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toil much or little, the fruits of their labor will be enjoyed by their masters, they are improvident and lazy. Then comes the whip upon their bodies to make them industrious, every stroke of which puts vengeance into their hearts, to be repaid, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and blow for blow, at the first favorable moment. Compensate them fairly for their labor, and every stone in the earth would be a magnet to attract them. They would have all the hopes, and desires, and feelings of men. And here it is proper to refer to a wild notion which is prevalent in this country. Many persons seem to be wonderfully perplexed and appalled, in view of immediate abolition. They talk as if the slaves, on being liberated, must be driven into the woods, or become drones or vagabonds in society. In the first place, this expulsion is physically impracticable; and, secondly, the planters are unable to dispense with their labor. The liberated slaves would be placed under wholesome regulations, and encouraged to act well; there would, of necessity, be few changes of masters, but every thing would go on as peaceably as in the case of the slaves in St. Domingo, who, for eight years after their liberation, continued to work with untiring industry, maintaining the utmost order, and were only roused to deeds of violence by the attempt of Napoleon to reduce them again to servitude. The labor of the blacks is invaluable-the south cannot flourish without them; and their expulsion would bring great and everlasting reproach upon the American name.

The immediate abolition of slavery will purify the churches at the south, which are now red with innocent blood, and filled with all unrighteousness.' It is impossible that religion should prosper, where the pastors and members of churches trade in the souls of men. 'How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.' Now, abolish slavery, and the gospel will have free course, run, and be glorified; salvation will flow in a current broad and deep; and for a short time only can it be reproachfully said that there exist two millions of slaves in a christian land.

In fine, immediate abolition would save the lives of the planters, enhance the value of their lands, promote their temporal

and eternal interests, and secure for them the benignant smiles of Heaven. It would destroy the market for slaves, and consequently, to a certain extent, destroy the foreign slave trade; for when the Africans cannot be sold, they will not be stolen.

Whatever ignorance or delusion may advance to the contrary, the guilt of slaveholding is national; the evil is national; and 'a common evil implies a common right to apply a remedy.' We, of New-England, deeply participate in the guilt of oppression, having early commenced enslaving the natives of Africa, and up to the last hour of the legality of the traffic, actively prosecuted the foreign slave trade. To the south we are now pledging our physical force, in case of insurrection, and giving our co-operation, without which they could not long retain their victims in servitude. To the slaves, therefore, we are bound to make reparation; and no pretext or device can release us from our obligations. Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.'

The Board of Managers would solemnly protest against the doctrine, that slavery concerns the south alone, and that the people of the free States have no right to demand its removal. They regard it as politically and morally false, calculated to paralyze the consciences and efforts of the people, and giving perpetuity to the system. It is true the people of New-England cannot legislate for the southern states; that the national compact was so framed as to guarantee the legal possession of slaves; and that physical interference would be a violation of christian principles. But, so long as slaves are held in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of the United States; so long as ours is a representative government, subject to the will of the people; so long as no efforts are made to modify or repeal the present compact, by those who have both the right and the power thus to do; so long as the interests of the non-slaveholding States are jeoparded by the twenty-five slave votes in Congress; so long as moral influence, widely and wisely disseminated, is productive of beneficial results; so long as public opinion is the lever of national reform; so long as the people of New-England are liable to be called upon to put down slave insurrections at the south; so long as there is neither the liberty of speech nor of the press, on the subject of oppression, in a

large portion of our country; so long as southern States deprive the colored citizens of New-England, who may visit them, of their liberty and the rights of citizenship guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States; so long as slavery mars the harmony, divides the policy, retards the prosperity, and fearfully threatens the existence of the nation; so long as the commands of Jesus remain binding upon all men, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,'' Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself'; so long as there remains any flesh in our hearts, any physical or moral affinity between nsa nd our enslaved brethren, any love to God or man in our souls; it never can be true that the people of New-England are not bound to use their moral and political power to overthrow slavery in the United States.

While the Anti-Slavery Society makes the emancipation of all the slaves in this country the primary object of its organization, it aims to achieve a noble work of beneficence, in regard to the free people of color. The condition of this unfortunate class, although perceptibly improving, is eminently deserving of compassion and alleviation. To effect the repeal of these laws, which, in the several States, press them down to the earth, and exclude them from a full exercise of their rights as freemen; to procure for them mechanical trades, and reputable pursuits, by which they may become highly useful to the country, and banish their general poverty; to encourage and assist them in all laudable efforts for their moral and intellectual improvement; to provide schools, from the lowest to the highest grade, for their education; and to exterminate those prejudices which now. reign with such tyrannous sway against them; these are purposes, for the accomplishment of which the New-England AntiSlavery Society is pledged to spare no efforts.

The Managers consider the removal of the free colored population of the United States to the coast of Africa--to a land of darkness and barbarism-for the purpose of giving them literary, scientific and moral advantages, as highly reproachful to the good name and fame of this great nation, preposterous in its object, and palpably unjust. This is a christian land; crowded with churches, schools and colleges; the abode of science and the arts; basking in the effulgence of the Sun of Righteous

ness; the asylum of the degraded and oppressed of other nations; renowned for its literary and civil institutions; possessing, far beyond any other. country, the means of elevating the benighted mind of man; and abundantly able to supply all the physical, intellectual and religious necessities of its population. Now to expatriate the free people of color to Africa, a continent more completely enveloped in gloom than any other, which is full of the habitations of cruelty,' and which is utterly destitute, in order to raise them in intelligence and dignity, is not only a burlesque upon moral enterprises, but the acme of folly. The reason, too, which is given by the Colonization Society for this expulsion, is monstrous; and as often as it is urged in any of its reports, or in its official organ, or by any of its itinerants, should fill the readers and hearers of the base libel with indignation. It is that the American people are so incorrigibly vile, so lost to all sense of shame, so far beyond repentance, so proscriptive in their feelings, so filled with all malice, prejudice, and hate, that, to the latest generation, they will not cease to treat their free colored countrymen in the most tyrannous and dastardly manner, unless they are separated by a breadth of four thousand miles. And in order to vindicate this ungodly spirit, the Managers of the American Colonization Society, in their last Annual Report, utter this blasphemy: 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 will not 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.'

In other words, when God shall please to make their complexion like ours, then we shall be able to cease from our hatred, contumely and oppression--and not till then.

With the doctrines, principles and designs of the American Colonization Society, the New-England Anti-Slavery Society holds no fellowship-viewing them as utterly subversive of sound morality and the law of brotherly love, and calculated to inflame

and strengthen those prejudices which have so long operated against the free colored population of the United States. Submitting the motives of those who support the scheme of African Colonization to the inspection of Him who alone searcheth the heart and trieth the reins,' and cheerfully exonerating the people of the free States, generally, from any design to persecute or enslave the people of color in this land, the Managers proceed to state, as comprehensibly as possible, some of the reasons. which lead abolitionists to oppose the American Colonization Society.

They denounce and oppose it

1. Because (as has already been shown) it denies the power of the gospel to overcome prejudice, and maintains that no moral or educational means can ever raise the colored population from their degradation to respectability and usefulness in this country. (1) By inculcating this disgraceful doctrine, it measurably paralyzes, in the breasts of those who embrace it, all efforts to improve the character and condition of this unfortunate class.

(1) Vide Fifteenth Annual Report."

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In every part of the United States, there is a broad and impassable 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.'[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 118, 119.]

"We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to selfrespect, 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 we, nor they, can ever have control [that is to say, they have colored their skins!!!] 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 lhey, AND THEY ONLY, are QUALIFIED for colonizing Africa' (!!!)-[Idem, vol. v. p. 276.]

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.'-[Idem, vi. pp. 17, 82.] 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?’—[Idem, vol. vii. p. 196.]

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