward the people of color, or any hint that the prejudice which is so prevalent against them is unmanly and sinful, or any evidence of contrition for past injustice, or any remonstrance or entreaty with a view to a change of public sentiment, or any symptoms of moral indignation at such unchristian and anti-republican treatment. On the contrary, I find the doctrine every where inculcated that this hatred and contempt, this abuse and proscription, are not only excusable, but the natural, inevitable and incurable effects of constitutional dissimilitude, growing out of an ordination of Providence, for which there is no remedy but a separation between the two races. If the free blacks, then, have been 'still further degraded by the mockery of nominal freedom,' if they 'must always be a separate and degraded race,' if 'degradation must and will press them to the earth,' if from their present station 'they can never rise, be their talents, their enterprise, their virtues what they may,' if 'in Africa alone, they can enjoy the motives for honorable ambition,' the American Colonization Society is responsible for their debasement and misery; for as it numbers among its supporters the most influential men in our country, and boasts of having the approbation of an overwhelming majority of the wise and good whose examples are laws, it is able, were it willing, to effect a radical change in public sentiment—nay, it is at the present time public sentiment itself. But though it has done much, and may do more, (all that it can it will do,) to depress, impoverish and dispirit the free people of color, and to strengthen and influence mutual antipathies, it is the purpose of God, I am fully persuaded, to humble the pride of the American people by rendering the expulsion of our colored countrymen utterly impracticable, and the necessity for their admission to equal rights imperative. As neither mountains of prejudice, nor the massy shackles of law and of public opinion, have been able to keep them down to a level with slaves, I confidently anticipate their exaltation among ourselves. Through the vista of time,—a short distance only,—I see them here, not in Africa, not bowed to the earth, or derided and persecuted as at present, not with a downcast air or an irresolute step, but standing erect as men destined heavenward, unembarrassed, untrammelled, with none to molest or make them afraid.