Already the line of friends of truth and

conflict, and all neutrality is at an end. division is drawn: on one side are the 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 im? For it would be a waste of time and means, provement 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 emis grate 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:

Teaching a servant to read, is not teaching him the religion of Christ. The great majority of the white people of our country are taught to read; but probably not one in five, of those who have the Bible, is a christian, in the legiti mate sense of the term. If black people are as depraved and as averse to true religion as the white people are--and we know of no difference between them in this respect-teaching them to read the Bible will make christians of very few of them. [What a plea !] If christian masters were to teach their servants to read, we apprehend that they would not feel the obligation as they ought to feel it, of giving them oral instruction, and often impressing divine truth on their minds. [!] . . If the free colored people were generally taught to read, it might be an inducement to them to remain in this country. WE WOULD OFFER THEM NO SUCH INDUCEMENT. [!!] A knowledge of letters and of all the arts and sciences, cannot counteract the influences under which the character of the negro must be formed in this country. It appears to us that a greater benefit may may be conferred on the free colored people, by planting good schools for them in Africa, and encouraging them to remove there, than by giving them the knowledge of letters to make them contented in their present condition.'-[Telegraph of Feb. 19, 1831.]

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 :'

It is the business of the free-their safety requires it--to keep the slaves in ignorance. Their education is utterly prohibited. Educate them, and they break their fetters. Suppose the slaves of the south to have the knowledge of freemen, they would be free, or be exterminated by the whites. This renders it necessary to prevent their instruction-to keep them from Sunday Schools, and other means of gaining knowledge. But a few days ago, a proposition was made in the legislature of Georgia, to allow them so much instruction as to enable them to read the bible; which was promptly rejected by a large majority. I do not mention this for the purpose of condemning the policy of the slaveholding States, but to lament its necessity.'

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:

'The more you improve the condition of these people, the more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them in their present state. You give them a higher relish for those privileges which they can never attain, and turn what you intend for a blessing into a curse. No, if they must remain in their present situation, keep them in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation. The nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give them of possessing their apathy.'

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

treatment.

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 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.

SECTION X.

THE AMERICAN

COLONIZATION

SOCIETY DECEIVES AND

MISLEADS THE NATION.

It is now about fifteen years since the American Colonization Society sprang into existence-a space of time amply sufficient to test its ability. In its behalf the pulpit and the press (two formidable engines) have been exerted to an extraordinary degree; statesmen, and orators, and judges, and lawyers, and philanthropists, have eloquently advocated its claims to public patronage. During this protracted period, and with such powerful auxiliaries, a careless observer might naturally suppose that much must have been accomplished towards abolishing slavery. But what is the fact? Less than one hundred and fifty souls have been removed annually to Africa-in all, about two thousand souls in fifteen years!!-a drop from the Atlantic ocean-a grain of earth from the American continent! In the mean time, the increase of the slaves has amounted to upwards of half a million! and every week more than one thousand newborn victims are added to their number. Before a vessel, with one hundred and fifty passengers, can go to and return from Africa, more than ten thousand slave infants will have been added to our population: while she is preparing to depart, or waiting for a fair wind, the increase will freight her many times.

The following eloquent and comprehensive Circular (published last year in London by Capt. Charles Stuart, in consequence of the visit of Elliott Cresson, an agent who was sent out to dupe the philanthropists of England) exhibits the inefficiency and criminality of the Society in a striking light :

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

formed in the United States, in 1817.

LIBERIA. This Society was

Its Thirteenth Annual Report has just reached this country.

Its object, as expressed by itself, (see the Thirteenth Report, page 41, app. 9, art. 2,) Is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing the free people of color, residing in the United States' in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient.'

The facts of the case are these:

1.

That the United States have about 2,000,000 enslaved blacks.

2. That they have about 500,000 free blacks.

3. That both these classes are rapidly increasing.

4. That both are exceedingly depressed and degraded.