tages displayed itself. Thousands have put themselves under the protection of the colony; their youth are catching the spirit of education; surrounding nations are anxious for the advantages of their intercourse, and neighboring kings have been clamorous for the benefits of their friendship. The conquest of prejudices, the exhibition of the utilities of civil life, and the transformation of the character, are not indeed the work of so brief a day. Who does not know that the commencement presents the great contest; that every new gain will present new facilities for still greater successes? Of the hundreds your schools educate, each may become the teacher, in geometric ratio, of other hundreds, and you know not what enkindling spark, rising and spreading, like the conflagration of our own summer prairies, may diffuse its light, and shed a new lustre over that now benighted, yet noble-spirited population.

I hear you say, perhaps, Aye, but this is too romantic a picture for plain matter of fact men.' I am addressing a Christian assembly; in many who are most skeptical on this subject, I cordially recognize the Christian character. Of them I ask, Shall Ethiopia stretch forth her hands to God? Shall the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? And shall Africa be overspread with the light of Christianity and civilization? The picture then is touched, not with the hues of romance-but of inspiration. The coloring is not mine, but your Bible's;-and I am but a faint copyist. You grant then, that the hope is not visionary; the scheme is not impracticable. Our purpose is to realize this picture, and you concede that that purpose will be accomplished. And what auxiliary more effective could the missionary enterprise desire, than Liberia presents? Here may be the grand depot of resources; the great organization of plans. What fitter place for the herald of Christianity to rest his foot, and replume his wing for his flight into the dark interior?

But it is not in revelation alone that I read noble promises of renovation for Africa. He studies men and things carelessly and coldly, who does not discover consoling lessons of hope for the future. The series of past history, the progressive character of the human mind,—the successively-brightening dispensations of Providence tell me, that the world is a school whose bitterest lessons have been learned, and whose brightest are yet to come. Does any man believe that Africa shall not yet show a brighter page, or fear that perpetual darkness is to wrap her fair fields and fertile vales? No; the genius of the age, the spirit of Christian enterprise, the character, the command, and the promises of Heaven forbid it, and cheer us on in the prosecution of our great design.

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It has been the fortune of Liberia to live down objection, and to stand in herself their triumphant refutation. An eminent and revered character who has avowed a change of views, adverse to the Colonization Society, has stated that by the non-consent or unanimous opposition of the colored people of this country, the society is morally annihilated.' Now, laying aside the refutation of this assertion, which arises from the fact that want of emigrants has never been one of the embarrassments of the society, we may confidently look to the success of the colony, for the effecting an entire and opportune change of their views of the subject. So far is the opposition of the mass of the

colored population from being a moral annihilation of the colony, that it is altogether probable that it has been its preservation. Had it been universally popular, previous to the full success of the colony, and had there been a rush, in mass, of our colored population, fatal indeed might have been the result. But meanwhile they have entertained fearful visions of the inhospitable and pestilential character of the country; and the colored man has learned to prefer this land of civilization, with all its oppressions, to the unknown horrors of such a refuge. Liberia has appeared to him a monster beyond the ocean, whose voracity was ever insatiable, and whose cry was ever clamorous for victims like him. Nor have the views of his advisers been apparently much more correct. The simple offer of the Colonization Society to aid him, if he preferred to emigrate, has by a strange application of terms been styled banishment, forcible expatriation, and what not. Leaving this infelicitous mismanagement of words to its own fate, we are confident that the colored men of this country will, without any logic of ours, become completely disabused on this subject. The colony itself will console their fears, and render any forcible expulsion unnecessary. Liberia will yet proudly rise, be her own vindicator, and their asylum. Pour the energies of national philanthropy upon her; make her resplendent with success; and, rising like a beacon of hope and of refuge, the power of the attraction on her part over the negro will render perfectly unnecessary any repulsion upon ours.

But not less striking will be the effect of the colony upon those who may ultimately remain. An earnest, and no doubt philanthropic desire is expressed, by the professed friends of the colored population, for the elevation of their character among us. I fully coincide in that desire, and deeply reprobate any causes operating to prevent a just amelioration of their condition. At the same time, however, we may differ, materially, with regard to the means of effecting such a purpose. I would, at least, be cautious, how I inspired them with a sullen venom toward evils which at present were irremovable. I would hesitate to produce a transformation in their character, which should place them in a warfare of feeling against the whites, that may aggravate, but can never relieve their misery. This constitutes to them a bitter taste of the tree of knowledge; for while it does not really elevate their character, it draws down upon them more heavily that very depression which constitutes their misery. This is, in fact, precisely reversing the desired effect, for it is redoubling the great cause of their depression-the severe and contemptuous opinion of the whites toward them.

Let then some triumphant vindicator of their character stand forth upon the world's eye; prove the native nobleness of their minds, and dissolve the strange association that exists between a negro and a semibrute; and you demolish the evil in its strong hold, for you abolish the deep-laid prejudices of the whites. Such a vindicator the success of Liberia would present. For once, in the course of modern history, you will give the negro character fair play for developing itself, and one such tangible, living, towering demonstration will be worth ten thousand abstract arguments.

Nor less effective will be the operation toward the grand resultthe final staying of the curse-the ultimate abolition of slavery. VOL. VI.-April, 1835.

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Every Liberian ship, commissioned by African enterprise, would wave its banners within our ports, a more powerful preacher of emancipation than a whole flying cohort of itinerant lecturers. Laying aside the consideration, that the withdrawal of the dangerous influence of the free blacks would give the master a breathing spell from the horror of his fears, and permit the operation of better and kindlier feelings; laying aside the consideration, that by providing the emancipating slave master a safe method, and the slave a secure refuge, it would relieve the country from the dangers of pouring upon society a vagabond horde from the southern hot houses; aside, I say, from these important considerations, it must be, that every expanding institution upon the African coast, should cause the negro to swell beyond the measure of his chain.' He is own brother to a rising nation, and the master cannot be blind to the dignifying effect of the relationship. Upon that rising people the nations of the civilized world are collecting their philanthropy; and that generous sentiment must reflect in sympathy upon the slave, and indignation upon the still remaining masters. Under the united effect of these intense and concentrated and increasing influences, it cannot but be, that the iron fetter shall dissolve from around the slave, and he join the emancipated nations of the earth.

For many years, the main contest of the Colonization Society was with the friends of slavery, the timid jealousies of fearful supporters, and the intrinsic difficulties of the project itself. Of late, however, it has arisen from a new and unexpected quarter-the professed and ardent patrons themselves of the negro. In the year 1832, a new scheme announced itself for his relief, designing to erect itself upon the ruins of the colonization plan. In brief, the proposition of the emancipationist is, to induce the southerner to immediately free his slaves. The proposition of the colonizationist is, to offer to all who are freed, the opportunity and facilities of a spontaneous voluntary emigration, to the land from which the slave has been stolen. Now upon the first flush one is inclined to ask, What is there incompatible in these two plans? If the emancipationist have any means of peaceably inducing the southerner to manumit the slave, why not apply to it, and allow the colonizationist, in his own sphere, to complete the benefaction, by restoring every manumitted slave, who desires it, to the land of his ancestry? Will the emancipationist reiterate the stale objection, that colonization timidly leaves the relation of master and slave undisturbed, and so abandons the poor negro to the cruelty of his oppressor? Then let him apply himself, not to destroy the benefit of colonization, but to supply the field of benevolence which it leaves untouched. What should we say, were the Bible Society to denounce the missionary scheme, because it impiously supported the plan of evangelizing the world, by mere fallible men, and left the benighted heathen to perish for want of the volume of inspiration? In both cases, each society has, and should have, without impeding the other, its own sphere of operation.

But the very originator of the new scheme settled, in the outset, all question of compromise. His scheme came forth from his brain, like Pallas from Jupiter's, armed and equipped with warlike proclamation, and belligerent attitude. Under a better command, the broad sea of universal benevolence might have been wide enough for both;

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and their superadded auxiliary banners might, perhaps, have waved under better auspices, in hope and freedom to Africa: but their first launch was defiance, their first salute, a broadside. Mr. Garrison announced his opposition, in a style warm with fulminating energy, and rich with inventiveness of imagination. He pronounced the society a 'conspiracy against human rights;' he asserted that the superstructure of the society rests upon the following pillars-1. Persecution; 2. Falsehood; 3. Cowardice; 4. Infidelity.' If,' says he, I do not prove the Colonization Society to be a creature without brains, eyeless, unnatural, hypocritical, relentless, and unjust, let me be covered with confusion of face.' This pretty bouquet of epithets was culled, let it be remembered, for such men as Lafayette, President Madison, Judge Marshall, Bishops Mead and M'Kendree, Webster and Frelinghuysen, men of different sections, political parties, and religious denominations. Of this liberal spirit, Mr. Garrison has made no monopoly; he has imparted the same style of rhetoric to his whole school. The master chorister has given the key note, and the tune has been run through the whole octave of discordant strains.

The professed purposes of the Anti-Slavery Society, with regard to slavery itself, will be considered as twofold-The awakening a more active abhorrence of slavery in the north; and the inducing the southerners to bring about the immediate emancipation of their slaves.

To effect the former of these two purposes, all the topics of glowing declamation, of which slavery is so fertile, are put in requisition. Most conclusive proofs of the negro's right to his liberty, where nobody doubts it; most fervid denunciations of slavery, where no slavery exists; most magnanimous professions of a readiness for martydom, where there is no danger of it; and a most prudent avoidance of those regions where there might be such a danger, constitute a very rich field, for a very safe display of heroics and tragics. To such a paroxism of rhetoric, the cool New-Englander listens, and when it is spent, he feels, perhaps, inclined to reply, Why, sir, if it be merely your purpose to prove that slavery is horribly bad, or that two and two make four, from my very soul, I never doubted one of these facts more than the other.' He most justly feels that there is a great waste of logic and oratory expended in inculcating such feelings upon him. Not blazing out into angry effervescence, but deep in his heart, there is an abhorrence of slavery, whether pressing upon the caste of India, the serf of Russia, or the negro of Carolina, which renders this declamation quite a superfluity.

But these stirring movements are but preparatory to their other grand purpose of inspiring the southern mind with the purpose of manumitting their slaves. With regard to the practicability of immediate emancipation, I shall say nothing; for there exists a previous consideration, which, in my humble opinion, should, of itself, put an arresting veto upon the abolitionist's career. It is one thing to demonstrate that practicability to the New-Englander, and another thing to bring it home upon the southerner: and every procedure of the abolitionist has tended to close the southern ear against him. The very worst temper shuts the valve against the very best argument. To whisper a syllable of all the palliating circumstances that mitigate the slave holder's guilt, they denounce as an infamous apology for

slavery. They paint the master, born to his condition, in all the blackness of the original kidnapper; they make it a crime in the colonizationist, that he holds possession of the most liberal slave master's confidence: the late report of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society hurls forth the reproach, with marks of exclamation, that the legislatures of five slave-holding states had passed highly encomiastic resolutions upon the Colonization Society; and are these the men whom the south are likely to adopt as their guides and counsellors? On the contrary, the presence of their publications would be cursed, as a calamitous visitation of destruction. It destroys the confidence between master and slave, rendering the former fearfully suspicious, and the latter more terribly oppressed; it checks the rising sympathy, crushes the expanding liberality, and binds faster the iron fetter. By a strange fatuity, this society proclaims the fact, (as if utterly unconscious how much they were its causes,) that during the last two years five slave-holding states had passed laws of still more rigorous severity than had ever yet disgraced their statute books. Vainly do they tell us that these facts but prove and aggravate the southern infatuation. Our reply is,-Admit their guilt in all its damning blackness, your precepts but instigate them, in fact, to still deeper crime; and your protection plunges the slave in still darker misery. You would convince the south, while the south is one mass of adamant, against every syllable you send upon her, and every movement you make but confirms the solidity. Your main success is in defeating yourselves; your advance is-backward; and when the bonds of the slave shall be finally broken, it will be, not in consequence, but in spite of your sadly-mistaken efforts.

But you will rouse the slumbering spirit of the north, then. Alas! what will you then have gained toward persuading the slave holder of the south? All the north may most religiously hold to abolitionism, and all the south may most impiously denounce it. Old experience tells us that the eternal Potomac may be a most impassable boundary line of opinions. You have but to make New-England a whirlpool of abolitionism, to make the south the precise reverse. The very fact that we are in a blaze of commotion, burning for interference, will, by a revulsion of feeling, produce an opposite partizanship, and seal our fate, perhaps for centuries. The seers of European despotism have yearly pointed to our slaves, and prophesied for us approaching dissolution-and you are hastening its verification. The tottering despot has gazed upon our fearful example, with terror for his fate, and nightly sent up his prayers for our ruin-and you are becoming the minister of their fulfilment.

I am far from asserting that any of our fellow citizens are friends to a dissolution of our union; yet am I mistaken if there are not some, who would contemplate even that as an admissible means for effecting what they suppose the most righteous of purposes; who would consider any regard to its preservation as a wicked preference of expediency to right: misguided men, who would march to slave emancipation over the ruins of the demolished constitution! Without asking what right there can be in endangering the happiness and liberties of the whole for the benefit of one-sixth; are they so moonstruck as not to see that a revolution which ruined the union, would, in all proba